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?

That's quite true. OP doesn't mention her husband's age or any other circumstances (but this could describe me) I am also estranged from all family and there has been a lot of other trauma and I said the other day (to a friend) I have no feelings other than anger. I explored in a bit more detail the other day (i.e. complex PTSD) just for my own reference and found I could relate to a lot of stuff and what you say was mentioned as a coping strategy.

I imagine what he means is he can’t imagine how he’d feel so he’s translating that into he thinks he’d feel nothing as he can’t envision the emotion. Not being able to feel things that haven’t or might never happen doesn’t mean he actually doesn’t feel anything. People process emotions differently to eachother and he certainly shouldn’t be badged as a sociopath for this.

Im going to be delicate with this - i grew up with a father who bottled things up and was irritable and impatient, as did many of my friends, and its impacted us in lots of different ways. What has he been doing so far to work on this? Does he understand how this can impact a child?

I mean… that sounds like full blown psychopathy/sociopathy?

Not all psychopaths are necessarily dangerous, but they don’t feel empathy or love. Just anger and self-interest.

Many will act like normal, loving people just to fit in with the rest of society.

Either that or he has some serious issues with feeling/expressing his emotions and probably needs therapy.

I came from a fucked up family, I couldn’t experience sadness properly for a long time, every negative emotion came out as anger. I think it’s probably more common than people realise. You aren’t allowed to have feelings and anger is the one feeling that doesn’t make you feel unsafe or vulnerable.

It doesn't mean he is a bad man, just some men have next to no emotions, often coupled to a mild mental health condition. If he is good in other respects then see past it.

I was thinking this. Sociopath/ narcissistic. Has no emotions and learns to “fake” emotion in childhood by observing others. Read more about it and see if he has any other traits

My son almost died last year. I had to tell my husband over the phone that he's had a cardiac arrest and things weren't looking good.

My husband isn't very emotional, I've seen him cry maybe 3 times in our 14 years together. One of those times was him frantically arriving at the hospital thinking his little boy was dead.

I think it's one of those things you can easily dismiss, not truly think about etc because it is so unlikely to happen. The reality is no one knows how they'd react in the situation.

I didn't cry as much as I thought I would.

It sounds nothing like ‘full blown psychopathy/sociopathy’

jeez. A little knowledge can indeed be a dangerous thing.

everything about this man as described by the OP points to anything but those disorders. It sounds much more like alexithymia as others have suggested or even perhaps anhedonia but his behaviours lean way more towards the former.

Did your husband have a very tough childhood?
I would leave the psychopathy just yet.

I think what he might mean is the concept is so overwhelming that he can't comprehend how he would feel. He probably can't really put his emotions into words very easily. That's quite common among men sadly.

Of course he'd be absolutely heartbroken if you or his daughter passed away.

Do you think he'd consider counselling? It's clearly there's an emotional blockage there or some sort of inability to express his feelings in the ways he wishes to. And therapy can help that.

My DH has said the same sort of thing. On the one hand he has said he can not imagine what his life would look like without me. He tells me he loves me and was the same with the kids when they lived at home but he is not articulate in that way.

I remember discussing a tragedy that I had read of and becoming quite emotional. He said that he would never have emotions that would overtake him like that. Yet when our oldest DD went to university he was the one who cried. At my DF's funeral, 6 months after his DF, he read my eulogy and cried.

I think that rather than not having feelings as someone else has said, he just can't articulate them.

''@Jacobs4 · Today 12:16

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. ''

There is another explanation for this that does not involve the OP's husband being Hannibal Lecter...

If you grow up in a dysfunctional family it is common not to learn how to express emotions and feelings in a healthy manner and instead to become 'numb' as a way of coping.

Cutting off a toxic parent is not a 'bad sign' either it is often a case of having to do this to protect your own mental health and completely natural if the parent was abusive.

OP, it sounds to me like your partner has some long standing issues due to his childhood and would benefit from some support in exploring that.

Pretty sure you need more than this to diagnose sociopathy! Maybe he was really feeling like you were just being a bit dramatic - daughter goes out for the evening and you’re weeping and wailing imagining her dying and empty chairs and empty tables like Marius. No wonder your husband is irritated most of the time if that’s how you carry on. Maybe he was just enjoying being childfree for the night!

He sounds a lot like my DH, whom I have often "joked" is a sociopath. That being said, I have seen DH break down at appropriate times, like after the death of a pet, however in the days leading up to it, the emotion was all me and I felt very alone. My DH rarely shows emotion unless it is anger, yep.

DH is very affectionate to DC but not to me, and never has been. He has always had his walls up, can never show any vulnerability with me. I often feel like I live with a stranger. Has no close friends and never did, though I guess often male friendships are a bit different. Everyone in my life likes him but finds conversation with him to never reach beyond surface level, no matter how long they have known him.

DH seems to wear his coldness like a badge of honor, sort of like your husband's proclamation. Honestly, I don't think any of it is true, but rather that for whatever reason, he perceives people who feel emotion deeper as being weak. My DH always has childhood issues, not the same, but parental neglect issues.

It's very hard to live with someone like this.

For what it's worth, I think your DH would absolutely feel a lot of emotion if God forbid something happened to DD. I just have to wonder how much of this wall he has up is a defense mechanism of some kind. If it is, don't expect to break through it, though.

I think a lot of men tend to repress their emotions, push them down and try to ignore them, which means they often come out explosively as anger. He has probably done this with his emotions about his mother. And likely he has done it about death itself - death is a very difficult thing to navigate emotionally, so he probably doesn't allow himself to feel anything. While this is normal, it is not great and I would encourage him to talk through some of his feelings - especially negative but also positive ones and start with how he related to his mother. He needs to process emotions, either with you or perhaps with a therapist.

This.

So he said he’d feel nothing at all - total indifference. But he says he does feel anger? So he is capable of anger but he didn’t think if his child died he would even be able to summon any??

Sociopath. Serious red flag. I wouldn’t be able to trust anything he says. What do all his “I love you’s” mean if he also says he isn’t capable of emotion and has no real feeling towards people at all..?

I used to feel like I had no feelings/cared about nothing when I was incredibly depressed and actually it turned out there was a vast well of sadness underneath that I had completely disconnected from. Is he ok?

I am autistic and when younger I used to feel like I couldn't imagine how I would feel if something bad happened and therefore assume I would just carry on as normal. I've subsequently learned through sad experience that I have been utterly on-the-floor devastated to lose people or see people I love suffering. So the imagining and the reality are two different things and not a sign that he is in any way dangerous or an unsavoury character.

Perhaps he just can’t recognize a future feeling if he has never felt it before.
Also it might be a bit of a ‘tough guy’ thing if he is showing love and caring but does not ‘name’ those emotions as that.
Im a women and I’m not the most demonstrative person when it comes to showing love to anyone other than my DH. My sister was with me recently as my dad is not well and I told her that I would be ok if my dad died and by that I mean that I would cope and get on with things whereas I know she would be a mess.

Another vote for Alexithymia here and possible ND. Experienced as having no language to describe feelings bcos they are not perceived or felt. Bar anger, frustration intolerance, irritability.

I was going to say this. My husband is autistic and I could imagine him thinking this way too. He finds it difficult to imagine emotions that haven't happened to him. It doesn't mean he has no feelings, but he finds it hard to name them and would struggle to put himself in another person's shoes. If I asked him how he'd feel if DD died I think he'd say something along the lines of he doesn't know because he's never experienced it. It would be a bloody weird thing for me to ask him though and I know he'd be devastated but one of his traits of autism is struggling to name his emotions.

This could be depression my ex used to talk about feeling numb and having a wall built up to hold back anger. Might be worth speaking to the GP or any of the mens heath charities? Hope you're ok 🌸

Alexythemia: also called emotional blindness, is a neuropsychological phenomenon characterized by significant challenges in recognizing, expressing, feeling, sourcing and describing one's emotions.

I think a lot of men have this tbh, especially those with ASD.