All right, Reddit, my husband who is 49M, thinks that he is always the smartest person in the room. I've been putting up with this for 20 goddamn years at this point, hoping he would take a hint at some point. He went to a top 25 college, and then a top 10 law school, although he only got in via wait list. I also went to a top 25 college partially on scholarship, and then got into a top five law school with a full tuition scholarship.
My dad worked his way off the farm and out of a tiny rural High School into a top 25 college and a top five law school, and spent nearly 50 years as a practicing attorney. My mom went to a top 25 college and then got a MA and an M.Ed. and became a recognized master teacher in our state, who is such a good teacher, she's responsible for teaching other teachers.
My siblings all went to top 25 colleges. My next brother went to a top five law school and has been working ever since, my sister got an MA in Irish literature and then went to get another MA at Trinity College Dublin. My youngest brother got an MA in Middle Eastern studies, and then an MBA at Chicago Booth, and now works in the intelligence community.
My husband thinks he is the smartest person in every room he walks into, which is very much not the case when he walks into a room with my family, where he is possibly the dumbest person in the room. Every one of my family is an avid reader, but he has not read a significant book since he finished college. I recently had my dad over and I had a complex question for him about SOX compliance, since he's been doing that for 20 years or more, and my husband kept interrupting my attempts to ask my question with his hot takes on SOX compliance from 20 years ago when he was in law school. I literally told my husband I could get his hot takes at any point but I wanted my dad's opinion at this moment, but he still could not butt out, because he cannot stand not being the expert.
We've been in marriage counseling, and he thinks if we were well-matched, we would have intellectual debates. But all his debates are based on shit he learned before 2020, and I just cannot pretend I don't know anything that's happened in the past 25 years.
Plus his total inability to see when my family is freezing him out because he's being a fucking dumbass is giving me serious vicarious embarrassment.
I'm not even totally sure what my question is here, how do I make my husband be less of a dumbass? Or how do I make my family be nicer about the fact that he's a dumbass? Or how do I make him stop caring that he's the smartest guy in the room when he clearly isn't? IDK