Dh says he has no feelings

[littlecubs]

Dd went to a sleepover at the weekend for the first time and I was chatting to Dh and said how quiet it was without her. I looked at her empty seat at dinner and her empty space on the sofa in the evening and said I couldn’t bare it if anything happened to her and I was left seeing the empty space.

Dh said, see I don’t know how I’d feel, I probably wouldn’t feel anything and I definitely wouldn’t break down in tears like I know you would. I just don’t think I’d feel anything.
I questioned this and he said he just doesn’t have any feelings and never has about anything ever even as a child and that the only emotion he’s ever felt is anger in fact he said he feels all emotions as anger.

He admitted he would feel the same if his parents died or best friend and said he’d acknowledge it was sad but wouldn’t feel anything else but he knows he loves us.
I don’t know what to think, is he just emotionally disconnected?

Often anger is the only emotion boys and men are allowed to have, could this be at play? What are his parents like?

Has he ever told you he loves you?

This sounds incredibly strange. He's saying he wouldn't feel a thing if his child died?? This would creep me out tbh.

Wow, that's some revelation to make. Has he never said he loved you or made you feel that way? You did marry and have a child with this man so I presume you've known him a good number of years?

Yes everyday, he’s very loving and affectionate.

But love is an emotion so he's either faking that or he's lying to you when he says anger is the only emotion he feels

Sounds like he's a sociopath to be honest.

We’ve been together 14 years and he’s very much a loving family man, loyal and caring so this came out of the blue.

That doesn't align with what he said in that case. Honestly as another poster said I'd be pretty creeped out if my husband told me he would feel nothing if our child died

Perhaps he can't identify his other feelings. Anger is pretty easy to identify, but other feelings are more nuanced and harder to name and pin down. Perhaps his imagination is poor and he can't imagine what it would feel like to lose a loved one. I think men are often closed off to such things then they can get a shock if something very bad does happen. They then get angry and turn to drink or self neglect. I've seen it happen to older men when their wives die.

Not going to lie that would terrify me- I’d question what kind of person questions if they’d feel anything if their child died

Do you feel you don’t know him very well? You’ve never seem him joy filled, like when your daughter was born? Or ecstatic, with you, intimately? Or happy, when it’s Christmas for example.

I would guess you would have witnessed his emotions, or witnessed their absence.

He isn’t close to him mum, he comes from a very enmeshed family where everything was about her and on her terms they were always overly involved so he tried to put some boundaries in place but they were ignored so he eventually broke free a few years ago which has left them pretty much estranged.
He is angry about that and has said he feels angry that he had that upbringing but he doesn’t think about them anymore and has managed to just erase them from his mind.

He’s terrified by what you said, and is rejecting the entire notion of her no longer being there, covering that by denying his emotions and his hypothetical emotional response to such a tragedy.

What the fuck?

He wouldn’t feel anything if your daughter was no longer here. wtf?

I’m not sure I could get past this. What a cruel and awful thing to say and think. I really don’t think that’s normal.

Obv what he said was really weird and in all probability is not true - he just can’t imagine how he would feel.

However I think what you said in the first place is a really weird thing to say and it’s not normal to start a discussion about how you’d feel if your child died when they’re on their first sleepover.

Maybe he said it deliberately to not play along with your silly morbid conversation?

@littlecubs i would probably not say that (you just have to see the answers on this thread to know why) but I have thought it many many times.

It’s not that I don’t love my dcs etc…. It’s that I’m dissociated and dealing with childhood trauma.
The fact your dh says he has always felt like that makes me think he is probably on similar lines.

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 🙈

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.

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.

He absolutely spoils our daughter but feels every emotion as anger and frustration. He does seem to bottle things up and can be quite irritable and impatient.

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.

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.