My H also gets sucked into the tube when it's on. I often cannot get his attention and it's really quite irritating to me.
I understand you turn the TV off but when you do that do you turn the stereo on, put on a good relaxing CD of some type....so at least then you two can talk. I've found that when I do this, my H doesn't complain one bit. I've still got my background noise that I like (I too use the tube for background noise)...but now we have something soothing playing in the background and I find we end up having good conversations then too....that they just happen, and those evenings tend to be when we have the most fun together.
