Emotional engagement - a little peeved

[Justthreewords]

Today I had to complete a medical assessment and one of the question was to provide a description in three words from you, your family and your partner about how they see you are a person.

Mine - Joyful, inquisitive, focused
Mum - smart, funny, organised
Partner....

Umm, I don't know, I'm not good at this type of thing. Um, I cant think. Uuur you are more decisive than me? (That is great, that's just a statement of something I can do better than you rather than a actual attribute of mine - I didn't say this but i thought it)

(i listed some attributes) He didn't pick any - just kept saying 'I'm terrible at this',. I tried to prompt him a little 'what do you like about me' he replied lots of things!?! in the end said - you pick and scarpered off to take a 'urgent' call that only he could hear ringing.

We been together for 22 years and in what i believe to be a loving happy relationship .......................and you cant pick three fucking words to outline what I represent to you as a person?

Patient, forgiving and blind 😂

Meh, to be fair I'd struggle to do this for my husband, and I adore him. I mean I could come up with any old shite but I'd struggle to do it properly.

It's a bit of an odd question for a medical assessment?

Oh this would wind me up massively - I need to be seen as a person, not just a partner. Maybe he felt on the spot, if you left him alone for 5 minutes would he come up with something?!?

What really anoys me is I could list over a dozen things about how i see him as a person, without event thinking too hard - i would struggle to condense it to just three.

At the moment my three words are

Stolid
Apathetic
Unsentimental

@3luckystars This made me laugh - thank you

@Pootles34

It was part of a very meticulous pre assessment in relation to preparation for a neurological examination.

The section in question related to depression/anxiety (neither of which I suffer with but were a part of the overall assessment)

Missing the point-but I'm assuming this is an assessment prior to some sort of therapy or counselling? If so, who the hell thought of this question? It sounds like it has the potential to be very destructive....

@CurlewKate No, its is an assessment to enter a diagnosis pathway for a neurological consult.

The previous questions give insight (as far as i can see) into a discrepancy in the views you hold about yourself. It may be a tool to highlight a difference about how you see yourself and how someone else does?

The person: worthless, meaningless, un tethered
The family: Caring, insightful, compassionate
Partner: wonderful, passionate, accomplished

(at a guess - the assessment was very very long and this particular section didn't actually apply to me so i wasn't paying that much attention)

I agree that sucks. How is he in other situations where he's expected to engage emotionally, such as offering support, empathising, putting your needs before his own, etc.?

This

Men can't cope with this type of thing.

@Gettingbysomehow - How odd. Being that I personally have never ever seen men have trouble objectifying woman down to their deemed attractive parts.

Maybe they only have problems when its saying something nice?

That's not true. I had to do something similar once and asked around 8-10 people. An even split of men and women and people I'd known for varying amounts of time.

Everyone managed to don't and responded almost immediately.

Some people might find it hard to do though.

But, you're right, OP, it's a bit shit. He could have asked for some time to narrow it down!

I would ask him to do the same exercise about himself, his mum, dad, brothers and your kids.

If he’s shit at all of them, then you know that’s just the way his brain works.

If he needs help (and you can be bothered), write a list of all the attributes you can think of and see what he chooses.

To answer your question, passive.

To balance that he is also thoughtful, lovely, bright, funny, meticulous and great company. He cooks like a chef, looks hot in shorts and has a shy smile that makes my heart miss a beat. Good handy man and will happily do anything I ask of him without question or quibble.

I don't doubt he loves me, but I have a feeling its a convenient love, for the sake of his comfort and the very nice life we have built. He gets a great deal of joy from our home, our routines and being with our things in our space.

He is attentive and good life partner - makes sure he contributes in relation to chores as well as financially but he is very abeyant as a person.

He is affectionate, respectful and treats me very well but he is very much a passenger in the partnership. While he does pick up his fair share of the mental load / life admin outside of that he would be 100 percent happy to just stay home and not to try anything new or different ever again.

I am a ambivert, he is very much a introvert. Think the problem is when we were younger he would make the effort to try things, be more romantic and have a go. We travelled, we experimented and we were more embracing of change - He has got slowly and almost imperceptibly unwilling to do that as the years pass and as he has reached middle age and his introversion has slowly solidified and intractable.

I have the feeling that i don't have three words because I am a comfortable routine, a well loved piece of furniture that adds to the general ambience that is your happy place. Just a part of the general feeling you get when you have been away and are happy because you are home.

I kind of get it - I’m an introvert and hate being put on the spot with this kind of thing. There’s often so many options of what to say but my brain needs time to process and reflect. I want to get things “right”, - saying the first 3 things that come to mind would almost seem too superficial and flippant. Even if someone asked me to do if for myself, I’d initially panic and deflect by saying I don’t know.

What would happen if you tell him to reflect on it and to tell you his 3 words later at dinner?

I don't know, that seems pretty loaded as a question to me - maybe he's worried about putting his foot in it somehow, he's possibly also aware that you're frustrated at him (from the stuff you've written here).

Maybe it would have been nice for him to instantly come out with compliments but that just doesn't sound like his style.

We ended up having a fairly serious disagreement over this. Both of us come from households where fighting was the norm, raised voices and vicious arguments. As such we are hesitant to argue as it does trigger both of us a bit. We really value the fact we have a pretty harmonious household most of the time. Its been years since the last time we have argued.

On Friday night he asked me, in the middle of the supermarket, what was up as I seemed a bit down. Not really the place for a conducive conversation however we both agreed many many years ago that we would never answer ‘I’m fine’ to a question about how we were if we were not.

So I, non-confrontationally, explained that my feelings had been hurt. He promptly did the number one thing not to do and reacted defensively completely deflected it to me being over sensitive. I lost my shit in a silent angry way and told him is was taking myself away from this situation and left him there. (he had his car, I didn’t just abandon him with no transport)

I went to my office at home and fumed, he took himself off to his office and we didn’t see each other until Sunday night. Not the healthiest way to deal with a conflict, to be fair but actually helped me work through why my feelings were so hurt and why I was feeling unappreciated/unloved.

Sunday evening, he walked into my office and said ‘ok, lets fix this’

A conversation was had, genuine amends were made (by both of us) and a mutual understanding was reached.

Thanks lovely to read! Good luck going forwards x