Movie blow up - WWYD?

[Anonymous]

So up to this point (the last 18+ yrs) your DH has never watched a movie as a family and didn't realize the kids have trouble hearing/following characters???

I guess I'm not understanding how this is new to him? Why is this upsetting as he should expect/know how it goes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So up to this point (the last 18+ yrs) your DH has never watched a movie as a family and didn't realize the kids have trouble hearing/following characters???

I guess I'm not understanding how this is new to him? Why is this upsetting as he should expect/know how it goes?

Maybe they only watched blockbusters together before

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

My DH is very smart - off the charts IQ. Oldest is twice exceptional, very high IQ, even higher SATs than dad but slow processing. Younger is very bright, honors/AP student but a chatterbox. This is less about IQ and more about control.

DH is one to say "everything would be better if people would just listen to me!" And "I'm right, and if other people did it my way, they'd see that." He can be very rigid and is not one to want to compromise.

He does not connect well with the kids - he can be very judgy. Told older child this morning, who is on antidepressants, that drugs are a crutch and that she needs to learn to do without them. He eschews therapy. And yet he is very depressed, feels he does not connect with people - anywhere. He often complains that he is easily bored and finds socializing a chore - even with his own extended family. He complains about lack of connection but has very high expectations and is constantly disappointed with others - and himself. 😞

Yeah this is NOT about the movie y'all tried to watch this weekend.

Your husband sounds cold, judgmental, and humorless. It sounds like he never really learned how to participate in typical social things. Has he always been like this with the kids? What is he like with you? Has he always been like this?

[Anonymous]

Team DH. My DS and DH do exactly this - insist on subtitles and talk through/pause the movie. It is annoying as sh*t!! I’m sorry but barring a hearing problem, you need to just watch the movie as intended. The DH may have other issues and perhaps could have reacted better, but y’all were acting extremely vexatiously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You and the kids are super high maintenance. Just watch the movie - like you are in a theatre.. No barking stupid questions. Just watch the movie.

]\

Looks like this PP didn't really bother to read OP's full post, or is just so oblivious he or she can't comprehend that the movie and how it gets watched was not at all what was going on here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

My DH is very smart - off the charts IQ. Oldest is twice exceptional, very high IQ, even higher SATs than dad but slow processing. Younger is very bright, honors/AP student but a chatterbox. This is less about IQ and more about control.

DH is one to say "everything would be better if people would just listen to me!" And "I'm right, and if other people did it my way, they'd see that." He can be very rigid and is not one to want to compromise.

He does not connect well with the kids - he can be very judgy. Told older child this morning, who is on antidepressants, that drugs are a crutch and that she needs to learn to do without them. He eschews therapy. And yet he is very depressed, feels he does not connect with people - anywhere. He often complains that he is easily bored and finds socializing a chore - even with his own extended family. He complains about lack of connection but has very high expectations and is constantly disappointed with others - and himself. 😞

Yeah this is NOT about the movie y'all tried to watch this weekend.

Your husband sounds cold, judgmental, and humorless. It sounds like he never really learned how to participate in typical social things. Has he always been like this with the kids? What is he like with you? Has he always been like this?

It is NOT typical to insist on subtitles (with normal hearing) or to disrupt the movie by pausing or talking over it. In fact that is very rude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You and the kids are super high maintenance. Just watch the movie - like you are in a theatre.. No barking stupid questions. Just watch the movie.

]\

Looks like this PP didn't really bother to read OP's full post, or is just so oblivious he or she can't comprehend that the movie and how it gets watched was not at all what was going on here.

Um, yes it was. Maybe there are other issues, but the proximate cause was OP and kids having terrible movie manners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Team DH. My DS and DH do exactly this - insist on subtitles and talk through/pause the movie. It is annoying as sh*t!! I’m sorry but barring a hearing problem, you need to just watch the movie as intended. The DH may have other issues and perhaps could have reacted better, but y’all were acting extremely vexatiously.

The DH had already seen the movie. He wanted it watched only on his terms. OP is crystal clear that one child usually wants, in fact needs, closed captioning turned on (and one does NOT have to have a "hearing problem" to need it on, despite what you think, PP). The repeated questions and stopping and starting would have irked me as well, but the DH's reaction was childish, going off in a huff, like a kid taking his toys and stalking away to play alone. He handled it immaturely and put FAR too much weight on the movie night going exactly as he had expected.

OP, he needs to accept he requires some help. You know this isn't the only example you could give. I'd use this as a way to say, our family life can't go on with you departing for the basement and insisting you'll just do everything alone, whenever our young adult children don't react exactly as you would prefer. Time for professional help for your depression and lack of flexibiility, and you will need to participate fully .in getting that help, including possibly meds. (Since you say that he's depressed but doesn't want treatment.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

My DH is very smart - off the charts IQ. Oldest is twice exceptional, very high IQ, even higher SATs than dad but slow processing. Younger is very bright, honors/AP student but a chatterbox. This is less about IQ and more about control.

DH is one to say "everything would be better if people would just listen to me!" And "I'm right, and if other people did it my way, they'd see that." He can be very rigid and is not one to want to compromise.

He does not connect well with the kids - he can be very judgy. Told older child this morning, who is on antidepressants, that drugs are a crutch and that she needs to learn to do without them. He eschews therapy. And yet he is very depressed, feels he does not connect with people - anywhere. He often complains that he is easily bored and finds socializing a chore - even with his own extended family. He complains about lack of connection but has very high expectations and is constantly disappointed with others - and himself. 😞

Yeah this is NOT about the movie y'all tried to watch this weekend.

Your husband sounds cold, judgmental, and humorless. It sounds like he never really learned how to participate in typical social things. Has he always been like this with the kids? What is he like with you? Has he always been like this?

It is NOT typical to insist on subtitles (with normal hearing) or to disrupt the movie by pausing or talking over it. In fact that is very rude.

The DH disrupted the movie himself. Subtitles on or off is a preference. Why is DH's preference to have none more important than the child's preference to have them on? It's also fairly atypical when watching a movie to insist on total silence and attention. They were watching a movie, not disarming a bomb.

My point was that the situation this weekend with the movie is pretty irrelevant. Something similar almost certainly happened the weekend before and the weekend before that. OP could probably describe any number of incidents that resulted in her husband behaving this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

My DH is very smart - off the charts IQ. Oldest is twice exceptional, very high IQ, even higher SATs than dad but slow processing. Younger is very bright, honors/AP student but a chatterbox. This is less about IQ and more about control.

DH is one to say "everything would be better if people would just listen to me!" And "I'm right, and if other people did it my way, they'd see that." He can be very rigid and is not one to want to compromise.

He does not connect well with the kids - he can be very judgy. Told older child this morning, who is on antidepressants, that drugs are a crutch and that she needs to learn to do without them. He eschews therapy. And yet he is very depressed, feels he does not connect with people - anywhere. He often complains that he is easily bored and finds socializing a chore - even with his own extended family. He complains about lack of connection but has very high expectations and is constantly disappointed with others - and himself. 😞

Yeah this is NOT about the movie y'all tried to watch this weekend.

Your husband sounds cold, judgmental, and humorless. It sounds like he never really learned how to participate in typical social things. Has he always been like this with the kids? What is he like with you? Has he always been like this?

It is NOT typical to insist on subtitles (with normal hearing) or to disrupt the movie by pausing or talking over it. In fact that is very rude.

I loathe having subtitles on unless I want them for some reason (like I have to keep the volume very low), but everyone here is ignoring the fact OP says one of their kids has a processing issue where reading dialogue is necessary to fully getting what's going on. I wish people would stop focusing on these kinds of details like subtitles and actually see that the issue is not the movie, the subtitles or the stopping or the questions (any of which can be very irritating). The real, larger issue is buried in the post. OP's DH has depression and doesn't want to deal with his depression. Of course he's set off by things that otherwise would be a pain. And he turned it into a big, immature hissy fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Team DH. My DS and DH do exactly this - insist on subtitles and talk through/pause the movie. It is annoying as sh*t!! I’m sorry but barring a hearing problem, you need to just watch the movie as intended. The DH may have other issues and perhaps could have reacted better, but y’all were acting extremely vexatiously.

The DH had already seen the movie. He wanted it watched only on his terms. OP is crystal clear that one child usually wants, in fact needs, closed captioning turned on (and one does NOT have to have a "hearing problem" to need it on, despite what you think, PP). The repeated questions and stopping and starting would have irked me as well, but the DH's reaction was childish, going off in a huff, like a kid taking his toys and stalking away to play alone. He handled it immaturely and put FAR too much weight on the movie night going exactly as he had expected.

OP, he needs to accept he requires some help. You know this isn't the only example you could give. I'd use this as a way to say, our family life can't go on with you departing for the basement and insisting you'll just do everything alone, whenever our young adult children don't react exactly as you would prefer. Time for professional help for your depression and lack of flexibiility, and you will need to participate fully .in getting that help, including possibly meds. (Since you say that he's depressed but doesn't want treatment.)

to watch a movie the way the rest of the world does it (no captions, no pausing) is not “his terms”. It’s a normal expectation. If you want to watch a movie in an irritating way, you need to negotiate that ahead of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

My DH is very smart - off the charts IQ. Oldest is twice exceptional, very high IQ, even higher SATs than dad but slow processing. Younger is very bright, honors/AP student but a chatterbox. This is less about IQ and more about control.

DH is one to say "everything would be better if people would just listen to me!" And "I'm right, and if other people did it my way, they'd see that." He can be very rigid and is not one to want to compromise.

He does not connect well with the kids - he can be very judgy. Told older child this morning, who is on antidepressants, that drugs are a crutch and that she needs to learn to do without them. He eschews therapy. And yet he is very depressed, feels he does not connect with people - anywhere. He often complains that he is easily bored and finds socializing a chore - even with his own extended family. He complains about lack of connection but has very high expectations and is constantly disappointed with others - and himself. 😞

WTAF?

Look, my husband can be a real dick and he has anger issues that are serious enough that I have considered divorce. He's said some mean stuff, but I can't in a million years imagine him EVER saying this to one of our kids. What is wrong with your husband?

I don't know what to suggest - therapy would be a first. And perhaps count your blessings that your young adult children still come home and spend time as a family. I don't know how long I would put up with my father being that awful to me when I had a choice not to be around.

[Anonymous]

Also Team DH. If someone in the room kept pausing the movie for anything other than a bathroom emergency, they'd get the remote smacked out of their hand. It does appear nobody else in the room was at all interested in watching the movie that this DH really likes which explains the extreme disappointment. It was obvious that no fun was going to happen from screening this movie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So up to this point (the last 18+ yrs) your DH has never watched a movie as a family and didn't realize the kids have trouble hearing/following characters???

I guess I'm not understanding how this is new to him? Why is this upsetting as he should expect/know how it goes?

Maybe they only watched blockbusters together before

Op - what's it like when you guys watch other shows or movies together?

Are your kids SN? Not sure i understand why an 18 yr old can't follow character development or use context to understand relationships .

[Anonymous]

Subtitles for regular English language movies are annoying.
Pausing the movie every couple minutes is annoying. We watched the movie with my 11 year old who is bright but certainly not genius level and he could follow it just fine. Your kid who keeps interrupting sounds high maintenance.
Your DH could learn to be more gracious and flexible but you may be over-indulging the kids.