Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Original poster

Your partner / husband isn't for conversation. This is what your friends are for. Aibu tojust find this so depressing?

113 replies

witchofzog · 19/06/2018 16:28

I am seriously considering whether dp and I have a future. I envisioned my partner being my best friend yet conversation with him often falls flat. I liken it to playing tennis with a statue. I will chat with him, ask him what he thinks about things, tell him snippets from my day (only IF it is funny or interesting) and he will often just give one sentence answers. He isn't a bad person. He just doesn't like to talk as much as I do

I read a thread on here a week or so ago and the general gist was that you should not really expect interesting conversation with your partner as this is what your friends are there for.

Is this really true? If it is then it is incredibly depressing. I always imagined I would end up with someone who I can just chat with while preparing dinner, going for a walk or over a glass of wine in the evening sometimes. Someone who is as interested in me and my thoughts as I am about theirs. Is this really so delusional? Or should I think that I have a good man albeit one who doesn't like to talk to me much, and seek that stimulation from my friends instead?

OP posts:

peachgreen · 19/06/2018 17:23

Whaaaat? DH and I can happily sit in companionable silence but we also chat all the time - and we always have a good talk before we go to sleep. I can talk to him about anything and do!

BurningTheToast · 19/06/2018 17:25

I have friends who I talk to about all sorts but my partner is my best friend. We talk about everything, from current affairs, to what we're reading, to films, to what we saw that day that made us laugh, as well as big, important stuff like our caring responsibilities for his parents, and politics, and how all that impacts on the future we want for ourselves. Whenever something great or something dreadful happens, the first person each of us want to talk to about it is the other.

I can't imagine not having that and the thought of settling for grunts and shrugs makes me sad. Don't settle - at the end of the day, who wants to look back and wonder why they spent so long with someone who wasn't interested in them.

Zaphodsotherhead · 19/06/2018 17:28

witch - it's honestly not as bad as it sounds! We don't live together, we are more like 'friendly associates' than a couple, and it's nice to have someone who's so...I dunno....unassuming about the relationship. He puts no pressure on me at all. It's quite relaxing really.

I'd just love to be able to have an intelligent conversation and a guy who made me feel doted upon. And yes, you're right, I was so badly hurt when XH went that I could never ever properly trust a man again.

We are a right pair!

eightfacesofthemoon · 19/06/2018 17:28

zaphod, I'm sorry for what your ex did. but I agree you sound quite sad and that you may have settled for someone that won't leave you so dramatically.

Theleftparing · 19/06/2018 17:28

Yes my absolute bestest friend ever. I tell him everything and vice versa .

GreenMeerkat · 19/06/2018 17:28

I don't think there is a steadfast rule that couples must talk to each other and have stimulating conversation if that's just not how they work together. My DH and I are always talking, we are best friends and I can't imagine it being any other way. But I have friends who are not like this and don't 'chat' with their partners and have an altogether different kind of relationship, but it works for them.

The issue here OP is that you want one thing and he wants the other. Unless you can come to some sort of compromise the relationship isn't going to work, sadly.

problembottom · 19/06/2018 17:29

Have you ever sat down for breakfast everyday on holiday and seen those couples who don't talk to each other, ever? DP and I always say we'd never want to be them, not in a smug way, more a horrified one! Friends are really important too, I have different types of chats with them, but that doesn't mean I don't need great conversation with DP. For me is happiness is both of those relationships.

Given your partner is the person you spend the most time with, surely you don't want to spend the rest of your life having stilted conversations with them?

GreenMeerkat · 19/06/2018 17:30

I would love a combination of the 2 men but I am not sure he exists

He does exist, you just haven't met him yet.

Original poster

witchofzog · 19/06/2018 17:32

Hollow I did then and have done since. There may even have been tears the second time. He said be isn't always chatty with his friends either but this isn't what I have seen

OP posts:

Thebearsbunny · 19/06/2018 17:32

I remember someone once telling me you should always marry a man who you could have a really good conversation with. Then, when you are old and bits have started dropping off you can still enjoy a damn good chat.

Rudgie47 · 19/06/2018 17:33

I'd just tell him it was over, you might as well just talk to the wall from what your saying.
Get rid then go out with other people, to me it sounds like he cant be arsed with the basics. Theres better men out there for you.

BeyondThePage · 19/06/2018 17:34

Sometimes DH and I talk, sometimes we don't - last night he was watching football, I was doing something on the computer - we were together in the room in companionable silence for about 3 hours before we had a chat about going up to bed. We each knew the other was just fine with it.

Original poster

witchofzog · 19/06/2018 17:37

Zaphod as long as you don't feel like you are missing out

It's funny because the older people thing is exactly what I say to Dp. When we get old and can't have sex or go out anymore, all we will have will be our conversation and I don't want to be one of those older people who spends their life in uncompaniable silence

OP posts:

ReanimatedSGB · 19/06/2018 17:40

It sounds like this relationship is not really suitable for you - please don't feel you have to stay in it because you might end up being single again.
Single is good.
A partner should be a friend as well but never your only friend. Everyone needs more than one person to talk to and hang out with - do you have anyone else you socialise with? Because it's possible, if you don't have enough other friends to talk to, that he's withdrawing a bit because you are dumping all your stored up conversation on him...

Zaphodsotherhead · 19/06/2018 17:40

witch - the trouble is that I HAD that 'best friend, talk about anything, conversation underlying everything' with my XH. AND IT DIDN'T SAVE US. He left me anyway. Distraught and traumatised. And ours was the relationship built on constant communication.

So, yes, it's great when you can have it, but it doesn't always save you from heartbreak.

Wineandrosesagain · 19/06/2018 17:44

I’ve been with DH for 26 years. I married him 25 years ago because I thought he was the funniest, wittiest, kindest and most clever man I’d ever met (and I come from a family of witty, clever, kind men). And today he still makes me laugh out loud, as I do him. We share different views on things, but we agree on just about everything important. Our DD has inherited her father’s lovely kind wit. It is the best thing in the world to talk about everything under the sun, to amuse each other and to sit in companionable silence. I know I’d rather be Single than not have that conversation, that lovely banter, that intellectual discussion.

Jaxhog · 19/06/2018 17:45

Seriously sad. I've been married for 40 years, and we still have loads to talk to each other about. We're rarely stuck for conversation.

If you can't converse, leave him now. It will only get worse.

Wineandrosesagain · 19/06/2018 17:46

But I’m also very lucky in having some incredible friends who are also great company and very amusing too ( bit of a theme here - I need that humour in my life).

Original poster

witchofzog · 19/06/2018 17:46

I do have friends to socialise with and I work with a nice bunch of people too. I live in his house though in a town 20 miles from my friends though so probably don't socialise as much as I want to as the effort in getting there and back is too much sometimes.

Zaphod if you don't mind me asking, why did he leave? Did he meet someone else? I can see why you were so traumatised if he was also your best friend. It's hard to see just how things can go so wrong in this situation and you must have been very bewildered by it all

OP posts:

Wineandrosesagain · 19/06/2018 17:53

Agree with Jaxhog. You can’t spend the rest of your life like this

crispysausagerolls · 19/06/2018 17:55

I knew someone once who used to speak about an ex of his and how they never had anything to talk about, and his way of looking at it was “you have to think about those long nights by the fire”. I think this is correct. It’s very easy now with the technological and distraction-filled society we live in to overlook it, but ultimately you want to be with someone you can talk to! DH is my best friend, and the person I spend most of my time with. It’s absolutely possible to find a combination of physical/sexual attraction and friendship, so don’t sell yourself short and settle!

speakout · 19/06/2018 17:57

I agree too.

OH and I have been together 22 years and having a conversation over a glass of wine is the highlight of the week

Nichola2310 · 19/06/2018 18:01

I think it can be easy to not engage in meaningful conversation. By the time you’ve gone to work, come home, made dinner, tidied up, tv on etc. Me and my DH have gotten into the habit of chatting for a while when we go to bed and I really look forward to that part of my day. Maybe that could become part of your routine.

Zaphodsotherhead · 19/06/2018 18:08

witch - he decided he wanted to meet other people. It's kind of a long story but he was young (younger than me) when we met and quite shy and during the nine years we were together he decided he had 'grown up' and was no longer shy and that people wanted to be with him...

yeah. It was absurd, but he had a breakdown after trying to train for a career that he was patenty unsuited for and which I had tried to talk him out of. So he left in the midst of the breakdown, leaving me devastated. I loved him utterly. I now know how wrong it was for me to base my happiness around that one person. I'm a bit more balanced now!

Original poster

witchofzog · 19/06/2018 19:58

Zaphod That's really hard. Actually it sounds like a guy I used to work with. He left his older girlfriend of a similar time scale because he felt he had grown while he was with her. He joined our organisation and was not suited to the work at all. He wasn't happy and I always felt he would have been happier if he had stayed with her. At 39 he was chasing after girls in their early twenties and wondering why it was unsuccessful.

You sound like you have learnt a lot from this even though you may or may not be with the right person currently

OP posts:

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Swipe left for the next trending thread