[long: sorry] any ideas for how I can accept him as he is (cool, distant...)...?

[outinthecold]

i've namechanged as don't want to out self. I am a regular.

Had another massive row with DP. We have had the same row for the 15 years we've been together. We both love each other, but we simply cannot communicate. We are very different personalities, and that was one of the things I really loved about him when we first met.

I have always wanted to know his 'inner life' but it is almost as if he doesn't have one. He can't articulate feelings (except the angry or sexual ones) Most of the time, I am fine with this as I can be a bit cool sometimes too. However I also often feel things pretty strongly and get excitable and passionate and rabbity and so on.

We haven't had much sex lately, although it 'comes up' once a month or so! He is much more demonstrative with our kids than he is with me - he knows they need a hug and a cuddle, and he can sometimes (not always)read their feelings.

When I bring up the issue that I feel a bit isolated, as if there is little affection in the bank, he usually loses it. Can't cope, gets angry. Usually the argument goes like this: 'look, all i'm saying is I want you to notice that I look lovely and say so' or 'I want you to want to walk over and give me a hug or kiss sometimes, and not have to ask you...' and he says 'well, I told you when we went to Relate that I have some issues with not being able to separate out feeling pissed off in general with you from my feeling affectionate/sexy [or whatever]'

I then point out that we went to Relate YEARS ago [when he was in a state of terrible grief and I was going through some other shite].

My perception is that he can't bear any suggestion of need from others because he sees it as criticism; his perception is that I am demanding and often nasty to him [for which I think he means I am bossy, critical and stuff] and so he doesn't 'feel' nicely toward me.

I am beginning to think we are just completely mismatched. Do I just have to accept living with someone cooler than I need? Or that my 'needs' are false ones and I AM being critical and 'nasty'?

don't think Ive explained myself well. Sorry.

Has anyone got a description of gaslighting, as that is not a common term that the average person would understand, well I didn't when I first heard of it, there was once a very good description somewhere on here that someone gave!?

I don't want to start ramming points home, when the OP asked about 'accepting' her relationship. Sorry and all that. OP, I've offered what I believe is sound advice from comparable experience. I've said I share your other respondents' concerns - if you feel your thread's taking a turn which feels important to you, then please write back :)

Dittany, thanks for that link, it is not the one I read on here, it is much better actually x

OP your DH sounds a lot like mine, though mine does not often get angry. He is incredibly bright and articulate but really cannot articulate his own emotions and is not very demonstrative. When I have been feeling low I have found this cripplingly difficult but what I realized, coming out of that pit, is that he is completely consistent with me, he does not waiver or fault me. And sometimes, I have to give him some home truths - i have to be the expressive one, even when something is blatantly obvious. What I worked out was that in previous relationships I was used to getting a certain amount of affirmation which I wasn't seeing (or initially seeking) with him. If it never happened, its unlikely it will. You muddle through, you address real problems and try to fix them together. If you love him, lighten up a bit - keeping harping on the same theme can get very waring, for all concerned. I'm not criticizing you, just coming from the same place.

ok, but I think the bringing things up from the past is quite a juvenile response from him - and all part and parcel of not being able to express oneself particularly well (in the confines of an intimate relationship). My DH did this early on and I was like "are you a teenage boy? give it up, move on, we're not talking about that now" and actually it sunk in eventually. THere are always things to manage in a relationship, faults, flaws, etc.

Woah - hold on there MNers. I've skimmed through this thread and can see the words 'Aspergers', 'Verbal Abuse' etc and think this is going a bit too far.

IMO - and the opinion of many experts in differences between the sexes - what the OP is describing is simply the fundamental characteristics of the woman wanting to talk over issues, and the man wanting to avoid them at all costs. This is basic male/female behaviour.

Of course we are all individuals and some men like to talk intimately with their partners, but a big majority don't. Men release testosterone when they get stressed, which is why they get angry when confronted with the stressful scenario of relationship analysing. Women release ostrogen - the'touchy feely' hormone that counteracts the affects of the stress hormone. This is why we seek to bond with people during tough times (our DHs for example) and talk through our problems with the people involved when any issues arise.

It is so easy to label men with these dramatic labels - to brand them as the bad guys because they are not on our level. It's just not fair on them. They are just coming at it from a different angle - no one is right and no one is wrong.

OP, you are facing what many many women face on a daily basis - living with a man who doesn't like to talk about his feelings. It's really nothing new.

You just need to decide whether it's something that you can live with and accept, or if you think you need to find yourself a more communicative mate for the future. The trouble is that in the beginning men employ better verbals skills as a way of literally talking you into the bedrooom. It's often the case that the 'salesmanship' will disappear after a few years together anyway and you will find yourself in the same situation - with a man who prefers to bottle up rather than open up.

Wow. Good post Spaceman and thank you.

Although I agree with Dittany and Grace, spaceman technically has a point that it's not the cause that's the issue, it's what you're going to do about it that matters.
Whether he has aspergers, is abusive, or both - the end result is his behaviour, and you are struggling with that, understandably I think. To be honest, after reading your subsequent posts, I think he doesn't sound like a keeper, and not from the start, or at any point since. But it's up to you, not us lot: we can only offer our opinion.
I hope you find clarity and strength, OP. Take care.

Ugh. I told X#2, "Sometimes I need to think out loud. When I do this, you can help me by listening - I don't need answers, your best help is just to listen while I work it out, OK?" Sure, he said. He did, too. Just like it says in that stupid Mars-Venus book!

I don't think outinthecold is as dumb as I was then.

Vicky, can I marry you?

Grace, who is Vicky? Cheerful?

Grace, that is pure cheese to expect a man to sit there like a councelor while you rant away about your innermost.

I accept that my post is Mars/Venus in tone (I've never so much as opened that book by the way), but it is the truth that we expect so much from our DPs and they are just not tuned the same way.

Lots of women are cunning and manipulative and are notorious game players in relationships. Many of us will try anything to get to the core of our DPs if need be - to provoke some sort of reaction from them. We could also be accused of being abusive.

It's hard being in a relationship and we expect so much from them. These are facts. Some people gel - they are the lucky ones - but most have to work hard and put up with a lot. It's just the way it is.

The Mars Vs Venus writers GOT DIVORCED. The book is a total Bullshit attempt of theirs to understand each other, which failed.

Like anon, some of your description of your dh reminds me of mine. He often seems to have no inner life and is not big on deep and meaningfuls. I :) at talking in the dark and wondering if he's asleep because he doesn't respond at the expected point in the conversation.

The things you want him to do - tell you you look nice, for eg, he doesn't really do that. But we don't ever row about it because it's never struck me as a problem. That's not who he is, and I don't really understand how you can "need" to be told that.

There again, he is affectionate and I know he loves me and never doubt that, so it's not some sacrifice to just ask if he thinks I look nice.

Also he never wants to lecture me about things without interruption, which sounds like verbal bullying.

Again, the resentment and anger if you try to discuss any of this seems odd - DH never
initiates those discussions, but he respects my pov enough to listen when I have something to say. Although it is not something that happens a lot.

I think it is more than possible to be very
happy with a man who is not very emotional if you love him how he is and know he loves you. I find DH's stability and lack of drama a tonic.

Sometimes I feel like knocking him on
the head and saying "hello, is there a human
in there?" but only in a spirit of fun. He is a very kind, decent, sweet man so the fact that
he had nothing at all to say about his father's
death (ditto!) is his business. If he ever wants to talk
I'll listen, but he doesn't.

I also recognise the easier relationship with his children - with our dds he is effortlessly open. It is a lovely thing to see.

My advice is similar to anon's - don't sweat the small stuff, but also don't let him make you miserable by holding on to past resentments and withholding affection to upset you. There is a big difference between just being someone who isn't very emotional and using emotional withdrawal to maintain power in a relationship.

This has been a very interesting thread to read. I'm in a similar situation. Monosyllabic partner who never pays me a nice word (thanks, compliment, whatever). good man, great father. Not my ideal bf.

The best wake-up call I got was from my brother who said, that I am, more than anyone else he knows, hard wired to thrive in emotionally-complex relationships. And this one I am in, well, it certainly ain't that.

I've made myself a counseling appointment to talk this through. It not an easy place to be.

Our relationship has been successful because we've always had a 'project', kids, house, holiday to plan and manage together.

I think you can learn to live with how things are if you have enough friends in your life who help fill the gaps, but there are some gaps, we want our dps to fill, not friends.

The question becomes; what can you live with?

Dittany, my DH was controlling BECAUSE he had Aspergers and needed everything in his life, including his wife, to be ordered just so. I couldn't deal with that, which was why I left. But he did love me, was devastated that I had left, and would have made any changes he could to have me back. He was a good person, and a kind person, and he knew about his control issues and desperately wanted to fix them. But despite oodles of therapy that I didn't even ask him to do, he couldn't help the controlling thing.

You'll probably say I was deluded and he was abusive. He was not; abuse requires conscious intent to harm, which in his case was entirely absent.

It was only later that I clicked about the Aspergers (too much to go into the detail as to why I concluded this). I now just feel terribly sorry for him.

While I accept that some of what I see here is a fair description of what goes on, and some of the behaviour in that link does ring bells, I'm not convinced by the label, or the model. I think when there is an imbalance of power (adult/child, violent/victim, financially solvent/dependent) then the abuse model is helpful. But in most adult relationships where mostly both partners have a say, where violence or threats are not happening, where fear is not the main feeling, I don't think it helps. It objectifies the issue and 'gives it back' to one party.

I think he does have a problem with communicating, and feeling things, and I do think he is 'controlling'. I showed him the thread last night. He didn't want to read past my first post. We talked about the versions of ourselves presented here, and he felt only some of him was presented as well as one version of me. I agree with him. I just don't believe in people as unchangeable containers of things they do to others.

It is quite possible that it works for people on the thread to describe what happened to them as 'gaslighting' or emotional abuse. I don't think that is what is happening to me. I think probably those kind of things are part of a spectrum of things we that men do in relationships because they've learnt to be men in a particular way. I don't want to objectify my partner as an abuser, I want to recognise him as a human being struggling with feelings in the same way I do.

Am I in no position to judge because I can't see ewhat you can see from the outside? Maybe. But you have a vested interest also - oncw youve accepted an explanation works for you, it is hard to get rid of it.

It's certainly influenced by therapy. I don't see whatis wrong with that influence. The version of relationships in the links you gave are a different version of 'therapyspeak', one I feel uncomfrotable with. there is not a right answer.

I certinaly don't think it is only my reactions which are important. His behaviour is an issue, but my representations of it need exploring too - maybe in therapy. I just think this version of relationships set up one person to be right, which is odd, because that is exactly what that link on gaslighting says is abuse!