Husband not responding when I talk to him

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Really fucking pissed off about this. It's just not a normal way to behave. I've been feeling a little down lately. Then started thinking about some things to do with my family earlier. Childhood not abusive but I just want to talk some things through sometimes. This same issue crops every couple of months or so and I feel a bit conflicted since I feel I am close to my parents but these things bother me. So I started talking to him, wanting his opinion, advice, support, anything really. Just a normal, two way conversation. He put a computer game on as I was talking. I continued on and predictably got nothing back. I asked him to stop doing that and talk to me. Nothing. At best I get 'I don't know what to say'. He told me we've had this conversation before. Not true. I've told him these things before and he has said nothing. I don't even get acknowledgement that he's heard me.

It's just so rude. I can't imagine ever treating him like that, making him feel that he's less important than a computer game. He didn't even have the decency to look at me as I was talking to him, so I was talking to the back of his head. I got so bloody fed up and told him I was disgusted that he can't even do me the courtesy of looking at me when I talk to him and told him it was fucking stupid, walking out of the room in tears. Needed to go and calm down. I heard him continue on with his game for five minutes, then the baby cried and he came in he kitchen like nothing had happened. Happy to sweep everything under the rug. That seems to be the way his family function. I'm just sick of it. I just want the tiniest bit of emotional support or to feel that I am being heard. It's not my job to teach another adult that it is rude to silently sit with your back to someone when they're trying to have a conversation with you.

He doesn't like talking about things. It did actually seem to improve a lot at one point. I can't believe I have to ask my husband to respond to me when I talk. I supported him so much through some things over the past two years and everything is brilliant until I'm not ok and I get nothing from him.

Haha, succinct! There has been definite improvement over the years. Ignoring me often doesn't seem to be done to intentionally be horrible. I've seen him take five minutes to turn his thoughts into words. I can see his lips move a bit and I know that he is finally going to say something but I have to wait. It's like it pains him to say anything. Ugh. I don't even know what I want from this. I want to not have to explain to my husband that it is rude to refuse to even acknowledge that somebody is speaking to you. Genuinely not sure whether he heard me sometimes.

Just remembered that he did actually say something when pushed! He said 'it seems to be a suicide'. It was a comment about the game he was playing. I asked wtf he was ignoring me and for a response. He responded by telling me what was going on in his game he's not that oblivious. I'm fairly certain he knew how dismissed that would make me feel.

Haha, succinct! There has been definite improvement over the years. Ignoring me often doesn't seem to be done to intentionally be horrible. I've seen him take five minutes to turn his thoughts into words. I can see his lips move a bit and I know that he is finally going to say something but I have to wait. It's like it pains him to say anything. Ugh. I don't even know what I want from this. I want to not have to explain to my husband that it is rude to refuse to even acknowledge that somebody is speaking to you. Genuinely not sure whether he heard me sometimes.

Just remembered that he did actually say something when pushed! He said 'it seems to be a suicide'. It was a comment about the game he was playing. I asked wtf he was ignoring me and for a response. He responded by telling me what was going on in his game he's not that oblivious. I'm fairly certain he knew how dismissed that would make me feel.

My DH is similar. Marriage guidance counselling helped. One thing we did (at her suggestion) was wrote some rules. One of his is to remember to make eye contact occasionally.

He sounds ASD to me. I think if at all possible you should find out if he is, simply so that you know whether he CAN behave differently, say with some therapy, or if you are going to have to decide whether you can live like this with no change possible. I don't know how one goes about getting a diagnosis though. Can you speak to your GP?

I don't know so much about the asd. He doesnt seem that way to me. Lack of eye contact is only a problem if we argue. He seems incapable of looking at me in that situation and it drives me mad. I actually mentioned it to him during our last argument and he did then make eye contact with me but obviously didn't want to. I had to tell him that it is rude to leave the house without saying bye when we first moved in. I'd say something and realise he'd gone to work! And wonder why he was annoyed at me. Thoug part of me thinks he does know it's rude and was doing it on purpose. He can be very stroppy and stubborn!

He's not interested in seeing a GP, or writing things down as somebody suggested up thread. Any change in the way we communicate would be solely instigated by me. He'd be happy to continue this way and never have uncomfortable discussions.

You sound unsuited. Some people are born talkers, some are born listeners & you don't sound in sync.

Naze, op is describing a person who neither a talker nor a listener. She might as well be talking to the wall.

He is quiet with people he doesn't know very well, but not unusually so. He's not considered particularly quiet within his group of friends. He was a class clown type at school. I'm not particularly loud myself, I just talk to my husband in a normal way about our lives! It's definitely true that I can read people very well and pick up on things he doesn't. But none of that is relevant. It's not possible to have a relationship where you never need to have important discussions.

So what's your plan Mrs.

I really don't know. My brain goes to come up with a solution and it always starts "so, we'll have a talk about this"... I've got no choice but to attempt a discussion about this! A decent time to discuss this will be Saturday evening at the earliest, which I find silly. I just want to deal with things there and then. It means pretending that everything is fine over the next few days and then starting it all up.

Caution op. My husband just said one night 'I'm not doing this anymore'. That was it, no discussion, of course. I had no option but to leave or live in polite silence

The lack of intimacy just brought out the worst in me

Stonewalling (ignoring your partner) is a high predictor of divorce.It is more common in men.I feel for you as it's totally invalidating.

It could be ASD and learnt behaviour.The walking out of the door without saying bye is a good example.My dsd (asd) had to be told to acknowledge people when she enters a room, e.g getting up in the morning she would just walk past anyone, not due to sleepiness but because she never considered it necessary.

The risk you have is if you pursue your h he will withdraw further (Google distancer, pursuer).He could also react angrily as to him you are the unreasonable one.

In the beginning he may have felt more motivated to try but after a few years he has reverted to type.
If he's not motivated it's unlikely to be fixed.At best you will have to accept less emotional support.

I don't think these issues become apparent until years into a relationship so don't blame yourself.

Hermione : read 'pursuer - distanced', yep that sounds about right and accepted my role as the pursuer. When I stepped out of that role that's when we existed in polite 'burning' resentful silence. Sorry if I am now hijacking your thread. Will butt out. Distance myself 🌷

You have a completely superficial relationship.

What DO you talk about? Just day-to-day practicalities? What was it like when you first started seeing each other?

You could be telling my story op. I've had the TV turned up on me and the ignoring and the being treated like a liar when I'm seriously ill. I don't know how you have done it for six years.

Only two of the kids I know with ASD struggles with eye contact. People can have good eye contact and ASD

He sounds identical to my ex. Right down to the eye contact and total lack of empathy and invalidation and taking away my voice in the relationship. It affects my mental health being treated like that. Be sure he isn't just an arrogant narcissistic twat trying to keep you in your place before you start looking at aspergers or medical causes. Mine is psychopathic in his level of cold disregard for anyone that's suffering or struggling. He has never had a health issue and he has a total lack of emotional intelligence. Doing the dishes when he comes in is more important than seeing his baby or partner. Everyone has to tiptoe round him and he is surly to any guests that visit and makes it uncomfortable so that they leave. It's no way to live.

Harvest that's very interesting! I think weve moved towards respect/acceptance/trust and because I'm less hounding/desperate connection wise, a more natural connection has developed

Harvestmoon, I don't think you are hijacking my thread at all, you can post whatever you like!

When we first got together it was fun and lovely. Except that I was really depressed and struggling at times. Before we got together, I confided in him about the depression. He didn't exactly say much but he helped me out a lot, started coming over and bringing me meals, took me and my son out to places. As I said before, we were friends beforehand and he was one of the only people that bothered with me once I had a child. He would come round and sit with me until the early hours of the morning while I was upset, he did say supportive things but I think he was a bit out of his depth. He isn't great with words. Once we'd been in a relationship for a while, he started to really struggle with the lack of improvement, I think. I can understand that. Depression made me selfish and exhausting. He definitely thought of it as some external thing that could be made better but it was inside me, there was no problem to solve. My house was often dirty and messy because I struggled to do anything. He got it into his head that I was lazy. He has since told me that he confused my depression with laziness and he was wrong. But it seems that if I ever slip back, he struggles to be supportive and immediately jumps to conclusions which don't give me the benefit of the doubt. It feels as though he goes straight back to 'she's lazy', or some other bad conclusion. There might be an initial period of support but not much after that. I can understand that he doesn't know what to say, but I'm not depressed anymore. I have short term periods of not feeling so great and just a little reminder that I'm not alone and that the rest of the world is out there and is filled with life is enough to bring me back up but he doesn't really seem to try.

In our day to day relationship we just talk about normal things. I am much more of a thinker than he is, but have never felt frustrated that we can't talk about things. If we're discounting the average 'how was work today, the kids did this, what are we having for tea' kind of conversations, we talk about stuff like politics and news (only a little bit as we're not overly interested), I talk about feminism a LOT, which he is supportive of, I talk about my brilliant, amazing thoughts throughout the day on many topics stories from the day, we make each other laugh... I sing/play silly little songs about our lives sometimes accompanied by dance routines I guess normal things. I am the driving force behind most conversations but I don't feel mismatched. I am a real over thinker and have never felt the kind of despair I have in other relationships. I feel happy and settled. I like to talk and think about the future a lot and plan things. I am the researcher in our relationship and the one who usually comes up with ideas. Im comfortable with this and he is happy to discuss most things I bring up. He has occasionally claimed to not have thoughts but I don't believe that. I described my thought processes to him in the past and he found it interesting and said that he doesn't think that way. The thing I referred to supporting him through was his mom's death. She was young. I think it has changed his outlook. Sometimes he has opened up to me about things but often not. He can be lying on the floor crying and claim that he's not. I don't push it at all.

I don't think he is abusive. He is capable of empathising with other people, though mainly looks awkward and doesn't word things well. We tend to fall back into what I mentioned earlier whenever it's me that needs support though.

I don't think he'd ever be open to any kind of counselling. The idea of talking to somebody like that would be hell to him. I know he would sit there in silence and shrug his shoulders. I haven't really spoken to him properly since it happened, but haven't had much chance. We watched tv together last night and ate breakfast together this morning.

I think he knows something is wrong because he's acting a bit sheepish but he won't ask me.

When you go to bed, does he lie awake 'thinking' or does he just seem to 'turn off' like a robot deactivating? Asking because I've got a man a bit like this, who appears to have no 'inner life' at all, who can't understand those 'middle of the night' worries, and simply CANNOT put himself in another person's shoes. It's wearing. Very wearing.

I hate talking, to actually sit down just to talk makes me feel awkward, like a job interview. Maybe try playing he game with him? My husband and I have thrashed out many an issue over a game of mario kart

Your DP sounds like my ex. I just lived with a zombie like person a lot of the time. I started taking us out walking and he would talk then but only generally slagging off other people's relationships (seemingly not noticing his own was failing). If I started to try to talk about issues important to me (our relationship) he would shut down, tell me not to 'spoil things' or lose his temper. At times when I became so frustrated I'd cry he'd make out I had MH issues (fortunately I've never had this) or just blank me. I lost count of the number of times I laid upstairs on my own crying whilst he was on his games console or phone. It was exhausting and lonely, and was always over when he decided. If I carried on being upset it would just start all over again. One of our issues was fertility and his refusal to deal with it has robbed me of having a family as I'm now in my 40s. I stayed far far too long. I'm living on my own now, happy in myself, new DP. I still feel angry sometimes that I stayed with ex too long. Search your soul, is this the partner you want for all time? Only you can answer that.

He had insomnia when we were first together but I think it was down to having worked odd shifts for years rather than thoughts. He once told me that he didn't understand how i had all these thoughts and I asked how he couldn't? He said 'well I just get up in the morning and feel fine and do stuff and don't think about it'. He was still living the life of a young, single man then though. He has changed since going through his mom's illness and death. It hit him very hard.

I'm very self aware and he's not. I can sometimes see that he is feeling a certain way or guess why he is behaving a certain way but I have to wait for him to say it. Sometimes I lose patience and will have to say something ridiculous like 'why are you being funny with me? Is It because this happened on this day and you took it to mean this when It really meant this and then you took what I said he next day as confirmation of the first thing?' It's tiring. I have to go back through things and see how I believe he may have reacted to them even though that's not my view of how things happened. I don't think he would list events like that.

When I first went to his dad's house he acted very strangely. He got a bit animated and said 'see, there are no photos of me' and looked like he might cry. He had a strange expression on his face as we drove home. His thoughts and feelings on the situation were very clear but he claimed to not have any. He refuses to discuss the situation with his dad and I'm not sure he could really articulate what happened and how it affected him. His brother had counselling over it and I don't for a second believe it didn't affect my husband but he just won't talk. It's not some horrific abuse in his childhood, but it has clearly affected him.