Dh says he has no feelings

Well if he’s telling the truth, he does have feelings.

I find it really hard to imagine how I’d feel too, when ddog died, I thought I’d be relieved as he was so poorly and didn’t anticipate three months of horrible grief whatsoever…

Yes, it could be something like alexithymia, a cognitive processing issue or also be a trauma response - PTSD for example. I think I'd be thinking along those lines, given you say how affectionate he is, before I'd jump to sociopathy.

Child, yes I’d be devastated. Husband & sister also. Anyone else in my life, not so much. It’s just the way I’m built. I’m not a sociopath, nor mentally unwell, I just don’t feel things that deeply.

I hope he never finds out, but I expect the reality would be very emotional. I would take it more as a lack of imagination, he can't imagine it (except as an objective possibility) so he doesn't feel the emotion that goes with really imagining it.

GP - check
Therapy

Could it mean that the one feeling he describes as no feeling is the feeling of emptiness?

Because when I think of such horrible event, that's the first feeling that comes to mind. That everything would be so overwhelming, I would be left empty, with all part of me being numb.

I'm not a psychopath in any way!

https://www.thebraincharity.org.uk/condition/alexithymia/

He’s not lying. He’s just clearly got some major issues with feeling, processing and articulating his emotions, which is no surprise whatsoever given his childhood and his now estrangement from his family. He needs to have therapy for a good long time. If he is really loving and affectionate then that’s a great base from which to start this process.

I think it has a lot to do with understanding his emotions rather than not having them. My DH has said something similar to this before. He would probably even now maintain that he doesn't have 'feelings' or that he can suppress or manage them, but in reality he's actually one of the most emotional people I know.

So the scenario you played out with your daughter not being around, obviously he has never felt that loss, so he's not able to know how that would feel. Women are more empathetic and can probably go some way to imagining how that loss would feel, men probably less so.

We had our family dog PTS a few months ago, he was very much DH's dog and man's best friend for 14 years. It was absolutely no shock to me that this devastated DH and he was extremely upset. But to DH this was a shock, he was surprised how upset he was and the emotions that came about. Prior to it happening it was like he had no concept of how it might make him feel.

I’d consider if he could be autistic. Not that he doesn’t have feelings but is unable to name them or work out what the feeling is. Especially since he said he always feels this way and he only feels anger. I can definitely relate to that.

This sounds like a massive contradiction. He says the only emotion he feels is anger but then he says ‘I love you’ every day, and you claim he is a very loving and affectionate person? So he is either lying about only ever feeling anger, or about the affection he seemingly displays and the loving words he utters.

This would be my interpretation too

great minds!!

Ooh, cross posted with @Dufff23!

Not to diagnose him, but there’s a condition common in some neurodivergent people called alexithymia - it’s an inability to recognise, understand and describe their own emotions. My DD and my DH both have it. They feel things very deeply, but cannot begin to explain how or what it is they are feeling, and get very frustrated if pushed to.

Might be worth looking into that before deciding he’s a sociopath!

Is it that condition where he can’t identify what he’s feeling and so thinks it’s all ‘anger’? - alexithymia.

it would worry me a bit

This was my thought too.

Cutting off his mother is a bad sign. You say he has erased her from his mind. That kind of compartmentalising is a sign of sociopathy. He could do the same to you. Or his daughter.

No one knows how they would actually feel in a situation that has never happened to them. I have recently been bereaved and in fact grief was a new experience for me. I had no idea what it would be like in reality. I sincerely doubt, given that you have described your husband as a loving family man, that he would feel nothing. He can’t imagine how it would feel or just doesn’t want to go there. Or can’t name emotions which, if you haven’t been taught to do, is difficult.
It wasn’t a great thing for you to hear but I would judge him by his actions towards you and your children instead of this clumsy admission. Someone close to me told me they didn’t feel sad when people die but really it was that they hadn’t lost anyone close enough to them at that point to feel sadness. When they did lose someone they absolutely were sad.

It seems like quite an OTT thing for you to say in the first place, she went to a sleep over and you started talking about how you'd feel if she died! Maybe he didn't want to do that.

I think that he’s been pretty brave telling you this. Has he ever had therapy? A bit of counselling might help him contact some of the feelings that will be underneath his anger.

Oof that is quite terrifying, does this mean every time you've thought he was happy/loving/emotional in any way he was pretending? I would be questioning absolutely everything 🙈