is it normal for me to feel like Dp hates it when i speak ...

[treesap]

Dp and I have been together 6 years we have 2 beautiful children , we have always had to work Extremely hard at our relationship ( harder than others I feel ) and we are probably at a point where we are too comfortable we both have quite bad tempers and sharp tongues we bicker quite a lot but I think that's just who we are ...
Being in a relationship defiantly doesn't come naturally to either of us (mayb we are products of our upbringings -both from broken homes and dysfunctional families and are very concious and under of giving our children what we never had ...... maybe its just who we are i'm not sure )
but the thing i struggle with the most is that whenever i speak about anything either serious or just chit chat he seems to be in physical pain.
I have spoken to him many times about this and been on many occasions quite upset about it he genuinely seems to understand , sympathise and want to do better but then then the next thing i say he just Glazes over as usual ..
I see him having conversations with other people and he can converse with the best of them but with me he had no response , constantly misses the point and either has a response that makes no sense completely irrelevant or doesn't bother to respond at all ... he also is very good at saying exactly what i want to hear but with no actual reason or meaning and i never know if its honest or just rubbish i struggle to take anything he says seriously as i feel he just says things for the sake of it or just says what he thinks i want to hear .... its as if he has know opinions or actual thoughts of his own .. he will just repeat back to me whatever i have said
He does the same when we are arguing and will say abck to me what i have said to him as if i haven't said it which then gets us no where . like he is a robot programmed to say certain things .

Is this normal typical man behaviour - a concept i find difficult to accept to begin with . or are we doomed .

I worries me to think i am going to spend the rest of my life having no-one to talk to the one person who i should be able to talk to about anytihng

My ExH used to be a bit like this. When I spoke he looked as if he wasn't listening to what I said, merely waiting for me to stop talking so that he could talk again - do you know what I mean? If he did occasionally listen to what I said it wuld be dismissed, laughed at or belitted - what I said and felt was often described as "silly"

Note the word "ex"

I hope you're OK OP

In all honesty, when someone says things like "we argue a lot, but that's just who we are", or "being in a relationship is difficult for us but that's because of who we are", what their words are actually saying is that they have been in a broken relationship for so long, that they have lost sight of what a normal, healthy relationship actually looks like, and are trying to desperately justify their situation (to themselves) by "normalising" it by attributing it to their personalities.

His behaviour isn't normal. He doesn't listen because he isn't interested in what you have to say. He changes the subject because he doesn't consider anything you raise to be of importance. He get's annoyed when you call him out on it because he thinks you're too stupid to notice what he is doing, or he resents you for thinking that he should have to listen to your nonsense.

I don't know what either of you are like individually, but I would say as a couple you two are not suited at all.

Communication and listening to the other person is one of the fundamental pillars that a good relationship is built on. Even if other things are great, it doesn't matter. It's like a house built on sand.

I hope you're OK, too, OP.

But not admitting that he's got a problem is typical of people with that problem.

As someone who has had that problem (hearing loss) all their life, I would just like to point out that 'not admitting it' is not simply an annoying quirk that mysteriously afflicts all people with hearing loss. It is the result of the way that the majority of people around us fail to respond to our hearing loss in an adequate way, coupled with the negative views of hearing loss portrayed all around us. In the end, you give up and just try to get on with it as best you can.

Where is it suggested he's deaf?

MrsTees' post at 12.34

I don't think she's actually suggesting he's deaf, just using it as an example of physical problems that could cause this behaviour. It doesn't sound to me as if deafness is the issue here.

Nomdemere is quite right. Hearing loss is just one of many reasons why people can find communication very taxing. Nomdemere, I myself have intermittent hearing loss. People don't respond well to it.

Me neither.

Good Christ, how far will people actually go to make excuses for men who are simply ignorant twats ?

How do you know the OP's dh is simply an ignorant twat?

What would you say if it turned out he did have hearing loss?

And what if the hearing loss - or whatever other impediment to social communication it turned out to be - were genetic, and the OP's dc had the same traits? Would you expect her to write off her dc as ignorant twats? Or would it be better if she knew what difficulties her dc might have inherited from their df, especially if she hoped they might form relationships themselves as adults?

MrsTeee - arent you rather missing the point when the OP says that he is magically able to converse and socially normally with literally everyone else?

It sounds that if he has hearing problems they are EXTREMELY selective...

I'm not saying hearing problems are the issue here - it's an analogy.

I'm saying it would be useful to find out what the issue is. "Ignorant twat" sounds a bit dismissive to me. Surely to write someone off without doing a bit of research first would be acting in ignorance, and rather twattish. Starting a thread on MN is a good way to kick off such research.

What would you say if it turned out he did have hearing loss?

Brilliant.

AF, what would you say is the cause of your own father's behaviour towards your mother?

You want to get me started on that ?

OK, I will try and put it succinctly. He is arrogant, he doesn't respect women, he is inadequate so feels better when he puts others down, he has anger issues that are not a mental health issue but a learned behaviour and finally he is an ignorant twat who doesn't even respect himself.

He learned all this at the feet of his father. His mother killed herself. My mother has medicated herself out of all resistance.

He isn't deaf. He doesn't have Asperger's or sensory processing issues or OCD or any of that other stuff that people come up to explain away behaviour like thisn in the abscence of a diagnosis by a trained professional

if I had to "diagnose" him with anything, I would say he had an untreatable personality disorder.

Feel sorry for him if you like, say he can't help it, say my mother did right to stand by him.

But you would be very wrong.

Your mother is clearly completely wrong to stand by him.

What about your partner - was he the same as your father?

What kind of man do you think your dd might be attracted to?

I broke the cycle, MrsT.

I will not be complicit in modelling that kind of relationship for both my daughter and my son.

And I will never find reasons for others to do it either.

Do they never see their father?

I think you have something wrong somewhere, MrsT.

You assume I am projecting about an awful relationship with the father of my children but I am not. I have been happily married for over 20 years.

Why still so angry then?

I tried to engage with you but you just want to poke me. I am sorry I shared such personal stuff. I don't do it much, and this is why.

I'll stick to advising others in my own way in future. Thanks for your concern, MrsT. If that is what it was.

I assure you I don't want to poke you. Could you allow other MNers to offer advice in their own way, too? I am concerned that you might be hoping that by advising MNers to LTB, you hope your mum might have a better life.

Simplistic bollocks