Showing care: how do you do it, what do you expect?

[GoldfincTart]

Name changed for this, as it's so personal. Sorry it's so epic. I'm so close to the issue that I can't seem to cut it back.

DH and I have been together for 21 years. Met in our mid/late 30s, now late 50s. No children. We were both self-sufficient when we met — own homes, own busy lives, used to managing things. For the first 15 years we were together we spent weeks and sometimes months apart, with him away managing construction projects in Europe and beyond and me working as a contractor in the Netherlands and Denmark. Since 2018 we've been semi-retired and now both work part-time from home.

I've always thought of him as a caring person. He was very involved with his elderly parents and has good, caring relationships with his siblings and their kids. I've always thought we had a solid relationship. I love him, most of the time he seems to at least like me.

Back in 2016 he had to have surgery and was mainly in bed for about a week after he came home. I cared for him. Cooked the food he felt up to, kept an eye on drugs routines, did what I could to make him comfortable, help with washing and dressings etc — the kind of thing I assume most partners do for each other at such times.

When I had flu (real flu, the sort that knocks you for six) the following year I got the first inkling that we weren't on the same page when it came to looking after each other. Much of the time he was irritated with me. He'd do things like make a meal for us, then be annoyed that I couldn't face eating. A fair bit of 'For goodness' sake, it's just a cold.'

We've both, fortunately, been well since then. But this summer there was another incident that made me wonder. We'd arranged to meet up with another couple, Sal and her DH, before going for a long walk. There was an M&S food hall nearby so I asked DH to get sandwiches and treats for lunch. I said 'I'll have cheese or ham, please'. Sal's DH went in with him to do the same. She and I stayed outside with the dogs. The men returned with the food in their backpacks and off we went for our walk. When we stopped for lunch it turned out that Sal's husband had bought food for them both but my DH had only bought stuff for himself. Sal can't get over this. She and her husband assumed we must have had a fight and he was taking petty revenge on me. But we hadn't had a fight. He said later that he just didn't think of me and when I asked what that was about he said it was because I normally sorted stuff out for myself...

I currently have a stinking cold. One of those where everything hurts, your face is raw from all the nose-blowing and you're hoarse from coughing. He's locked himself away in a couple of rooms so that I don't give him my germs and again he's annoyed and unsympathetic. He says my coughing, which I'm trying hard to suppress, is disturbing him. I can appreciate how annoying it is — but surely you try to show a bit of empathy when someone's ill? I asked him (by text) if he'd go to the pharmacy, less than half a mile away, and get me some more Day and Night Nurse and cough mixture and he's replied that he might do later, but I've only got a cold, so surely I could go myself.

Is this familiar to anyone else? I guess when we met we'd both been alone for a few years and were used to looking after ourselves. And we've both been incredibly lucky to have been pretty healthy over the years. He's one of those people who very rarely get colds or bugs and if they do, don't seem to suffer too badly.

But we're going to get old and sooner or later one of us is going to need the other to step in and care for a while. How's that going to work out?

Some people can be really nice but are actually missing a bit that everybody else has.

My first thought was empathy. My STBXH gives the impression of being kind, but I have really recently worked out that he doesn’t really have empathy. He just wants me to be a female version of him.

My other thought is that he doesn’t think about you, as in you don’t feature in his thoughts much. I have the opposite problem. I always had my husband in my thought constantly Eg if I went out I would hide a door key for him because I knew he often didn’t take one. Or I would remind him he had a conference call to make at say 3pm, because he had mentioned it in the morning and I knew how forgetful he was.

He, obviously didn’t return the favour and out of sight was out of mind for him.

Maybe your husband is good at general things such as those that involve family but not so good at the nitty gritty, thoughtfulness, day in day out minutiae that’s comes with living with a partner. He sounds as if he’s single in his head.

It could be that you’ve been fooled into thinking he’s a much nicer person than he actually is (I know I was).

Learn as much as you can about different personality traits, you may find one that resonates with you. Many women know that their partner is rubbish at the caring side and suck it up or adjust their relationship and becomes less caring themselves.

Start saving for your own private health care now.

Lots of useful thoughts there, thank you. Sorry to hear about your marriage.

It's strange, because he's good at birthdays and that kind of thing. He's genuinely close and caring with his sisters: he phones them both regularly and is currently worrying because one of them has problems with one of her children. There's a warmth and ease between them that I actually envy at times. Envy because I'm not so close to my sibling. So I don't think it's a general lack of empathy. It's just me. Which isn't great, is it?

I wonder whether it's because for most of our marriage I've been this organised, independent adult who made few demands on him. We both enjoyed our careers and understood the other's desire to work. We never spent more than a couple of months together full-time before one or other of us would be off somewhere. Working away was never the issue for us that I know it is in some marriages and that makes me think about your remark about him considering himself single. I wonder if part of his attraction to me was because I appeared to not need looking after — or even to need him?

Like you with your STBXH, he's in my thoughts and calculations all the time and I make dozens of micro decisions each day that take him into account. I suppose that was why the sandwich example was such a shock — because I wasn't in his thoughts at all and he didn't even seem to think that was an issue when an observer challenged him (Sal kept asking him why he hadn't bought me a sandwich and he just bewildered by the fact that anyone thought it was odd)

I feel such an idiot. For 20 years I've assumed that we felt the same way about each other, but clearly we don't. I'm not sure he'd agree to a counselling session so that we could talk it through and find out where the gaps are, but that might a start.

Don’t worry about my marriage, I’m as pleased as punch and can’t wait to move out. I’ve just been on another thread about how menopause frees you up from being so nice all the time.

Ive been having private therapy(I highly recommend it) and have realised that my ex has narcissistic traits. He will do anything for anyone (except me) because he needs the recognition, he needs people, even strangers, to tell him how kind he is. And he makes sure everyone knows by telling them (in a modest way of course). Perhaps he feels you don’t need him, or you don’t smother him with thanks and admiration enough, so you are not giving him any narcissistic supply.

Perhaps as you say your independence has led him to not see you as vulnerable in anyway, so he just assumes he has complete autonomy Eg single in his head.

My ex is a very capable alpha male and I must admit that over the years I have let him take control. However that has meant when he’s been moody or stressed I have to work hard at giving him total support. I absorb his mood, so it brings me down too.

Ref the sandwich, was he at all apologetic? Did you make a fuss? Mine had a friend over recently and they popped out to go to a friends, and were coming straight back to eat a stew I was cooking. No phone calls, they went to the pub instead, got back after I’d gone to bed. No apologies either. Pretty par for the course.

Or was it because the friend was so aghast at his behaviour, that it made you look at it too. That’s what happened to me with therapy.

Look for a chartered clinical psychologist, best thing I ever did.

The sandwich situation... he just seemed totally flummoxed. Sort of 'Oh'. And then said he didn't hear me say anything. At that point if it had been just us I would have let it go, but but Sal and her husband said they'd heard me. When Sal said to him 'What did you think Goldfinch was going to eat for lunch?' his response was that I could have one of his sandwiches. He didn't apologise. He could see he'd fucked up in some way, but he didn't seem to understand how. It was a very strange few minutes. And of course he's laughed it off since with 'All this fuss about a sandwich!'

I wouldn't have said he's narcissistic. He has friends whom he at least appears to care about — talks about them, takes them a for a beer if they're down. So he thinks about other people, but not necessarily me — perhaps because it's taken as read that I can look after myself. Which I can. Thinking back to being ill, he's never asked how I am, what he can do for me, what would I like to drink or whatever. When he's 'looked after' me it's always been on his terms. I can remember when I had the flu he made us a curry, which was one of the last things I felt like eating at the time. Perhaps his basic assumption is that I'm an extension of him, and if he fancies a curry then I will too...

I do think we need the help of a stranger to unpick this, because it's beginning to feel very strange to me.

Maybe call him out, ask him why he never wants to help you when you’re sick or care about how you’re feeling? Tell him you always ensure he’s comfortable and is looked after but you don’t feel that this situation is the same when it comes to him caring for you. Ask him why. Be interesting to hear his response.

It sounds like he missed the in sickness and in health part of being married. He’s not kind to you op, if he can be kind to other people then this shows you what he thinks of you and how much effort and thought he wants to make.

The sandwich thing is just inexplicable.

When has he actually shown you any kindness or been thoughtful to you? Has it ever happened?

Yes, he's been good with birthdays. But I suppose birthdays are quite public affairs — usually a meal out or weekend away — where a cynical person might conclude that he gets attention by being kind to me. He's often appreciative of meals I make, good on everyday courtesies, would normally be cooperative and helpful over everyday things. I sometimes get little gifts and compliments. He always offers me a tea or coffee or a drink if he's having one. Makes me something at lunchtime if he's making it for himself. Washes my car without being asked, for which I'm grateful, but possibly because he doesn't want to see me driving round in a dirty car and not because he's doing it for me.

And then there are irritating things, like when he knew I was in the middle of an important video conference last week and he began using an electric hedge trimmer just a few feet from my window. And was a bit vague and 'Oh' when I was annoyed with him because he knew I'd reminded him twice earlier that I needed 90 minutes of peace and quiet.

Having listed all that, a couple of things cross my mind. First, has he got some sort of early-onset cognition issue and just forgets things — like me? Or is he good at doing the kind of easy routine things that demonstrate care and kindness but doesn't actually think of me at all when it comes to other things?

The sandwich thing is just inexplicable.

I know. I was so lucky Sal and her husband were there and saw it, otherwise I would probably have ended up thinking I'd imagined it, or that he'd just misunderstood.

I'm leaning towards cognitive issues .Forgetful ,rather than choosing to be selfish .