Could he be on the spectrum? My DP is emotionally unavailable and lacks empathy.
That doesn't mean he's unkind or lacks sympathy for other people. In fact, he can be a very generous and lovely man who often puts others first. However when it comes to communication about anything deeper or putting himself in someone else's shoes e.g. understanding the impact of his actions on others, it's like there's a brick wall that makes it impossible.
I used to think that everyone wanted to connect on a deeper lever, really, and it was just a matter of time, that he'd trust me enough to open up to me eventually. I now think this is just isn't true. Some people just don't want to communicate on a deeper level, and that's fine. Except it's not fine for you if you're in a relationship with someone like that and you do need that deeper connection.
I've come to understand that DP expresses his love through actions. I strongly suspect that if he was with someone who also expressed their love in this way, also didn't feel the need for deeper conversation they would have a good chance of being very happy together.
But I feel desperately lonely and the lack of connection just doesn't work for me. I feel like a huge, essential part of myself is being neglected and withering. It's a fundamental incompatibility. Through time I've come to appreciate that no one is right or wrong here, but we would simply be better off with other people who are more suitable for each of us. I am never going to be happy living without an emotional connection and he regards our relationship issues as a failure and that hurts him.
It reminds me a lot of my childhood - my mum is on the spectrum and I found the lack of easy emotional connection incredibly difficult.
My eldest is also on the spectrum. And I now suspect DP brain is wired like that also.
Some people just can't do empathy. It's very, very difficult to be in a relationship with someone like this if you need connection to feel whole.
For reasons I won't go into here, we're still together in that we're living in the same house and parenting the DC together. People see us as a couple. But we've slept in different rooms and not been intimate in years now. The situation is far from ideal and I don't recommend it.
I cope with it on a day-to-day level by understanding that DP is incapable of change, I am less angry with him about it. I'm more understanding that he can't help it. But I recognise that I am fundamentally unhappy and he is also.
I expect a lot of couples rub along like this for years, with the man happy enough as long as his partner suppresses her needs and the woman increasingly empty, unhappy and unfulfilled. I'm not surprised so many women find lesbianism in later life. (And I mean that seriously, not flippantly).