Can someone who is EA towards you, love you?

[winniemum]

Just wondered really as I don't think my H can love me any more. We've had a bad year and it's getting worse all the time. Married over 20yrs.
Yesterday he sat at the table and asked me if I liked my hair short (I'd had it cut the day before). I knew where he was leading with this, so I replied ' Yes I love it, I think it looks great', which I think it does, and it's not that short anyway. Oh, he said, a bit of silence, and then, 'it's like your clothes, you never take my advice, you seem to wear the same colours all the time, you should let me choose what suits you.' B**d!

I have been told by my friends I always look nice and I do look after myself. Then he said 'Anyway now you're 50, I suppose I can't change your choice of hair and clothes'. I'm not actually 50 for another few years. B**d again. I didn't rise to any of this, but just got to thinking, can you really love someone and be this nasty?
Would anyone normal say that to their wife?

Love?

How you feel only matters to you. What's important is how you behave towards those you claim to love.

It doesn't matter if he feels that he loves you - that's something that only exists in his head.

If you met a stranger in a coffee-shop and they spoke to you that way, would you say they were trying to make friends or being horribly offensive? That's always my finger-in-the-wind test......

No it's not normal. It's also not 'love' based on equality or respect ... it's the kind of 'love' someone has for a trained animal i.e. OK as long as they are doing tricks and being 100% obedient.

It depends what you mean. Love is very complicated. Someone who is abusive often does love you but it is a sick kind of a love which harms you. Loving you is not the issue it is how they treat you and how you feel that matters.

Lots of people make excuses for people like this "oh that's just how he/she is, he/she loves you in his/her own way" that's the worst thing you can say because it dismisses your right to feel bad about being treated badly. Effects are more important than intentions.

My h hasnt touched me for 16 years. Ive talked about it on here before. Offred what you just wrote in your post there sent a chill down my spine. When he was in hospital back in 2006 after his heart attack,the staff nurse asked to speak to me on my own.
"You know he does love you in his own way" she said. i felt so confused and sad. He hadnt even hugged me for years. Still hasnt.
God knows what sort of conversation he must have had with that nurse. I asked him to go to counselling in the past. He refused. I had an affair.
He must have said more to that nurse about it than hes been willing to say or do with me.

And you're still with him Darkesteyes???

"Love" has a lot to answer for, in my opinion

There's nothing wrong with 'love' AF... it's the crap we'll put up with as we desperately try to delude ourselves that someone still loves us that is the problem! :)

Indeed, cogito

It should be noted that dysfunctional or deviant personalities rarely have any understanding of what it means to love. In such cases, any professions of love are made in order to provide a veneer of ostensible 'normality' and social acceptability and are used as a means to control rather than care for others.

I was seeing OM between mid 2003 and early 2008 so i carried on seeing OM while h was in hospital. I didnt see OM for a couple of weeks when h came home from hospital.
But i needed some support and OM was the only one who would hug me and tell me it was going to be ok.
My parents just kept on about how i should be home to care for h 24/7 back when he had his heart attack and that i wouldnt be able to go out.
Although to be fair to h he told me to ignore my parents and that they were talking bullshit.
But the only real support and demonstrative care for me came from the OM which is one of the reasons that i continued to see him while h was really ill. Looking back on it now God knows how i managed it.

Great post izzy.

What they all said. And in any case, even if he does love you (for a given value of "love"), do you really have to put up with being treated like crap because he loves you? You're not obliged to love somebody in return even if they're nice, and that goes double when they aren't.

That's sad he hasn't touched you for years Darkesteyes. Mine wants to be quite affectionate a lot of the time, which is why I was confused about whether he could still love me. but it's right that how I feel is important and at the moment I don't feel loved at all.

If by 'quite affectionate' you mean he's happy humping you whilst still thinking it's OK to criticise your hair or whatever.... do not confuse 'sexual relief' with 'love'. That's a teenage mistake.

Sorry Annie, just cross post. No, since I've realised he's EA, I'm putting up with it at all, this seems to make him more angry.