Adults who constantly interrupt/talk over you

I stop talking and find an exit out.

If I’m talking in a meeting and people start looking at their phones or reading other stuff or talking to someone else, I just stop.

Sure. But she's 42. She is capable of managing her behavior. 

Signed, 
48 year old ADHD person who does sometimes talk over others, but works hard to manage myself and doesn't allow it to be a chronic problem (and apologizes when I do it)

I would ask what you are doing in a room with my southern family. All the folks on my mom's side of the family including my mom, does that. Luckily, I have learned nothing I say will stop it and my mom acts all upset. And uses the excuse of age and will forget it if she doesn't say it. sigh... Or you are my DH.

He has done it for years. I have finally gotten to the point of stopping what I am saying and sitting. He has picked up on realizing this a bit quicker, apologizes and tells me to go on. Most of the time I do. There have been times I had had enough and just said "no, it wasn't important."

I don't have the answers on how to handle it. I know my ways don't work.

That's a good point. I was thinking more of a one on one. I can see why you'd want to continue talking to others.

This is a really good point too.

My sister and mother do this. But it's also with a sense of one ups-manship. Whatever story I started to tell, they interrupt and start raising their voice on how they have a "worse" or "more" story along the same vein. And they get louder and louder. I've basically stopped telling them anything and stopped talking when we're in group settings. They're not going to change and no one is listening to me so why bother. My DH can't stand it and usually has to go into some other room to get away from the yelling conversation.

This is just a shit move. It wasn't at all what I was thinking of when I read the post. But I see how this might happen and how frustrating it must be.

I’ve been the person who interrupts sometimes. I had a couple co-workers call me out on it and I really tried to do better. I would hold myself back or stop when I started to interrupt.

I did some thinking about why I did it, and most specifically to those two people rather than others.

I realized that I was often thinking of a question or a comment in reply to something they said, and sometimes it was simply impulse to get that question/comment out.

Although, part of the problem most specific to those two teachers was that they were very often very slow and deliberate and took a long time to say what they wanted, to the point where I would sometimes think they were done talking, only for them to keep going after they took another breath. I found myself wanting to tell them to just spit it out, hurry up and say what they needed to. I had to learn to slow down my response, and wait on my questions.

For me, it wasn’t that I wasn’t listening, but more that I had questions or had something I wanted to add to the conversation that I thought was relevant. And sometimes, being a teacher with a short lunch break, I wanted to not waste time listening to the long drawn out version. 🙃

And on the other hand, I’ve been the one who gets talked over a lot. It feels very much like you are invisible or your input isn’t valued. It is sucky to be on either side of this.

I had an assistant like this. I'm a mortgage banker, and we'd have a weekly loan status call that would go on about 45 minutes longer than it needed to be because she wouldn't stop interrupting, and when she did, she wouldn't shut the hell up. I nearly slapped myself when she once told me about this "one rude guy who constantly interrupted her". She had no self-awareness.

She was a heck of a good assistant, but I was glad when she turned in her notice. My new assistant works just as hard and converses like a human being.

We have the same thing in our office. It’s so frustrating. My boss is fed up with this person. They just don’t know when to stop talking and actively listen, then they ask you the same question over and over after it’s been explained. Very inconsiderate and aggravating.

You are talking about my DH right? I know you have to be. What I have started doing is I will let him talk and then say, "Now to finish what I was saying before you talked over/interrupted me...." He knows he does it and is catching himself more, but it is something he really needs to work on. Sometimes I am nicer than other times, but this is with DH so my mood can vary quite a bit.

You’ve described my SIL to a T. It’s so very annoying to try to have a conversation with her about anything because in her mind she is an expert on everything and has an opinion about everything no matter what the topic is. She thinks she is the smartest person in the room, always, and of course her position is the only right one. 🙄 She was on the debate team in high school so she is like a dog with a bone no matter what the subject of the conversation is. Even if she is clearly incorrect or uninformed, she will just dig in harder and talk louder to attempt to hold her position.

It’s reason number 1,866 why we try to avoid having to be around her for any length of time. It’s just incredibly tiresome.

DH has a brother and a sister like that. I avoid them as much as possible. I had the brother over for dinner last night, because he is here from TX and wanted to see my kids again. It was exhausting.

They get all the information wrong, because they simple can't listen. DH's sister told her DD my DH had a tumor in his brain and was having surgery the next day. That was so far off the truth as to be laughable, except my niece was upset. Thank God she knows her mother and called my DDIL to get the correct info. BTW - DH NEVER had a tumor in his brain.