Thank god for this thread! It's like looking through a window into my life! I'm so grateful to everyone on here who has shared their thoughts openly and honestly, because it's so validating for me to read.
Lockdown has really shone a light on historic problems that me and my partner have constantly clashed over. I am non-aspie, high empathy, high EQ, so the lack of emotional connection, attention and emotional intimacy hits really hard (especially as they trigger old trauma wounds). I am convinced my partner has alexithymia; he also has a number of aspie traits, and I think ADD/ADHD is also an avenue worth exploring. I sat him down and explained this (gently) last night and he was open-minded and has been doing some of the online assessments for us to review together. I think pursuing some diagnoses could be good for him not just for our relationship, lord help us, but also for his general motivation for life...
It was interesting to me in one of the earlier threads that so many posters are NC with parents/FOO who were narcissistic! My father is a narcissist and I went NC two years ago. I think that upbringing trained me well to put up with not having my needs met. Funnily enough, my partner also had an abusive upbringing, and also went NC with both his parents (his mother is also narcissistic) 2-3 years ago. I think there are many layers in our relationship, it's hard to untangle them all.
I feel for all of you who feel so alone, so unloved, having to just 'trust' that you partner loves you without being shown it. Who feel taken for granted. Who just want to go and live somewhere else alone for a few days, weeks, months, years. That's how I feel.
My partner does show willing. We're 4 weeks into joint therapy and we're plodding through, slowly but surely. I need to have patience to see how much is changeable, and how much isn't. We both know my emotional needs aren't being met, and that he doesn't seem to have any. But he is willing and open-minded so at the moment I'm still in it. Just.
Lockdown has really brought it all into sharp focus (as well as me having been in therapy for 18 months where I have learnt so much self-love). He has become an avid gamer, to the detriment of time with me (or any other element of his life, to be honest), just assumes that when lockdown lifts we'll go back to the fun times we used to have, brushing over the fact we've been having these conversations for 10 years.
We had an interesting conversation last night after our therapist asked him "How do you show TrueRefuge that you care?" and he said he didn't know how to answer that question. I cited an example about how he put effort into looking for a new laptop for me, and I took that as as sign of care. I later asked why he found it difficult to answer and he said he doesn't think about doing things because he cares for me, he just does them; for example, with the laptop, he didn't do that out of love, but just because he's good with technology so it makes sense that he would help me find one. Even writing it out it sounds so robotic (to me) I'm laughing. He has recently been sick and I asked him "How do you perceive when I took care of you? Brought you tablets and tea, made sure you rested, gave you a massage for your aches? Do you recognise I'm doing those things out of love for you?" He said no, he just feels guilty. I think there may be some attachment/childhood trauma stuff here -it's all so complex - but the fact he can't also identify love and care AS WELL AS guilt is what makes me think, "Hmmm, there's something missing here." Does this sound familiar to anyone here?
We identified that - doing something for the other person out of care - as a concrete opportunity for him to try and OBSERVE the feeling behind an action, if I can model it for him and be explicit - I'm doing this because I love and care for you - and maybe he can learn to do the same for me over time. At the same time, it just made me so sad that after 12 years of me loving him, it's probably never been received as love, and that probably nothing he's done for me is out of love either. I'm sad for me and I'm sad for him. When he's most frustrated that I'm not feeling fulfilled he says "I just assume you know I love you, I didn't realise you need to be reminded of it regularly". When I then turn his logical way of thinking back on him by saying "But you've just 'admitted' that even the practical, non-emotional things you do for me aren't done out of love but out of habit or just-because, so how would I feel love or assume you love me if there's no love behind your actions?" He can't answer that (obviously!) and I think that's why he realises maybe something deeper needs to be explored.
At the same time he is loyal, practically supportive, doesn't abuse me and would never cheat (I used to find that comforting but I'm realising now it's because he doesn't care about relationships enough to have two - ha!), is sweet at times and HE WANTS TO MAKE ME HAPPY. In fact, that is his only need in our relationship - to make me happy. I'm sceptical that the things I need to be truly happy are not within his reach....
Anyway, what a long post! Hello to everyone on the board, and I hope I can offer some support myself :)
PS Would love to hear if others have felt the pandemic has exacerbated their relationships and unproductive behaviours/traits?