Does anyone have any experience with this?

[Jasmine00]

My bf and I can chat away about politics, vaccine, different people, chit chat type stuff, but when I raise a conversation that hes uncomfortable with, he completely emotionally and physically shuts down. He says he just cant get the words to come out so he stays quiet. This is very frustrating for me if I'm wanting to talk about a certain thing, is there a personality trait that this would be due to?
He can open up to me when he wants to and tell me how hes feeling etc but its this total wall that seems to come up at times that I just can't get my head around. Then i see him desperately searching for a subject change, as soon as its changed, he is back to normal!
Has anyone any experience of this?

Doesn’t sound like someone you can stay with; there shouldn’t be anything you can’t discuss when you’re a team

Yup. We split up. Relationships are about people successfully relating to each other. Not being able to have simple conversations about things (for my ex and I it was anything to do with the relationship) is a failing to relate at a fairly fundamental level.

What won't he talk about?

@TheFoundations

Yup. We split up. Relationships are about people successfully relating to each other. Not being able to have simple conversations about things (for my ex and I it was anything to do with the relationship) is a failing to relate at a fairly fundamental level.

What won't he talk about?

So its things that are more about him and what he wants really He can't seem to say what he wants. Also if its anything to do with us or our relationship.

He's made it clear in the past that he wants to be with me and wants this to work between us so I can't understand where he's coming from at all

Have a look at avoidant attachment style. If he wants to work on this, it's a good sign.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTClTKNP0zh/?utmmedium=copyy_link

https://instagram.com/thesecurerelationship?utmmedium=copyy_link

The book "how to do the work " has also been recommended

Yes I definitely had an ex who did this. He was always a bit intimidated by the fact I was more intelligent than him (I’m sorry but it’s true!) so would shut down whenever it was a topic that we disagreed on. It’s not like we would argue - he just couldn’t bear the idea that we might have a discussion where his opinions or views would be challenged. I think it was also partly because his parents had an extremely combative and argumentative relationship. His father was a violent alcoholic who eventually resorted to attempted murder to try to get to control his mother.

Are there certain topics in particular that he won’t discuss?

@Jasmine00

He's made it clear in the past that he wants to be with me and wants this to work between us so I can't understand where he's coming from at all

Yes, that's the experience I had. It was a sort of 'I've told you I want to be with you, can't we just leave it at that when it comes to discussing the relationship?'

It wasn't enough for me. If you're posting here, I suspect it's not enough for you either. You can't have a relationship with what you think he should be, or what you wish he was. You won't be able to work out 'where he's coming from', because this isn't behaviour you would ever exhibit, so it's outside of your realm of understanding.

You have to work out whether, if this relationship carried on for another 20 or 30 years, would you be ok with not having (hardly) any of those discussions. You don't have to work out where he's coming from, or how to get him to have those discussions. If he wanted to talk about this stuff, he would talk about it.

My husband always opens up about his feelings and everything but if I bring up a topic he doesn't like he shuts down too . Like if I ask about our future and that stresses him out he'll go quiet and I'll ask him why and he says ' what do you want me to say ?'

Well that’s no way to have a satisfactory relationship if communication is important to you. I’ve been around peope like this, yes, all fine until anything deeper is discussed to do with emotions or the relationship- at which point it gets shut down or turns into an argument. Getting told they are with me aren’t they so everything must be fine and any mention of deeper issues is me causing trouble or ‘drama’.

Miserable, exhausting and unfulfilling basically. I don’t want a relationship where nothing deeper is discussed and communication is non existent past the day to day miniature. If you also feel that way i’d advise you to consider ending things because in my experience it never gets better.