I'm so lost

[Some0ne]

I don't understand DH. I don't know what makes him tick. I don't think we have enough in common any more. We live together, we work together, we commute together (when I'm not on maternity leave), we have two kids together, but we don't seem to have any sort of intimacy or real connection. I'm not sure we ever did.

I feel like he never looks at me, never thinks about me, never wants anything from me or needs me. He just goes about his own business and any interaction between us is about the kids, or the house, or whatever practical issue is next. Even sex is business-like. I've forgotten what romance is, if I ever knew.

Also he never pays any attention to anything I say. So 'please put your dishes in the dishwasher' doesn't stop him leaving them on the table, 'please don't buy any more food, the presses are full, it'd take months to eat it all' doesn't stop him bringing home a week's shopping. 'Please don't buy any more junk food, the whole family is overweight and two of us are diabetic, we need to eat more healthily' doesn't stop him coming home with bags full of sugary stuff. 'Please don't take DD out of her cot when you go in to her at night' didn't stop him, so now she cries if I go to her because she knows if she screams for long enough he'll turn up and she can get whatever she wants. Everything is done his way, without any thought whatsoever for what I think. I can't keep the household running properly, and parent two small kids, with someone who just does his own thing as if I don't exist.

I'm so tired of it all; all the relationship is making me feel is alternating loneliness and irritation and I'm comfort eating so much that I'm destroying my health. I had a dream last night about a boy I loved years ago, just before DH and I met, and remembering how it felt to actually connect with someone had me in tears.

I don't know what to do

:(

Could you clear a space for you to sit down with him and talk all this through? There's nothing worse than feeling invisible, it's just horrible. Can you remember a time when you did connect with one another?

I'm sorry you are so down

I take it talking to him about your feelings doesn't help ... judging by your post he doesn't listen. I'm sorry but I have to ask, does he seem on the ASD scale at all?

I can recommend 2 book books by Harville Hendrix that help with all this kind of thing. 'Getting the Love you want' and 'Keeping the love you find'. I had a husband like yours and it felt like I was in the wrong relationship until I learned how to communicate and connect with him and him with me. If you husband is willing the work in these books is a big help. Good luck.

Have you tried getting angry and losing your temper? .... All of this 'please do this, please do that' stuff sounds very subdued and agreeable. Would he ignore you so easily do you think if you were much more demanding & far less polite?

ASD - I've wondered that about him often. So has he actually. But then we think I am too.

I don't think he'd bother with books, he doesn't think there's anything wrong and I can't explain it to him in a way that he can understand. He thinks what we have is what marriage should be.

Why did you marry him? What did you like about him then? What's changed? Is there anything worth getting back to? Or was it always crap. In which case IMHO it will always be crap.

Yes, I've done angry, believe me. It has very predictable results:

• I get angry and tell him why
• He gets angry and denies whatever it is
• I point out to him that I'm not stupid or blind
• He gets angrier and tries to blame me
• I point out that it's actually his fault
• He tries to accuse me of other, unrelated stuff
• I point out that he's trying to shift the attention of his wrongdoings by making things up
• He gets angrier
• He eventually agrees with me, apologises, tells me he won't do it again, and that he doesn't know what else to say
• I point out that he always says he's sorry and it never makes any difference
• He tells me that I deserve better and that maybe I'd be better off without him
• The argument that started with me trying to get him to treat me properly ends with me trying to reassure him that he's not horrible.

Every single time, word for word. We could just play back a recording of ourselves instead of actually having to say it at this stage.

I don't really know why I married him. I think I was deluding myself a bit. Plus I'm a very bad judge of people and he seemed nice, and everyone else thought he was nice. My mum kept going on about how I didn't deserve someone as nice as him. So I assumed he must be a keeper.

I know I made reading a couple of books seem a very simple answer but believe me I was ready to leave my DH and he knew it. I really had got to the end of my tether with him and gave him and ultimatum that he either read the books and attend some counselling with me or that was it. We did Imago therapy and it made total sense that I was with him even though I believed it didn't. Things have improved massively but we still have to remind ourselves to work on things.

I recognize everything you have said and I know how lonely, frustrating and depressing it can be. If nothing else read the books for yourself and get a better understanding of what you are dealing with. It may help you to make a decisions based on what you want rather than trying to get him to change. I had to realize a few things about myself before I could assert myself with DH and also realized that I was using all the wrong communication tools to get through to him.

I don't want to go into too much details about the book but 'Keeping the LOve you Find' is about looking at yourself and finding out why you have chosen someone who behaves in this way. It helped me see that I was playing out some very old behaviours that I had learned as a child. It enabled me understand that he was doing the same and we fit together like a jigsaw. Both trying to get something from the other one that would make us feel whole and loved but both trying to get it in a way that drove the other one mad.

It sounds like psychobabble but it really helped me and I honestly think most people could identify with something in that book. It may be worth a shot.

What do you get out of this relationship now?.

When did the rot really set in?

What are you teaching your children about relationships here?. Two words suffice; damaging lessons.

This is about power and control as much as anything else. Not paying attention to you shows a complete lack of respect for you and by turn your children. They see him treating his wife/their mum with disrespect and learn from that example.

It may equally be that your H is not on the ASD spectrum at all and acts like this because he is abusive. If he has not been diagnosed (and the process of diagnosis is in itself a very long and drawn out process) you cannot assume ASD.

Where do you see yourself in a year's time?. Still together?

"I don't really know why I married him. I think I was deluding myself a bit. Plus I'm a very bad judge of people and he seemed nice, and everyone else thought he was nice. My mum kept going on about how I didn't deserve someone as nice as him. So I assumed he must be a keeper".

Oh no. You yourself were taught a lot of damaging lessons when you were growing up.

It sounds like you were never sure of him but went ahead and married him anyway out of a need to please others like your mother for instance:(. Have you always put other people ahead of you?

Would suggest counselling for your own self only to rebuild your self esteem and worth as well as unlearning all the damaging patterns you were yourself taught.

If you're playing out the same arguments over and over again, you're in a behavioural loop. Unless everyone's willing to change something and compromise, unless you both think it's worth working on, the future will be just more of the same or worse. The questions to ask yourselves... in a calm moment rather than when tempers are frayed.... are things like do we want to stay together, do we want the same things, and where do we see ourselves in 5 or 10 years time? If the answers are very different then I wouldn't waste much more energy.

I think he'd be happy enough to have the same relationship in 10 years. Me, I'm not even sure we really have one at this stage.

I think abusive is an awfully strong word, is it not? Lazy, yes, taking me for granted, yes, blind as a bat when it comes to my needs, but he's not abusive.

I don't think what you describe is abusive, more incompatibility. 'Familiarity breeds contempt' etc. If you're definite that you made a mistake to begin with and don't really want to try any more, tell him and end it. OTOH if you think it may be a 'grass is greener' feeling of dissatisfaction, he needs a rocket up his arese and you want to know what life would be like solo, a trial separation might be the ticket.

He seems quite happy to carry on as he is doing; he is getting what he wants out of this relationship after all.

You however, are not.

Is this really an ideal relationship role model to bring the children up in?. They are learning from both of you. You have a choice re this man, they do not.

Re your comment:-
"I think abusive is an awfully strong word, is it not? Lazy, yes, taking me for granted, yes, blind as a bat when it comes to my needs, but he's not abusive".

Well how would you yourself describe him?.

How does he act around other people; does he treat them too with the same level of contempt that he shows you?. Or is he all sweetness and light to those he comes across?. I would have to tell you that abusers are often very plausible to those in the outside world; it is only behind closed doors that the mask slips.

"If you're definite that you made a mistake to begin with and don't really want to try any more, tell him and end it"

I would agree with this comment. Better to be alone than to be badly accompanied. Your relationship model is not ideal at all is it, what do you want to teach them about relationships?.

"Well how would you yourself describe him?. "

Unhappy? Don't you see two basically unhappy people here? Living alongside each other reasonably well most of the time but heading into well-rehearsed argument patterns from time to time? 'Abuse' to me is when there is an obviously dominant figure, behaving very unreasonably and the other is cowed, trying to keep them happy.

My mum kept going on about how I didn't deserve someone as nice as him

This has made me feel so incredibly sad.

You deserve to be with someone who loves you and treats you with respect. You deserve it. x

I do agree that he's unhappy. I don't think he's getting what he wants from me, but I don't think he knows that (or if he does, he's not admitting it) and I don't know what it is he wants so I can't help.

Maybe if we were both enjoying life in general more, things between us would improve. But I don't really know how to achieve that.

It's his birthday next week; maybe I'll get my parents to take the kids for a day, get him out to doing some nice things and see if I can get him talking.

Talking has to be on the cards because everyone seems to be skating around the problem - whatever that is - and resorting to grumpiness and avoidance instead. Try to keep it personal... 'I feel XYZ'... encouraging him to do likeways. If he goes to his usual tactics like 'you deserve better' then challenge him to be more specific rather than take the 'feel sorry for me' bait and knee-jerk reassure him. An answer like... 'Maybe I do deserve someone better... what would that better person look like do you think? How would he behave?'

When you say life in general is not enjoyable are there other things causing stress? Money? Job? Health? (You mention diabetes and obesity) Depressed, stressed or insecure people can end up being insular and uncommunicative with each other.

He came home from work this evening while I was putting DS to bed. When I went downstairs he was up putting DD to bed, and when he finished there he went to bed himself, without a word.

Oh SomeOne, you poor thing.

Is it he making a point about something or does he think it is normal to do that? I am trying to understand his actions but failing

You need to talk to him, but without it turning into the regular argument you repeat.

Remember that it's perfectly OK to bin a partner who isn't making you happy. People make such a big old ridiculous deal about 'working at relationships' this is just a euphemism for 'Women! Eat shit and know your place.'
It's FINE to be single. You have, by the sound of it, tried to fix this situation, but you are living with a man who doesn't give a toss about you as long as meals are on time, laundry is done and the kids don't bother him much. He considers you as a hoover with tits. This sort of attitude doesn't change.

In our marriage, I go off without DH for 3 days, every about 9 months.My DH cant really leave the business often.
It means that him and I get a break from each other.Which we both enjoy.He gets into takeaway,making his own rules at home etc, while I get to do whatever I want.Bliss.
It also has the effect of him not taking me for granted.
We trust each other, so we are not putting ourselves at risk in that way.
Have you ever had time alon from DH
And if you did,did his behaviour change in any way.