Hi all
my husband and I have been together for 16 years. We went through a difficult patch 2 years ago and had couples counselling. The outcome of the counselling was that our communication was poor and we needed to continue to work on it - particularly my husband as it doesn’t come naturally to him. Specific areas were with regards to paying compliments and showing appreciation and being ‘curious’ about others feelings, as opposed to making assumptions about what each other might be feeling about something.
From my point of view, he isn’t upholding his end of the bargain and attempting to communicate better. I’m aware that people demonstrate their love in different ways so I try to be mindful that just because he’s not saying ‘I appreciate you’ he might be showing that through other things he does for me.
What I’m struggling with though is that I get nothing from him emotionally. We occasionally hug and have sex but other than that there is nothing. He hasn’t told me I look nice in years, which hurts especially because in the last few months I have lost weight and have been feeling particularly good about myself.
This morning I am feeling fairly low so I tried to speak to him about it. He said he can’t understand why I’m being like this and it’s stressing me out. I tried to explain but he said he can’t deal with it and walked out of the room. Every conversation like that ends in that way. It’s like he reaches a discomfort level and then he’s done. The usual pattern after something like this is he will be cold with me for days and then will eventually get over it I guess. If I try and bring it up again he refuses to talk.
I’m really struggling because I can recognise the good things in our relationship - it’s not all bad. He is generous with his time and money, he’s a great father, he does anything I ask of him. But when I try and keep those good things in mind and tell myself I can’t have everything I still feel sad that I don’t have that emotional connection with him.
Another example is that I’m currently waiting for an urgent appointment with an endocrinologist. The GP suspects I might have a syndrome that is caused by steroids or a brain tumour and I have never taken steroids which means a brain tumour is a real possibility if I understand the GP correctly. I told my husband this and his response was that I’m overreacting and ‘don’t think about it and don’t Google it’ and that’s the one and only time we’ve talked about it in the 3 weeks since I spoke to the GP. He’s not once asked if I’m ok.
I feel so alone in our relationship but I want to be with him and accepting of his failures in light of the other good things but I don’t know how to overlook the lack of emotional connection and his inability to deal with things. Has anyone got any advice or viewpoints on this?
Sorry for the long post!
my husband and I have been together for 16 years. We went through a difficult patch 2 years ago and had couples counselling. The outcome of the counselling was that our communication was poor and we needed to continue to work on it - particularly my husband as it doesn’t come naturally to him. Specific areas were with regards to paying compliments and showing appreciation and being ‘curious’ about others feelings, as opposed to making assumptions about what each other might be feeling about something.
From my point of view, he isn’t upholding his end of the bargain and attempting to communicate better. I’m aware that people demonstrate their love in different ways so I try to be mindful that just because he’s not saying ‘I appreciate you’ he might be showing that through other things he does for me.
What I’m struggling with though is that I get nothing from him emotionally. We occasionally hug and have sex but other than that there is nothing. He hasn’t told me I look nice in years, which hurts especially because in the last few months I have lost weight and have been feeling particularly good about myself.
This morning I am feeling fairly low so I tried to speak to him about it. He said he can’t understand why I’m being like this and it’s stressing me out. I tried to explain but he said he can’t deal with it and walked out of the room. Every conversation like that ends in that way. It’s like he reaches a discomfort level and then he’s done. The usual pattern after something like this is he will be cold with me for days and then will eventually get over it I guess. If I try and bring it up again he refuses to talk.
I’m really struggling because I can recognise the good things in our relationship - it’s not all bad. He is generous with his time and money, he’s a great father, he does anything I ask of him. But when I try and keep those good things in mind and tell myself I can’t have everything I still feel sad that I don’t have that emotional connection with him.
Another example is that I’m currently waiting for an urgent appointment with an endocrinologist. The GP suspects I might have a syndrome that is caused by steroids or a brain tumour and I have never taken steroids which means a brain tumour is a real possibility if I understand the GP correctly. I told my husband this and his response was that I’m overreacting and ‘don’t think about it and don’t Google it’ and that’s the one and only time we’ve talked about it in the 3 weeks since I spoke to the GP. He’s not once asked if I’m ok.
I feel so alone in our relationship but I want to be with him and accepting of his failures in light of the other good things but I don’t know how to overlook the lack of emotional connection and his inability to deal with things. Has anyone got any advice or viewpoints on this?
Sorry for the long post!