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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Does anyone else have a partner they get very little conversation from?

75 replies

Netters37 · 22/02/2025 21:18

I’m not even sure exactly how to descibe him. He’s a kind, generous man who works hard and always makes effort to see me, do things together but I’ve had a bit of a light switched on and realised the conversation is just not really reciprocated. I kinda talk at him and he just agrees. I’ll be telling him a story and he will just say “ah really?” Or say I’m ok the phone and come off it he would never ask who that was or anything about it (I don’t mean in a nosy way, just a general conversation). He’s had stuff go on in his life (wedding invites, job things etc) that I learn about weeks if not months later, just doesn’t think of share these with me.
if I tell him a story of something that upset me say in work, or in a shop or something he will say “that’s really crap”, the same line, never ask any questions.
the light bulb moment came really when I was waiting on a hospital appointment and the letter came through and I was so glad as this has been worrying me, glad to get appointment but also then nervous to see what’s going on. He didn’t once ask how I was feeling, when it was etc. he was there when I opened the letter and I told him “oh great this is the appointment”.
you might said in response to this that I should just tell him, not wait to be asked but I would just love a bit of interest/care. I’ve brought this up and he says he does care but that he doesn’t want to pry

OP posts:
InALonelyWorld · 22/02/2025 22:14

I had an ex like this and it was draining. If I didn't talk it would just be long drawn out silence and i would feel very awkward. 6 months in and he still had no clue about anything to do with me that was deeper than face value. He asked no questions about anything, didn't initiate a conversation, gave minimal response back to me and at times would tell me that I talked to much 🙄

When I communicated the fact that I needed some form of emotional stimulation and growth between us, he would start yapping non stop about the weather or something completely useless. In the end, I asked him to name 5 things about me, he couldn't so I asked him to leave and I never looked back. He did later send me a letter answering that question though but they had absolutely no depth and were very surface level for what a partner of 6 months should know.

SoMuchWastedTime · 22/02/2025 22:15

Yes, for 11 years until our recent break up, it was so unfulfilled and frustrating, it drove me crazy. I bottled so much up because I gave up trying. It's very lonely.

Ingles2 · 22/02/2025 22:19

😁He really isn’t.. he’s nearly 70 and a forces child, was sent back to board in England from a very early age.. sometimes your background shapes who you are! 😉

MeganCarter · 22/02/2025 22:25

OP have you watched Leanne Morgan from Tennessee on youtube?
I recommend, just the Shorts even, know it isn’t just you and will cheer
you up I hope. The ones where she is wearing a dress that looks like she
has patched it all together ‘real meat’ as she would say - I’m sorry I can’t
send you a vid link, anyway,
she is v funny in a gentle non swearing way, about her family -
her husband has a busy job talking all day long, then he comes
home and doesn’t speak - he has used up all his words.

I was with a non conversationalist for a number of years, who spoke
in awful cliches, platitudes, repeatedly, took me a while to reallse it was
a cover up for his lack of education, travel, worldliness, with no interests
beyond his way of life occupation.

I don’t know what you can do, grin and bear it perhaps.
Two years married is still a period of adjustment.

Netters37 · 22/02/2025 22:27

MeganCarter · 22/02/2025 22:25

OP have you watched Leanne Morgan from Tennessee on youtube?
I recommend, just the Shorts even, know it isn’t just you and will cheer
you up I hope. The ones where she is wearing a dress that looks like she
has patched it all together ‘real meat’ as she would say - I’m sorry I can’t
send you a vid link, anyway,
she is v funny in a gentle non swearing way, about her family -
her husband has a busy job talking all day long, then he comes
home and doesn’t speak - he has used up all his words.

I was with a non conversationalist for a number of years, who spoke
in awful cliches, platitudes, repeatedly, took me a while to reallse it was
a cover up for his lack of education, travel, worldliness, with no interests
beyond his way of life occupation.

I don’t know what you can do, grin and bear it perhaps.
Two years married is still a period of adjustment.

We aren’t married

OP posts:
Sugepaper · 22/02/2025 22:30

Netters37 · 22/02/2025 22:27

We aren’t married

I guess the post where you said ‘we are married’ confused the poster

CuteEasterBunny · 22/02/2025 22:33

My ex was the same. I don’t think he was bored or uninterested in me at all - He just really struggled to express himself in almost all ways. I used to say he was glossing over everything and he would feel upset and apologetic but in the end I stopped sharing and withdrew.

LongDarkTeatime · 22/02/2025 22:33

My DH has gradually become more like this too.
It wasn’t until our DC was diagnosed as autistic a couple of years ago that we started learning about neurodivergence and autism. It’s slowly become clear that my lovely, generous, caring husband is also autistic. He has been masking his whole life. It explains quite a few of the issues we’ve experienced.

Netters37 · 22/02/2025 22:34

Sugepaper · 22/02/2025 22:30

I guess the post where you said ‘we are married’ confused the poster

Lol I genuinely laughed out loud at this and had to check back. We aren’t married, I can’t seem to edit that post

OP posts:
HarryBlackberry1 · 22/02/2025 22:35

My ex was like this. We were together nearly 20 years. It wore me out and I had enough in the end. I'm now married to a lovely man who is actually interested in me, and talks.

YouMustBeTheWeasleys · 22/02/2025 22:41

If you have only been together 2 years OP are you sure your relationship isn’t just running out of steam? 2 years is still very new and you should still be in the honeymoon phase really. I have known my DH for 14 years and we have never run out of things to talk about. We chat all the time, sometimes it is questions and other times it is “oh this is an interesting thing I read/heard”.

I can’t understand how you got to the point of living together if you don’t seem to have naturally flowing conversation.

MeganCarter · 22/02/2025 22:46

Sugepaper · 22/02/2025 22:30

I guess the post where you said ‘we are married’ confused the poster

!! lol

the brevity of the OP’s curt response without commenting on my content certainly
confused me - perhaps the influence of the taciturn partner is more insidious than
OP realises

MrBallensWife · 22/02/2025 22:49

My ex was like this..except he had plenty to say..about himself.Thats all he ever talked about!.He never asked me stuff about my day,my work my life etc.I met him in 2011 when my son was 12 so he knew him from a youngish age.We had our daughter in 2013 and lived together until 2022.
My son was diagnosed with Bowel Cancer age 18 and had 3 years of Chemo every 2 weeks before he passed away in 2021
.Not once did that man ever ask me how my son was,what did the Doctor say?,how was his chemo today etc etc.Not bloody once.Yet we all lived together.All he ever talked about was his bloody self.
I don't even think he deliberately did it,he was just so self centered I don't think it ever occurred to him to ask.
After my son passed I felt so much resentment for him and couldn't get over how unsupported I felt by him during the worst time of my life.The rot just set in for me and we split 6 months later.

Netters37 · 22/02/2025 22:50

YouMustBeTheWeasleys · 22/02/2025 22:41

If you have only been together 2 years OP are you sure your relationship isn’t just running out of steam? 2 years is still very new and you should still be in the honeymoon phase really. I have known my DH for 14 years and we have never run out of things to talk about. We chat all the time, sometimes it is questions and other times it is “oh this is an interesting thing I read/heard”.

I can’t understand how you got to the point of living together if you don’t seem to have naturally flowing conversation.

Sorry we don’t live together either. Not married or living together

OP posts:
ItGhoul · 22/02/2025 22:51

Sugepaper · 22/02/2025 22:12

What, by accusing you of spying when you ask him what he’s doing? Hint, he’s probably doing something he shouldn’t be.

If I’m reading, I don’t like it when people ask me what I’m reading and then quiz me on what the book’s about. I actually like talking about books with people in a lot of circumstance, but when I’m reading something I know full well the other person won’t really be interested in, I find it really tiresome having to explain it.

I also don’t like it when someone asks me what I’m doing on my phone.

It’s got absolutely nothing to do with ‘doing something I shouldn’t be’; I just really dislike having to explain/justify myself when I know it’s of no real relevance to the person asking.

I’m not a non-chatty person in general, but for some reason I just find being quizzed like that really annoying and a bit nosy. I’m aware it’s not my most appealing trait but it doesn’t mean I’m up to no good, and there’s no reason the PP’s husband would be either.

healthybychristmas · 22/02/2025 22:53

If you're not living with him or married to him then honestly I would just stop seeing him. I'd be too bored to continue. What's the bloody point?

ItGhoul · 22/02/2025 22:55

Netters37 · 22/02/2025 22:50

Sorry we don’t live together either. Not married or living together

OP, he’s not suddenly going to become interesting. If I were you I’d be ending this relationship. If it’s like this when you don’t even live together, it’s not going to improve.

What are you actually getting out of this relationship?

jennylamb1 · 22/02/2025 22:56

Sounds like he could be on the autistic spectrum, does he have few friends, special interests, sensory sensitivities, a job in science/technology/engineering/mechanics?

Beesandhoney123 · 22/02/2025 23:00

Makes no sense. So you are still dating after two years, living mostly separate lives and he has nothing to say? How the feck do you arrange to meet up?

Do you go for long silent walks, dinners or nightclubs where no one talks?

Does he have any big talk, to make up for having no small talk?

What about when you meet up with friends ? Does he chat then?

qwertyasdfgzxcv · 22/02/2025 23:04

This is not going to get better. Wish I'd married someone who was chatty and fun and well, a best friend. I didn't. Mine also gets funny and defensive if I ask him what he is reading etc on his phone. I think he's just be brought up in a slightly abusive way so he is on guard all the time. Took me far too long to realise this. He also doesn't have any friends.

MeganCarter · 22/02/2025 23:09

I remembered something - this is general info - if I was speaking to my OH usually something to do with the children, school, something informative, my husband would be looking at me but I could see, the blinds were down, he was blanking me off without saying anything - dumb insolence - this went on for years until he had to go to a school parents open night, gcse options, I had a migraine, couldn’t go and he asked me where the school was. I kid you not.

He came back after an hour said he had been driving around and couldn’t find it, accused me of deliberately giving him incorrect directions. I’d had enough by then

Another thing he used to do which I found disconcerting was, as above, me telling him something important, possibly which school his children attended, he would throw back his head, open his mouth until there was a clunk, yawn in an exaggerated way for a while, then snap back and ask, ‘what did you say/were you going on about/asking me - at which point I would say, never mind. So that worked.
Apparently, major yawns close the Eustachian tubes, so he genuinely couldn’t hear.
He would do this regularly, or walk out of the room while I was speaking to him, or
cut right across and give a child an instruction, or speak to the dog? disrespectful.

Respect is the bottom line.

Anyway this isn’t about ME this is persuading the OP that she has a right to an expectation of communication which is so obviously not being met.
Taciturn is difficult enough, but a persistent lack of interest and fobbing off,
this is not acceptable.

Waffle19 · 22/02/2025 23:18

Gosh sometimes I wonder if my DH would say this about me! We both process our days in very different ways, he likes to talk everything through and I don’t. And I find it hard to speak to him loads about his day. I guess the difference is when we’re together away from the kids / daily grind / not just on the sofa after a day of work we talk no problem. We also get that we have different ways of communicating, my DH does still occasionally get frustrated with my lack of conversation to him but likewise I sometimes get annoyed he talks too much and we usually meet somewhere in middle. Now wondering if I’ve been unreasonable all these years based on responses here!

HelloVeraPlant · 22/02/2025 23:21

Could he have undiagnosed ND?

I say this because it sounds like he processes the world differently.

Either that or upbringing. My ex was defiantly talkative but ignored the big serious conversations - or anything related to feelings - and anytime I would want to talk about stuff that bothered me or if I asked questions he would back off and ask me why I’m acting like an investigator - strange!

I personally could be with Simone like that. My current partner is very empathetic and we have great conversations - this relationship may frustrate you long term if conversation and reciprocation are important.

Boxalot · 22/02/2025 23:24

My ex was exactly as you describe. He has, we both think, strong autistic traits and ADHD traits and is in the process of being diagnosed.

Another thing that drove me up the wall (as this relationship helped me realise that emotional/verbal connection is key for me) is that he never looked me in the eyes when talking. NEVER. In fact most of my boyfriends have looked off at a 90 degree angle away from me. It made me feel over time like he never really saw me.

Whatisthisbs · 22/02/2025 23:25

MrBallensWife · 22/02/2025 22:49

My ex was like this..except he had plenty to say..about himself.Thats all he ever talked about!.He never asked me stuff about my day,my work my life etc.I met him in 2011 when my son was 12 so he knew him from a youngish age.We had our daughter in 2013 and lived together until 2022.
My son was diagnosed with Bowel Cancer age 18 and had 3 years of Chemo every 2 weeks before he passed away in 2021
.Not once did that man ever ask me how my son was,what did the Doctor say?,how was his chemo today etc etc.Not bloody once.Yet we all lived together.All he ever talked about was his bloody self.
I don't even think he deliberately did it,he was just so self centered I don't think it ever occurred to him to ask.
After my son passed I felt so much resentment for him and couldn't get over how unsupported I felt by him during the worst time of my life.The rot just set in for me and we split 6 months later.

So sorry for your loss 💐 x

My DP is a cross between your post and the OPs. He'll listen to me half heartedly, and then turn the conversation back to himself. It's draining. After a break up, this was one of the main things I asked him to work on, which he is - but still a long way to go. I also think he's got traits of autism/adhd as others have said

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