Me F 26 and my husband M 39 have been together for two years. He has this habit of interrupting me when I speak and just jump in with his own thoughts. Therefore I often have to restart to finish my thoughts.
The start of this was when we were at a restaurant. I was talking about what was going on at school that frustrates me. Then he interrupted me as I was talking, started drawing his thoughts on a receipt and completely ignoring what I was saying. After he was done, I asked him if he remembered anything I said before his interruption. He said no. I wasted three minutes of breath because of his interruption, and I had already called out his interruption 3 times earlier that day and stated how it’s rude and disrespectful.
He was defensive right away. He said I did the same thing before too, and he only forgot because my upset shocked him, and when he's in shock he can't remember a lot of things. But the truth is, I only got upset AFTER finding out he didn’t listen. How can he predict he will be shocked and forget.
So I made an analogy. I used an example from a trip I had with friends. We're sitting down to talk about the plan for the day — where to go, who's driving, what's closing early, what does the group want to do. Then one person jumps in and says "everyone look at my dog, how cute he is." One girl called him out and asked him to please wait since we are all talking about logistics right now. I used this example to show how interruption is rude.
My husband said it's not applicable because he thinks his interruption was not changing the topic. So I revised the analogy. I said okay, imagine we are at the same scene making plans, and the same person suddenly interrupts everyone and only talks about where they want to go, while ignoring what the group has already discussed — that we can't go there today because of closing time. That sounds like rude behavior, right?
But my husband still called it a stupid analogy, called me retarded, said he doesn't see the point, etc. I got mad but I remained civil. I didn't scream, but I raised my voice. He called me out of control.
About two days later I tried to talk to him again about how disrespectful it is to call me stupid and retarded about my analogies. He said "I never said you are stupid." When I pointed out when and where he said it exactly, he doubled down and said "well your analogies were stupid. It's a waste of time. It’s never applicable, you don’t know how to make a good analogy.”
When I told him it's wrong and he needs to apologize for that behavior, he refused.
So I made another "bad" analogy. I said imagine if a man hits a woman, and instead of apologizing and owning up to the mistake, the man says "I'm allowed to do this because she disrespected me first, annoyed me first. If she wasn't doing that then I wouldn't need to hit her."
I made it clear I was not saying his behavior 100% equals hitting. I explained that analogies are about the takeaway — the moral of the story. In this case, the moral is: don't blame the victim of whoever you offend or hurt. Whatever someone does does not deserve to be berated or insulted.
I then brought up a common analogy people use with “intent and impact” like you hit someone with your car, you didn’t do that intentionally, but the impact is real, therefore you own up to it. The truth is what people do often aren’t equal to hitting someone, but the moral take away is to acknowledge the impact of your actions, not focusing on intent right?
He kept getting more disrespectful, kept doubling down on calling my analogies stupid, and kept belittling me. I had to explain again that an analogy doesn't mean A and B are the exact same thing. The moral of the story is the main point. Sometimes you need a more extreme example to wake someone up so they can look at it from an outside perspective.
He still didn't think he was wrong. He kept telling me I'm stupid. So I blew up. I screamed and cried.
Then he berated me even more. He said "you act like you don't have a brain, you are acting like a dog" and repeated that about ten times. He keeps making the excuse that if someone is stupid, he's allowed to call it what it is. He thinks I'm only upset because I'm too woke, because I'm buying into political correctness.
What I'm asking is: isn't this just common decency? To not provoke someone? To avoid offending someone after they have repeatedly told you what not to say to them?
I need someone who is not "bought into this political correctness" to validate that this is not about political correctness. This is just a lack of human decency regardless of political affiliation.
Does what did “demanding respect, acknowledgement, apology” deserve what he said? Does my “yelling and exploding” deserve that kind of treatment from him?
Before anyone asks: yes, I'm in therapy. Yes, I brought up couples therapy but he refuses. Yes, anyone should leave this kind of person. Yes, I know I can manage my emotions better by not exploding. No, I'm not asking whether I should leave him. I've already lost respect for him.
TL;DR: Husband interrupted me four times in one day, admitted he didn't listen, called my analogies stupid and me retarded, compared me to a dog, refused to apologize, and says I'm "too woke" for being upset.