Rhetorical Questions

[Major Tom]

Does anyone else here HATE rhetorical questions (questions someone already knows the answer to)? My wife is constantly asking me them, especially regarding food. She will ask me for example: "did you eat that piece of pizza?" When she obviously knows that I did, since my son doesn't eat pizza and if it wasn't him who ate it, it was either her or I that ate it..

I feel like saying "No, it escaped to another dimension", or something smart like that. I just don't get why people have to question about things that are obvious.. I'm not particularly a liar, so I can't see the reasoning behind it. It feels like I'm constantly in an interrogation room for something.

Does anyone else here have this issue with anyone in their lives? If so how do you deal with them?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[tree]

She asks you about food, whether you've eaten it, when it's
obvious that you did?

That sounds like she wants you to apologize for eating the food.
To acknowledge that you were in the wrong for taking it.

I could surely be wrong, but the circumstance you posed as an
example gives me that impression.

 

[Major Tom]

She asks you about food, whether you've eaten it, when it's
obvious that you did?

That sounds like she wants you to apologize for eating the food.
To acknowledge that you were in the wrong for taking it.

I could surely be wrong, but the circumstance you posed as an
example gives me that impression.

You could be right. I just don't see why we would even buy the food in the first place if it wasn't meant to be eaten. I'll try apologizing next time I guess and see if she slacks off on it. Thanks!

 

[Major Tom]

There are people who emulate their own parents and likely don't really understand that tone and question to be harmful. What they heard and saw in their own family is probably their only example of a relationship. And so they do a similar thing without really thinking about it.

But let's call it exactly what it is, an accusation. Meant to chastise you, like a parent to a child. My suggestion would be to request that they rethink how they speak to you.
I remember doing this once with a parent who posed a similar question about food and responding with: "Are you the food police?" They were offended and didn't like what I said.

This is more of what I think is happening. She's accusing me and also judging me for eating. Same thing happens if I do happen to have an alcoholic beverage on a rare occasion. She will ask me, "why do you smell like alcohol?". I usually say, "Well, it's pretty obvious I had a drink." This seems to only make her more upset, but I'm not really one to beat around the bush, so to speak. I've used the food police comment too, to no avail.

I think in her own way, she perhaps is trying to help me, but in many cases it has the opposite effect. Which I have also told her. What I need is kindness and compassion to help me to change my ways. Not accusations and rhetorical questions. It gets frustrating to say the least.

 

[OkRad]

What happens if you just say, "Oh, I ate it!" or "Oh, I had a drink." In other words, just answer directly to diffuse any snark?

 

[Major Tom]

What happens if you just say, "Oh, I ate it!" or "Oh, I had a drink." In other words, just answer directly to diffuse any snark?

I will also try that. Thank you. A lot of times I get sarcastic, and maybe it is exacerbating the problem. I get defensive when people ask me questions they already know the answer to, because it's been happening to me ever since I was a child.

 

[OkRad]

I will also try that. Thank you. A lot of times I get sarcastic, and maybe it is exacerbating the problem. I get defensive when people ask me questions they already know the answer to, because it's been happening to me ever since I was a child.

I didn't mean your snark. I meant any she may have

 

[Gracey]

Both questions described would irritate me too.
However;
there'll always be reasoning behind the questions.

Sometimes we have to look at the bigger picture (process all of the data) to understand what's really being asked, said or inferred.

"Did you eat the pizza?"
Wrong answer - 'Of course I ate the pizza, if you didn't eat it and our son doesn't like it, Who else might have eaten it!?'

The above amounts to the same as saying 'what a dumb question'
which upsets people.

Instead try, "Yes. Was I wrong?


"Why do you smell of alcohol?" appears to be a mildly passive aggressive way of asking you if you've been drinking.

If you were able to consider the motivation behind her asking you'll have an idea of her feelings (in that moment) about you + drinking.

Sometimes it's a whole 'nother language, right?

 

[Kalinychta]

It escaped to another dimension! Haha!

It’s much less confrontational/accusatory to frame a negative statement as a question. Women do this a lot. It’s also the reason we use qualifiers such as “I feel” or “I think” before sentences. It softens the blow, is more “submissive,” and leaves open the possibility that we are wrong. Men, on the other hand, tend to be direct.

Man: “You ate that piece of pizza.”
Woman: “Did you eat that piece of pizza?“

Same thing said, different ways of saying it.

 

[Mulder]

From very yang age I also didn't like answering obvious question and use to clam up and refuse to give any answer at all. Later on just started answering finding deeper meaning if possible.

 

[Fino]

My advice would be to stop being sarcastic, snarky, or rude, and, instead, be kind.

 

[SimonSays]

I know exactly what you mean about being asked rhetorical questions. It used to bother me too.
I found I was able to shift out of being bothered by just answering the question as if they really didn't know.

"Did you eat that slice of pizza?"
"Yes, I had it earlier."

Simple, factual response, without irritation.

To humanise it further, I might add..."but it never seems to taste as good as when it's fresh."

This further normalises you having chosen to eat the slice, because, primarily, you are an adult and can eat a slice of leftover pizza without it being an issue. But perhaps next time you might give her the choice before you do.

 

[Thinx]

There's a balance with partners. They make allowances for how we are, we can do the same. You are concerned about your weight, she picks up on that, probably. But after a while together, habits of speaking can get irritating. However, I would always try to be kind. And respectful. If she was a colleague, you wouldn't be casually rude or sarcastic to her, and she is in fact much more important than that. Do the two of you have pleasant conversations?

 

[Kalinychta]

I found I was able to shift out of being bothered by just answering the question as if they really didn't know.

"Did you eat that slice of pizza?"
"Yes, I had it earlier."

Simple, factual response, without irritation.

I do that, too, but mostly to be a smartass. Remember when everyone used to say, “I know, right?” I’d always answer, “Right.” Or, “How should I know what you know?“

My mom used to begin sentences with “why don’t you...” when she wanted me to do something. “Why don’t you come in here and set the table?” Sometimes it really annoyed me, so I’d answer something like, “Why don’t I? Well, I’ll tell you why...”

 

[Kalinychta]

My advice would be to stop being sarcastic, snarky, or rude, and, instead, be kind.

To be fair, married couples really get on each others’ nerves quite often, and the smallest things sometimes make one or the other all but lapse into homocidal ideation. Or so I’ve heard.

 

[SimonSays]

I do that, too, but mostly to be a smartass. Remember when everyone used to say, “I know, right?” I’d always answer, “Right.” Or, “How should I know what you know?“

My mom used to begin sentences with “why don’t you...” when she wanted me to do something. “Why don’t you come in here and set the table?” Sometimes it really annoyed me, so I’d answer something like, “Why don’t I? Well, I’ll tell you why...”

I have the most trouble when somebody keeps saying... "know what I mean?" to almost everything they say.
"Yes! I know what you mean!" I would say if I thought they were really asking me. It still triggers that part of me that wants to answer a question. Interferes with me listening to what they say. I don't have people like that in my life if I can help it.

"Why don't you..."
I know this very well too. It is so tempting to respond like your example. It messes with me though because it brings out the ego and creates conflict. I prefer a straight answer like..."because I'm doing this." or even straighter..."because I don't want to." Drives them nuts without messing with me.

 

[zozie]

An interpretation, potentially correct, potentially not:

Here in my part of the world, the culture is allergic to direct communication. Something about religion, "contention is of the devil," yada yada. It sounds to me like your partner is asking a "direct" question that is not actually what she wants to know.

In other words, "Did you eat that pizza?" is more like "Why did you eat that pizza?" Or even, "I was really looking forward to eating that piece of pizza myself but I forgot to tell you so, and now it's gone and I feel frustrated that I can't eat it, and guilty at the same time because how could you have known that I wanted it if I didn't tell you?" So asking why directly invites vulnerability. Potentially, as I said. This is just a theory.

Where I'm from, people feel a lot of shame for even getting frustrated—nevermind angry—because they think feeling that way is a sin. So they talk around this feeling and never confront the fact that they might be displeased about something. The pizza question reminds me of this.

"Why do you smell like alcohol?" makes me think of the question, "Have I done something wrong to drive you to drink, are you going to end up in the gutter like Edgar Allen Poe, will you die of tuberculosis like Mozart, I don't want to lose you, what is going on?" But all of this is vulnerable, and shows your partner's judgments about drinking. She may have any number of reasons for wanting to hide these judgments—an indirect or rhetorical question is one method of hiding them.

I dunno, maybe this is helpful or maybe it confuses things. Either way, I share your frustration, and have a tendency to snark pretty hard unless I manage to stop myself.

 

[Suzanne]

I have said that to my husband before, when he does the same with me.

I think they like to play mind games with us, thinking they are better than us, because they are "normal" and we are not "normal".

 

[Progster]

Yes, that's exactly the kind of question I tend to reply to literally. To me, "did you eat the pizza" is asking me whether I ate the pizza or not, and nothing else. So, I alswer literally, and if that was not was he was after, then he needs to rephrase the question or statement. If he meant that I shouldn't have eaten it because he wanted to eat it, then he just needs to say so.

 

[Major Tom]

My advice would be to stop being sarcastic, snarky, or rude, and, instead, be kind.

I don't really think I am being any of those bad qualities, well maybe occasionally when I get really fed up.I do feel like it though, but feeling like doing something/acting a certain way is different than doing. I pretty much treat everyone the same way and think that overall I am a kind person. Maybe I'm just fooling myself. I don't know.