A little back story -
Been together several years, 2DC’s under 3. DP has always struggled with communication or rather, lack of. He’s been this way from the beginning of our relationship but I assumed, in the early days, that the more time we spent together, the more comfortable we’d become with one another meaning he’d eventually be able to open up more easily and freely.
After a few years, his behaviour never changed. Issues or problems would arise whereby I’d try to sit him down and talk things through, only to be met with him avoiding eye contact, not saying a damn word and just acting as though as I wasn’t even in the room trying to have a conversation with him. That’s his go to, well, that or simply storming out of the room and going to bed at a ridiculously early hour as an attempt to ignore me entirely.
It took me a while before I stumbled upon the term of Stonewalling and realised that he exhibits this exact trait down to the very last detail.
I told DP about it upon discovering all about stonewalling and it’s effects, I asked him if he’s always been like this (prior to meeting me) and he admitted this is a long term issue that he’s struggled with for as long as he can remember. Naturally I told him if this behaviour or ‘coping mechanism’ continues, it’s going to cause detrimental damage to our relationship as I can’t be with someone that doesn’t ever attempt to resolve or work through problems and acts as though he’s completely not listening to my thoughts or feelings.
After many months of me keep trying to help DP battle this engrained behaviour and nothing changing, I suggested he go to therapy to talk through things with a professional as nothing I seemed to say resonated with him.
After being on the waiting list for the NHS Therapy For You for service for over 6 months, he finally had his first appointment the other week. Brilliant! He’s acknowledged there’s something not quite right and is taking the steps to see what he can do about it. Problem (potentially and hopefully) solved regarding the stonewalling, I thought.
Then something happened this week that’s highlighted another on going issue that I think I’ve been turning a blind eye too because I’ve been so focused on the stonewalling.
Our 2DC’s came down ill last weekend and haven’t sleep at all this week. We’re both exhausted and at our wits end regarding how to get our youngest DC to sleep for longer than 2 hours at the moment. After many hours of being in the nursery with DC2 and having no luck, DP took over. He proceeded to sit and rock DC2 which is exactly what I’d been doing and it clearly wasn’t working. I told DP he was wasting his time and that we needed to try a different approach, this for some reason, struck a nerve and he told me to fuck off. I left the room and returned after about half an hour after hearing DC2 still crying and DP obviously not being any closer to getting him to sleep. I once again said that he was wasting his time, he should go back to bed and let me take over, let me take the baby to the lounge and see if that helps at all, he handed me DC2 and again, told me to fuck off and ‘just do whatever’.
After DC2 had had some snacks and a 10 minute crawl around, I took him back to the nursery and he fell asleep with no fuss and stayed asleep from 3am-6am (a huge improvement given what we’d been going through all this week). I told DP that if he’d just let me take over sooner, we all could’ve got back to sleep a lot quicker than what we did. He mumbled a bunch of shit, pulled the duvet up and over his head and again, told me to fuck off.
The next morning, he got up and went to work and I sent him message saying that I wasn’t okay with being told to fuck off so many times unnecessarily and that it hurt me, when all I was trying to do was get DC2 down as quick as possible so that both DC and DP could go back to bed. I told him I expected an apology.
He ignored all of my messages - as he always does - so I brought it up again when he got in from work and asked him how long I can expect to go without a sincere apology. He basically ending up flying off the wall and telling me that he won’t be ‘guilt tripped’ in to an apology, that I twist every situation to try and make him feel guilty as a way of 'getting what I want'.
Upon him saying this, it dawned on me that he always does this. He always minimises my feelings to the point where I wind up being left doubting whether I even have a right to be upset or annoyed about anything. If I pull him up on something that’s upset or bothered me, it always transcends to ME apologising to him (fuck knows how!?!) and I always end up regretting ever voicing my opinion in the first place because of the shitstorm that follows.
I’m constantly second guessing myself after arguments that we’ve had and find myself wondering whether I’m even entitled to have feelings or opinions that go against his.
Is this gaslighting? I don’t know whether it is or not, after having a little look online he does seem to fit the description, but for anyone who 100% knows that they’ve been with a gaslighter - does this sound like something you’ve been through/something they would’ve done to you?
Thanks!