What should you do if your husband's new lingo is testing your patience? Photo / Getty Images
What should you do if your husband's new lingo is testing your patience? Photo / Getty Images
We remain a strong couple but his embrace of snowflake vocabulary is making life insufferable at home.
As a 52-year-old woman, I am running low on oestrogen, and this is making me extremely intolerant. I was never a particularly tolerant person, but after a couple of deep breaths, a cupof tea, or a stiff drink, I used to be able to let most annoying things go and get on with my day. I’m not going to bang on about menopause, because menopause moaning annoys the business out of me – I simply recognise that my hormones are making me more of a b****. But over the past few years, my husband’s use of language has been driving me absolutely mad, and it’s not something a bit of gel on my thighs can fix.
Before anyone says, “Oh, another middle-aged woman moaning about her husband,” hear me out. I have been married for 25 years: I met my husband at university and despite the usual difficulties – losing family members, cancer scares, financial worries, some mild adultery – we have overcome obstacles together and remain a strong couple.
One of my husband’s strengths has always been his confidence and ability to communicate. This occasionally strayed into vanity, but on balance, his positivity and desire to impress made him warm and likeable. Since turning 45, his desperation to fit in with younger people has become highly irritating.
He used to say the occasional thing which could make me swear under my breath – he would shout, “What’s up, party people!” as he entered a room, then, “I’m Audi 500!” as he left. I never pulled him up on these phrases as I felt they were age-appropriate for a Gen X man raised on VHS rental films and gangsta rap. What he has graduated to is far worse than embarrassing-uncle sayings, or squirm-inducing business speak (he also likes to “circle back” and “reach out”). He has embraced whiny millennial snowflake vocabulary, along with some of their appalling vocal tics.
I know it’s old hat to pick on millennials, but I am just going to come out and say it: I don’t like them. I dislike their emotional jargon and their ability to take offence at practically anything. I hate how they police each other’s language and play emotional Top Trumps with their “issues”. I would like to take the entire generation out to sea and drown them, but I am not allowed to do that, so as far as possible, I try not to speak to anyone over 30 and under 45.
Home used to be a haven; now, it is a hellscape. My husband begins every sentence with an overlong “so” followed by a dramatic pause. He has started calling me and the children “guys”, which I find unconscionably rude and sexist. Instead of asking for things politely – “please may I have” – he demands, “Can I getta...” It’s insufferable.
He used to be Teflon-tough and did not care what anyone thought of him; now, he peppers his language with therapy-speak despite never having had any counselling in his life. He talks about his “boundaries”, and when I pull him up on it and suggest that he grow a pair, he accuses me of “mocking” him. The other day, he said something was “triggering”, and it made me want to punch a wall. I accept that men can also have wobbly hormones as they age, so perhaps this sudden sensitivity is because his testosterone is low. But that doesn’t excuse saying, “Wow, there’s a lot to unpack here.”
