One of my partner's worst social fears is that she talks a lot and monopolizes conversations with others. I try to make her feel better about it and not worry, but she's right and she does it often.

My (27M) partner (27F) have been together for 7 years. Every since I really got to know her, I've known a fear of hers was finding similarities with her mother and grandmother, who both tend to steamroll others in conversations and not pay attention to other people in social situations. While she's not as bad, in the last several years, possibly with the uptick of her ADHD symptoms, she's begun to do this a lot more.

With me, it's not so bad: she'll ask me how my day was and after I've said a few sentences, we're 20 minutes in to an extremely detailed, technical story about something that happened at her work involving 5 different people who I don't know. It's often endearing and I don't mind listening, it's never an issue when something important comes up.

In bigger social situations, however, it becomes an issue for her. She'll get into the same, very long technical work story with no punchline with a friend of a friend she just met. I'll see her talking very animatedly with someone we barely know across the room for 10 minutes while they smile and nod and nod and nod and then break away.

Again, this is never in a harmful way. The issue is just that, for example, half the time on the car ride home from such an engagement, she'll be very "oh god, I talked too much, X must think I'm so fucking obnoxious, why can't I just keep my mouth shut". Often the next thing we attend, I'll find her sitting silently, trying to avoid doing the same thing again.

How can I support/helpfully redirect my partner who unconsciously finds herself going on and on and on? Anyone else with ADHD specifically have a way they manage this? What's funny is I have some form of it too, but tend to internalize a lot more in social situations- we do the opposite.

TLDR: My partner thinks that she talks too much and that she can't control herself from steamrolling conversations, and she isn't wrong, but I want to be able to support or redirect her in these situations better, instead of just gently consoling her and telling her she's fine.

Submitted May 23, 2022 at 08:49PM by hotchip420 https://ift.tt/SBcPQMs