TLDR: instead of telling him to stop thanking you, maybe when he says “thanks for being such a great listener,” you can just turn it around and tell him “thanks for being so great to listen to.” OP, I hope I didn’t sound like I was being critical! I think it’s great you want to support him. On one level, no, you listening to him isn’t something he should thank you for. He’s just talking, and you’re just listening, and it’s not some gracious act on your part. Hopefully you like talking to him! I really like how my bf sounds when he talks and I love talking to him. So, objectively, no, he shouldn’t thank you. But, we don’t live in an ideal world and lots of people are rude or impatient. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people talk over my bf or even just walk away before he’d even had a chance to get a word out. And I know it’s happened to him way more times than I’ve seen. Probably that kind of thing has happened to your bf a lot, and that’s why he’s thanking you. It sucks that that’s how things are, but it is what it is. You insisting he not thank you or making an issue of it beyond just a one-time “No need, I love talking to you,” may just feel like one more person telling him he’s not doing things right. ETA: One thing I didn’t realize about stuttering when I started dating my bf is that it can be physically really hard. Stuttering a lot is exhausting. If my bf has a day where he needs to talk a lot, by the end of the day he’s completely wiped. So maybe one way you could respond is to acknowledge that—he doesn’t need to thank you because you like listening to him, and you are thankful he is willing to keep talking to you even though it’s hard. And then let him do with that he wants. Maybe he’ll stop thanking you, maybe not. But instead of telling him not to, you could always just turn it around and thank him for talking to you.