Non-cohabiting relationships- how to maintain intimacy during lockdown when he’s a ‘deeds not words’ type?

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My DP is a kind, caring man who would do anything for me. He is at his best when finding practical solutions to issues and very much a ‘fixer’ type.

However, he’s also not great at on emotional or deep conversations. There have been a few threads on here lately about positive types who can see the best of everything and that’s very much him, but I think he does thisnavoid getting into any difficult or upsetting discussions.

I’ve adapted to this over the 4 years we’ve been together. It’s helped that he is a very tactile person so when we get together at weekends (we’re a bit long distance) I feel like the physical closeness makes up for the absence of verbal intimacy during week.

With the lockdown now though we aren’t meeting up, just speaking through FaceTime. I’m not sure how much more generic chat I can stand! How can we maintain a closeness and depth of relationship at the moment?

Have you tried spicing up the messaging?

To be honest, ‘spicing up the messaging’ feels like handing the keys of a formula 1 car to a learner driver! I want to be able to have conversations about how he feels, how he copes, if he misses me, whether this has made him reflect on our relationship etc. Phone sex is’t where I’d start!

What you've described sounds more like the learner driver scenario tbh. Can't imagine a 'deeds not words' type going for a conversation about 'whether this has made him reflect on our relationship'. And then you may feel worse. What if anything makes him open up? Would phone sex do that? Or would email or something in writing work better?

What works is us lying in bed together, cuddled up, either after a lovely dinner together or a lazy lie in. Those are the times when I can sometimes get the deeper conversations going. On the phone though, it feels (and generally always has) that we talk about stuff that we could discuss With anyone else.

It’s the inability to be physically together that is now the problem.

I’m having a similar quandary, though I’ve only been with my DP just over a year so I guess the sex is especially central in our relationship. We chat several times a day on the phone, which helps to keep our day-to-day stuff entwined, but it can get a bit mundane I’m really missing our weekly dates and long lie-ins. As you say, we really topped up the closeness during those times.

I’ve suggested some more creative stuff to do online, e.g. boardgames, syncing Netflix, etc. – would that hit the spot for you? (my DP is happy just to have a chat so I haven’t pressed it). Since we met we’ve sent letters and postcards, which gives me a lift and is nice to re-read when the distance feels too much.

Could you do a relationships quiz thing as a basis for a more emotional chat? The love languages one is pretty straightforward and might have the advantage of helping him understand your needs a bit more. www.5lovelanguages.com/profile/couples/

This one’s a bit spicier but again could be a good conversation / sexting starter. www.weshouldtryit.com/ It's a list of questions for partners to indicate what they'd be up for trying. The cool thing is that only the areas where your desires overlap are then revealed. The things that one wants to try but the other doesn’t are not revealed.

It sounds like you'll have to take the driver's seat but some flirty messages and maybe a hot photo or two might make him bite. That might then give you the closeness you need, and maybe some cute virtual post-coital chat.

Fact is he's not giving you what you need so you're going to have to voice that. Would love to hear what works for you, or any other ideas you’ve had for keeping things on the boil.

And by the way, respect to you for staying physically separate. It's so bloody hard and personally, I feel the time apart might seriously jeopardise things for my relationship. And plenty of non-cohabiters aren't doing it so I feel it's doubly important for the rest of us to offset their damage.

@cloudbursting42 thank you so much for those suggestions. I’ve done the love languages thing myself previously but never asked him to!

I agree about how frustrating it is to be following the rules when others aren’t. I just don’t want people thinking I’m irresponsible when they see me driving off for the weekend. This feeling is exacerbated by the fact I’m a key worker whose role is closely involved in the CV response. I am lucky in that I can do this from home though.

However, it does mean that my working days are intense and I hear stuff that is upsetting. This makes my my need for emotional support in the evening all the greater, and chatting about the queue at the supermarket or the days video calls just doesn’t deliver that really!

Perhaps you'll just have to accept that your relationship will feel a bit limited ATM. After four years I expect you're solid enough to weather the distance. Sucks though doesn't it. You have my sympathy.

How about just keeping talking about how you’re feeling and giving him the chance to respond. Keep putting the conversation there in front of him- he may just need it set it right there rather than him being the type to seek out that type of conversation. He sounds a bit like me tbh. If hes a problem solver then he may be great once the problem (your feelings) is presented to him.

I had a long distance relationship with a guy overseas. Because that was the set up from the outset we learnt how to make it fun - obviously not in lockdown. We relied on FaceTime so we chatted as we prepped meals, and over meals as if we were both there, when having a shower, chatting in bed at night. The latter was intimate - quiet sweet sleepy pillow chat. Sometimes he read a story to me, did paperwork mostly we just nit nattered. FaceTime is way more personal and fun.

My DD19 in isolation now from her boyfriend who is miles away and they have lots of nice ideas - like watching Netflix together and doing quizzes together etc. They are on the phone for hours.

In the end - sorry if this sounds harsh - you have a choice. Either try to make it work - and if he really cares he will want to try new things. If not he's not really a keeper. A man without emotional fluency is a hard man to be with when the going gets tough.

Talk about future plans . Days out, concerts , holidays . Write a bucket list together

Oh it's tough when you're not with your other one isn't it? We've been keeping up with FaceTime but that's just chat. It's the text messages that have been getting more intimate. I just can't do the whole sexting, it's just not me. I'm going to jump the bones of him when this is all over though.

I can empathise. My DW is like this - she is simply incapable of having any kind of intimate or deep conversation. I was away with work for a couple of weeks once and it really landed with me how difficult it had become.
I found I was bored with our 'how was your day' conversations by the third day and our calls became shorter and shorter to the point where I was running out of things to say and was literally just checking in.
Some people just cannot communicate on that level.

Thank you everyone, these are all such helpful suggestions. I guess that maybe I should be taking the lead to suggest we do something different with our time on the phone, like some of the ideas some of you have given.

What is tending to happen is that we Facetime at the end of the day as we’d have done in normal times. By then, I’m emotionally frazzled from the day and can barely string a sentence together. I just want him to say some personal, reassuring things - a bit of a virtual hug I suppose - whereas it’s not really his thing.

We had dinner togetehr whilst on FaceTime last night. This was lovely, and after a glass or two of wine, I casually asked how he was coping with being on his own all the time. I hoped this might prompt him to open up a bit but instead he just talked me through all the things he’d done in the day, nothing about how he felt about it all.

I’m sure we will survive this, but it is making me reflect about our differences and I will want to talk to him about it when we do see each other again. In the meantime, I think changing the routine of the phone calls is the way to go, maybe even at different times of day when I’m feeling less drained.

@PrawnSacrifice, sorry to hear you have the same issue, it’s hard isn’t it. The thing is, when I was married, my husband was too much the other way and it wore me down. I just want something between what I had and what I’ve got now!

@StuckBetweenDarknessAndLight - I’m the same with sexting. We both are, it’s never been part of our relationship. If I started now I think he’d pass out but I know there will be a very passionate reunion when this is over.

I have a similar DP. Been together 6 years almost. We're 150 miles apart and will stay apart until schools reopen due to work. If I ask him how he's doing all alone, he tells me how he's spent his time. That's what he hears the question is. I accept this now and get it. Took years though. Love languages etc. He is showing his love and missing me by pulling up tree stumps in the garden so I can plant flowers and stuff one day when this is over. It's taken a while but I appreciate these deeds as being more meaningful to him than words.

@wantmorenow. I recognise this! I had a bit of a meltdown at the start of all this and one of the things I said through my tearful rantings to him was that it was all being made more frustrating by tech problems and my rubbish WiFi. Early the next morning he messaged with details of signal boosting kits that he’d researched and checked the reviews for. He’d woken up early thinking about things and come up with a practical solution to something. And it’s worked to be fair!

I did feel really appreciative of him at that point as he’d shown how he cared by trying to make things easier for me.

He sounds lovely. That would be my DP. Would pop it in the Amazon basket but not order it until I'd okayed it. He obviously does care deeply about your happiness and prioritizes it. Over time I've realized that it's okay for him to not meet all my needs. If I want a long chat or to talk emotions, I do that with friends. My old school chums are brilliant at WhatsApp now. It's not his thing and not fair to expect him to expect him to. It's another language he'd have to learn. Likewise he accepts that I can't fake too much enthusiasm for the latest B is for Build episode. Lol. However I know that when I said I was scared to shop for veg and fruit, he offered to drive to shops for me and drop off at doorstep. I declined as I can manage without and it would be daft. I know he has my back 100%, so the fact he can't waffle on about inner emotions isn't a big deal. He knows I love him and he loves me so he wouldn't fathom what more there is to say on the matter. I find our differences amusing now. I used to think if he didn't think like me then it was a huge problem. Now I'm glad he doesn't. He's so level and even keeled. The opposite of needy, it's refreshing. He is the constant in my world of teenage hormones at home, fickle friends and colleagues etc. He rarely has lows or even particular highs. He balances me out rather nicely. Oh and the time we are together is bliss, no drama, shared love of food, TV, wine and sex. Simple enduring pleasures. Miss him.

One thing I might add from a man's perspective is that often, we're not very good ad decoding hidden agendas or messages.

If you ask how he is and he gives you a bland answer about his day, when in fact what you want to know is does he pine for you and long to hold you in his arms and stroke your hair, you'll need to ask him, or spell it out - "can we have a more in depth conversation about your inner feelings, your emotions and how you're feeling towards me and our relationship" that way, there's be no ducking, diving or avoiding the subject - he'll either tell you, or refuse - either way, it'll save you guessing.

@wantmorenow, that’s a really helpful post thank you. I actually suspect that if he was same as me emotions wise, then our relationship might be a bit volatile and unhealthy all round so maybe it’s being careful what you wish for.

@Prawnsacrifice, I actually thought earlier that maybe when I answered the way he did when I asked how he was coping, I should have said something like ‘sorry, I worded the question badly. What I really wanted to know was how you’re feeling about things’. I’ll try that next time!

I'd be even more direct than that, as asking how you're feeling about things might yield an answer such as "I'm okay, the weather was nice today so I opened the windows and could smell freshly cut grass which was nice. I can't wait for summer for a BBQ and a few beers in the garden, how was your day?"

If you want a specific answer, you'll need to ask a specific question, as many men are quite binary in their communication.

If I said to my DP "tell me how are you feeling about living on your own WFH in the middle of a global pandemic, whilst I return to my home town with my kids. " He'd tell me that he doesn't miss me at all in the day as he's very busy but he misses me on the evenings as it's very quiet. Then he'd tell me what he's having for supper and what he plans to do tomorrow (work & DIY). He'd be very honest. I know, sort of asked tonight for fun. Lol. If I pressed for more there would be an uncomfortable silence and he'd be scared to answer my calls again. 🤣 In fact come to think of it we don't call much. We text. He takes longer to get his thoughts together into words. Texts easier. Makes him sound weird but I assure you he's not. In the classroom he's very much the communicator and showman. At home he's quiet, hugely kind, very tactile and happy to cuddle up for hours. He also has the patience of a saint when I witter away about every random thought in my head.
In the early days I nearly ended it because I wanted to hear the "normal" expressions of love I had heard previously from other blokes. He was genuinely devastated when I explained I needed words. Took a while to rebuild his trust and for me to realise I didn't need them. I just needed to know he loved me and was committed. His actions proved it more than any words. Words are cheap. Sometimes people just tick differently. Doesn't mean they're not feeling things, just that they don't articulate or have words for them.

If he treats you well and makes you happy then he's probably a keeper.

Thank you OP for this post. The responses have been really helpful to me in a similar position, especially hours @wantmorenow, my boyfriend seems very similar but you’ve made me look at him in a much more positive way. I always think his walls are high, we don’t do deep and meaningfully and it frustrates me that he won’t say he misses me, however, now you’ve helped me see it in a different way, he shows me he cares in so many other ways. It’s tough but worth the wait x

I'm glad sharing has helped. We joke he's everything I need. Loyal, kind, funny, sexy, considerate, solvent, intelligent, generous of time and resources. Regarding my wants, he's most of them. Shared TV likes for most part, theatre, music not so much, loves veggies (important for shared meals). Stuff I didn't want are he smokes (really trying to quit again), dislikes exercise, messy but to be fair so am (I actually feel a bit smug as I seem tidy in his eyes), finds saving impossible (generous), hopeless at money stuff (pensions etc). Best of all he never criticises me. Ever. He accepts me as I am, flawed and all. I'm very lucky. It would be nice to hear lovey dovey stuff but I honestly don't miss it. I couldn't be with my kids on mother's Day as daughter isolating. He bought roses for me on their behalf (they didn't know) lol. I cried. I'm keeping this one forever. 😄

MiddleAgedLurker sorry for the loss of your DH. Three years is no time and you must miss him terribly. Feeling like friends is no bad thing. I describe him as my favourite person because he is. I can spend more time with him than anyone and not get bored. This is huge for me - I usually get bored of blokes after a few years. Sounds harsh, but it's honest. I also think timing is everything, my kids are late teens up to early twenties and the fact he's not living with us and has no fatherly type role suits everyone. I'm early fifties and wouldn't discuss spending choices, etc with him. Best of being single with best of coupledom. We do live together Mon-Fri as we both ended up working away due to redundancy - strange and complex story. Probably wouldn't have lived together at all otherwise until kids very much more independent. Previous relationships always came with various drama: jealousy, childcare arguments, housework resentments, financial inequalities etc. This one doesn't as we have retained enough independence and maybe wiser in our choices and have fewer pressures. Hope your reunion is exciting and fun indeed.