Dear Abby: Writer Needs Way to Drown Out Noise So She Can Think

[cereta]

DEAR ABBY: My husband refuses to wear headphones. This means that when we sit in the living room together, I must put up with the blaring noise of whatever he is watching.

I do a lot of writing, and in order to think, I need silence. I have tried earplugs, but they don't muffle enough of the noise. Now, when I have had enough, I leave the room. This results in us being in two separate places, which he hates. Is there another solution I may be overlooking? -- LOUD IN MAINE

DEAR LOUD: You might try noise-canceling headphones. However, if that doesn't work, because you need to "hear" in your head the sentences you are trying to write, you may have to do your writing when your husband is not at home.

Comments

[cereta]

This is a real, "wtf, Abby?" to me. If she can't fix the problem on her end, she may have to give up her activity, which is just as important as his tv watching, during the hours that he is home? Oh, hell, no. Husband needs to learn the word, "compromise." This may involve him watching on a laptop and using headphones, or the two of them splitting the time between, "together watching something mutually agreeable" and "apart both doing our thing," or some technological solution that allows him to use headphones with the tv.

(Icon used, btw, because NCIS came to represent this problem between spouse and me. He complained about me being on the computer while we were together in the evening, but insisted on watching shows that I either no longer had any interest in or had grown to actively dislike. He eventually saw the light when the small fanperson started watching things he hated. I, of course, in turn had the same problem with her. No, I am not giving my full and undivided attention to Henry Danger.)

[vass]

This results in us being in two separate places, which he hates.

This seems to me to be the key sentence.

LW's problem: she writes a lot, she needs silence to write, and her husband insists on watching TV in the living room without headphones. Compromises she's tried: 1. Tried earphones, this didn't work. 2. She spends some time in the living room with him, then leaves when she has enough. 3. Writing to Abby to try to find another solution, as her husband still wants her in the room all the time he's there.

LW's husband's problem: he wants to be in the same room as his wife while doing two different activities, but she insists that she can't write with TV noise in the background. Now she keeps leaving the room when the noise gets to be too much for her. Compromises he's tried... um, uh...?

To misquote a saying, LW doesn't have a problem, she has a solution her husband doesn't like.