I’m 38 and partner is 42. We have 3 kids , 20, 9 and 3. We haven’t been together for the whole 20 years but have come together and broken up a handful of times.
I think to put it simply, we just don’t get along. He’s a seemingly good Dad, and good partner most of the time but there’s things that put distance between us , mostly on my side. He’s very happy to just ignore things as long as I don’t express a problem.
There isn’t a particular thing that comes between us but more a pattern of things.
A few of the things that bother me are things like:
Has never once sang me happy birthday on my birthday. My mum and dad and sisters generally have a small gathering for me (well we all do it for each others birthdays) and not once in 20 years has my partner sang happy birthday with everyone else. He sits in silence.
He isn’t big on holidays but for example this past Christmas, he unwrapped his presents from me which I actually thought he would love and he just opens them, doesn’t say a word, doesn’t smile , just puts them down beside him. It’s been like that for years with holidays and birthdays.
We each have our own dogs, but his dog is a large Rottweiler who I don’t feel confident walking on my own. My dog is small so she gets walked a lot and taken out of the house frequently. His dog never ever leaves the yard. He doesn’t feed the dog, doesn’t play with the dog. Nothing. I interact with the dog a lot because I do like him , he’s lovely , just very big and heavy. So I’m happy to look after him but it’s so irritating that it’s fallen on me. And if I try to bring it up , he gets defensive and I get the silent treatment for a week.
I do also ask him if he wants to go for a walk at least once a week , we could take the dogs and go to the park with the kids but it’s always no. Always.
One recent incident, he left for work, slammed his car door, and accelerated his car really forcefully out of the drive way. I thought he’s obviously annoyed about something but I’ll leave him to cool down for an hour or so then call to see if he’s ok. I call and he says ‘nothing I’m fine.’ He proceeds to be icey and quiet for the next week. We then go to our couples therapy session (which I’d initiated a few months earlier) and I brought up the incident and he said yea I was annoyed because you through out my old tax return and I saw it in the bin. The lack of communication really gets to me.
another recent incident was where I had something on , on the coming weekend so I asked him if he had anything on too, if he could sort out his Mum to watch the kids. He says back to me ‘don’t worry, I never plan anything on the weekends, because you’re never around anyway.’ I try and invite him to things and I have done for 20 years but after about 19 of those years of him saying no, and just wanting to watch TV, I stopped and I just do things without him. I generally include the kids in my weekend activities too which is the most annoying part of his reply.
None of those things alone are terrible. But it’s the pattern and things like this have been happening for years and years. I thought counselling would help but it seems to have only made him more withdrawn. For years he’s been telling me I’m bad at communicating but I think he was projecting. I do communicate, but as soon as I do , he withdraws and I get silent treatment.
I can’t cope with the miserableness anymore. I don’t know what to do because it’s not one awful thing that’s happened, and I would feel guilty leaving because of small things.
Has anyone experienced a similar partner and found a good solution?