How do I live with a very private partner?

[Franklyfrost]

I’ve been going to couples therapy and recently had a session where my partner couldn’t turn up. In this session the therapist pointed out that my dp was extremely private. I’ve realised that she’s right.

The main problem we were having is that I would feel unhappy about something, communicate this to dp and he would say the problem was not what I thought it was but my reaction to it. For example, he turned up 7 hours late from a bike ride with friends without letting me know. This left me looking after the kids all Sunday long. The problem for him is me taking issue with this rather than his failure to inform me of his change of plans. His take on what he wants from our relationship is ‘I ask you for nothing and you ask me for nothing’.

I’m interested in replacing the word ‘a-hole’ with the word ‘private’ in my thoughts about dp. With the bike ride example he would find it intrusive to have to tell me he’d be home later, he never tells me where he’s going when he goes out or when he’ll be home from work, he never communicates how he feels, yesterday he took offence at the insurance company asking why he didn’t want to renew his policy (he refused to answer even if the poor call handler just needed to tick a box), also yesterday he was outraged that his father asked him to bring a very minor, valueless item he needed for a repair when he was going round to visit his parents because it was an imposition on his autonomy.

He is intensely, perhaps pathologically, private. He doesn’t want to hear how his behaviour makes me feel and doesn’t want to discuss how he feels. I don’t think that is ever going to change. What is this? How do I live with it? Has anyone come to terms with having an extremely private partner? Is it some sort of psychological disorder? Please no ‘leave now’ comments, life is complicated and now is not the time to leave.

My ex was the same op. I wasn't allowed to talk about anything to anyone else , when I took to mn he found my thread and then checked all the time to ensure I didn't discuss anything again even with strangers.
The dynamic was the same - I ask you for nothing you ask me for nothing " if I said something in innocence he would say Google it or why is my time worth less than your time ?
We never did anything together.

I left . I couldn't live like that . The irony is he would broadcast my personal health info in meetings with 20 colleagues or make me the butt of his jokes .
I was only told this when we split by colleagues.

Sorry - but why has the therapist asked you to reframe this as 'private'? This isn't private. This is selfish, bordering on sociopathic.

Nothing matters more to him that to be able to control absolutely everything, right down the internal narrative you have about his behaviour!

Honestly it sounds quite frightening.

He sounds selfish, secretive and inconsiderate to me.

I wouldn't be able to tolerate that, and I'm amazed you can, OP.

You're in a relationship, he isn't

Sounds like you and the kids get in the way of his life

Sorry that sounds bitchy, I meant it from your point of view..why have a family and a wife? Surely he must of realised years ago that you'd always be in his life and in his house..living alongside him

I'm struggling to understand why you think your feelings might not be valid. Feelings don't need validation from someone else. They just are. They're never wrong or right surely.

This is v familiar to me OP. Google “Cassandra syndrome”.

Doesn't really matter what you call anything. If it makes you unhappy, it makes you unhappy.

Thus is the thing on the relationship board and I've done it myself in real life. Trying to theorise and understand behaviour in someone else that is making you miserable. Labelling someone etc. At the end of the day only you know whether you can not only tolerate it but find happiness in it.

Not massively keen to throw another label your way but it sounds like he has a dismissive avoidant attachment style. The good thing about that is that attachment styles can be worked on and changed, and it might be helpful for you to look into your own attachment style

How you have any kind of intimate relationship with this man when he sounds like nothing more than an emotionless Android I don’t know🤷‍♀️ You may not want to leave now but I’d seriously be putting a strategy in place to leave in the future.

DH is private, he doesn’t like sharing feelings etc. I still don’t know if he believes in god or not after over a decade. But he has always given great weight to mine. He has also never ditched me with DC for hours on end without saying anything, pulls his weight and does stuff because DD and I want to do those things, not because he enjoys them. Your partner is basically just insanely selfish. There is a difference between private and selfish.

He dismisses you because you don’t matter. Everything else is irrelevant.

I would encourage you to think about what the word “relationship” actually means.

Relation - ship.

A ship is a vessel, a container for carrying something from one place to another. It has a specific and agreed direction. Anyone putting cargo on the ship knows where it is starting from and where it is going. That is why the cargo is on that particular ship and not another.

Relating is the act of one individual making themselves known to another who is also making themselves known. The act is dynamic and interdependent - it involves both individuals responding to the self-revelations of the other.

This act of relating is the cargo that a relation-ship carries from one place (where you met) to another (death, in the case of a lifetime relationship). The shared direction of the journey (parenting, travel, retirement) is agreed over and over through the relating that occurs throughout.

You and your partner might appear to be on the same ship, but there is very little true relating occurring from
what I can see. So perhaps you are not really on board the same relation-ship. Perhaps one or both of you have actually bailed out onto your own lifeboats. Or you’re still standing on the deck of your relationship watching your partner row in his own direction while you call out to him to get back on board.

Have you realised that you can also bail out into your own lifeboat and set your own direction?

I’ve explained time and time again what would make me feel loved but he just says I’m wrong not to feel loved.

This is so sad, you know in your gut this relationship is not going anywhere OP.

Unless I’m unreasonable in my requests. He thinks I should feel loved because he loves me. I’ve explained time and time again what would make me feel loved but he just says I’m wrong not to feel loved. I have stopped explaining or sharing my feelings which has left me feeling a bit like I’ve given up, although I haven’t.

Love is a verb, OP, a VERB. What comes out of people's mouths means absolutely nothing. You love someone only as much as you are willing to act lovingly towards them.

I'm not sure what parts of the relationship I enjoy but I think I love him.

This is so sad.

You need your own counselling to understand why you can’t identify love clearly, what a loving relationship is and why you’re willing to put up with the opposite. You need to know what would make you happy and prioritise that.

Stop thinking about him.

Start thinking about you.

You are mentally trapped and therapy doesn't seem to be helping. So many posters have pointed out the glaringly obvious to you: this man is selfish, nor private. Private people don't want to broadcast their lives to all and sundry. Selfish people abdicate responsibility and show no consideration towards others. Which one would you say fits your description of your OH, OP?

I had to think about this a fair bit before responding.

I am quite a private person myself - I love a couple of hours in a pub by myself reading my book, doing a cryptic crossword or maybe just catching a game.

I also enjoy the same sort of thing with a partner though - pub, restaurant, cafe, even just sacked out in front of the telly - sharing opinions, arguing and just putting the world to rights.

I don;t think you can have a really good relationship without the latter and while I would't sacrifice the former I certainly couldn't imagine being with someone who didn't let me into their world and vice versa

“What I think I mean (& I'm not being nasty) is that you are nothing to him, not even worth considering, it's almost like you don't exist to him, he treats you like a human doll which isn't alive, so he doesn't have to consider your feelings. Would you worry about keeping a doll waiting, would you think to tell a doll you'll be late?”

This is how it sounds, OP. And it’s clear from your responses that you’ve been ground down by years of truly shitty treatment. This guy is a selfish prick. And he’s making HUGE demands of you. He expects you to tolerate his neglect of you and the DCs and his selfishness and his rapey ways AND ask nothing of him.

Love is a verb. Someone who loved you wouldn’t treat you like this. He sounds incapable of loving. I do wonder how you were treated as a child to make you even consider accepting this. It’s a very dysfunctional example to be setting your children also.

Whether his behaviour is reasonable or not, he doesn't see it as a problem - so he isn't motivated to make any kind of change.

If I were you I would ditch the couples counselling and seek some individual counselling. I'd also be questioning if you're happy to stay in this relationship knowing he won't change.

This thread depresses me. If the OP wants to 'analyse' the behaviour and put up with it, fine. It is not fine however for the children to have to endure this and it will be having all sorts of negative impact on their forming brains.

Your children will be the ones in therapy in years to come OP. This behaviour is a prime recipe for screwing up their own emotional wellbeing. I hope they find it in their hearts to forgive you for what you're making them deal with.

I second that. I ended up with a dismissive avoidant because my parents were avoidants, l effectively married a version of my mother. It seemed normal to me.

Been in therapy for ten years to undo the damage. It has affected my daughter although I work very hard to model a healthy with my partner.

It's not normal to be in a relationship with such a detached person.

I'm another who's thoughts immediately went to the impact this will be having on your children.

I am the child of a similar father in that he would broker no demands on his time, freedoms or emotions that he didn't want to give - and he gave virtually nothing freely or without motive.

The impact on my sibling and me has been lifelong. We have both had to deal with this toxic abusive model of parenting, the conditioning we had that our needs were always subordinate, that to want or need anything from our parents was an imposition, something wrong that we should hide for their sakes.

And I say parents because whilst it was my father that imposed this dictatorial edict on our household, our mother facilitated this. She would try to justify the behaviour, and then justify why we had to live like it. Why it couldn't be challenged. Why we were all worthy of so little love and respect. So we learnt that she didn't actually value us needing or wanting anything either.

So, you may spend your time intellectualising your husbands behaviour if you wish, you can ponder how you live with it and what tools might be useful to help you reframe your thoughts and feelings on his controlling demands, but I'd urge you to consider your children. I'd urge you to think about how and why they might have to do the same and what impact this will have on their self-esteem and how they model their own relationships in the future.

@Franklyfrost - are you still listening?

you may spend your time intellectualising your husbands behaviour if you wish, you can ponder how you live with it and what tools might be useful to help you reframe your thoughts and feelings on his controlling demands, but I'd urge you to consider your children. I'd urge you to think about how and why they might have to do the same and what impact this will have on their self-esteem and how they model their own relationships in the future.

OP - your children are being emotionally crippled as we speak. Every month you stay with your abuser will cripple them more. If you cannot leave for your own sake, for goodness sake do it for your children!

@Franklyfrost

“you may spend your time intellectualising your husbands behaviour if you wish, you can ponder how you live with it and what tools might be useful to help you reframe your thoughts and feelings on his controlling demands, but I'd urge you to consider your children. I'd urge you to think about how and why they might have to do the same and what impact this will have on their self-esteem and how they model their own relationships in the future.”

This, again.

And this:

“OP - your children are being emotionally crippled as we speak. Every month you stay with your abuser will cripple them more. If you cannot leave for your own sake, for goodness sake do it for your children!”

Your partner’s appallingly selfish behaviour doesn’t just harm you. It harms your DC. You’re clearly working flat out to compensate for his lack of care but this will be harming them as well as you. I do wonder what your childhood experiences were that you’re so willing to tolerate his lack of care of you. Whatever they were, you don’t want your DCs growing up with incredibly low expectations of how men with families should behave, do you?