My partner is unable to fully engage with me on life matters

[ffspls]

My partner is unable to have deep conversations with me whether it is about my life, past or present, or about my hopes and dreams, or about our vision, ambition or hopes and plans for our family to be socioeconically stronger. He would typically just go quiet like shutting down or would change the subject to something uninmmportant or unintelligent or would tell jokes to deflect or undermine the importance of the subject.
Does anyone experience this and how do you manage it?

There is a long list of things that cross your mind to talk to your partner about - child’s passport and whether you can go on holiday overseas being just one of them - which he doesn’t engage with at all. It sounds like really hard work and as if it doesn’t occur to your partner to think far beyond the next week or to believe that your inner reality is worth his time. Which might be fine for some people in a relationship but wouldn’t be for me.

Have you got to the stage of talking to friends, family members, colleagues or someone professional about the big gaps in thinking and communication between you?

Ditch and move on, you are not compatible and you will be wasting your time trying to change him.

How did you get to understand that I dictate what he wears? Goodness.
If I can't point out to my partner that wearing a hoodie and flip flops to certain places may not present well, what kind of partner would I be especially when I can see how he is being treated for doing so?
If my partner can't engage about out need to house hunt (discuss budget, location and proximity to nursery etc) and I am on my own trying to find any house and he is just failing to discuss how he feels about the viewings becasuse as he said when I picked him up on it, the houses I found were although cheaper, in rough roads and a step down, what am I supposed to do.
Most are saying I'm intense. I'm guessing you don't do life planning in your marriages or relationships? Do you just eat, sleep, drink and let life happen to you?
Surely part of partnership is planning and collaborating?

Thank you. I have spoken to him about this. He said he is a big picture guy. I'm more of details and taking small steps.

He is the one trying to keep friends who I think use him and look down on us just because they are more well off. I find it worrying that he makes time for these people and I try to talk to him about recognising how he is positioning our family as needing approval and friendships and how we need to ensurile we don't lead our LO down the road of chasing after people. I don't see anything wrong with that. I'd rather focus on people who focus on us. How would you feel if people excluded your family from social gatherings and dodged you in public but your partner kept jumping at any opportunity to see them, even taking strolls around their streets hoping he'd bump into them or texting to let them know he is wandering around if they needed a quick chinwag. I'm unsure why these are seen as intense but he's my family, surely I should be able to tell him the truth otherwise who else will???

Please Google is your friend. You sound mean.

You're projecting onto me. You may be superficial; I'm not. I work myself to the bone for my family and asking for a man to engage and participate in the life they want and enjoy seems to be too much to ask for these days.
Clearly you are for a man taking a backseat. Good for you. Not everyone is.

You say you work yourself to the bone, and I do believe you on this point, but you want validation from people through superficial means.

I think you don't like hearing how you sound to others, including your husband, and this is probably why you two don't get along.

You sound arrogant, pompous and desperate to fit in and not wanting your husband to give your game away.

I'm not the only one who stated this, so not sure why you've singled me out, but I said it so you can reflect and weigh up what, if anything, you can gain so you can move forward in your relationship.

Take it or leave it. Up to you.

Thank you. No idea why most are saying I'm intense. I spent months trying to find the right time get my partner to discuss where and when to go on a family holiday. He always said it wasnt the right time to discuss such heavy stuff. But bring up something like discussing doing nothing by the beach, and he is happy to fantacise away.
Would be happy to say he wantss our LO to do well in life but soon as I discuss which activities to enrol him in to help, he can't handle much of it.

My ex said proudly that he was someone who takes instruction. Ie, he wanted other people to do the thinking and have the responsibility and mental load that entails. It didn’t change with becoming a parent, and was absolutely exhausting and pathetic. I bet you are doing so much more within the family.

You sound desperately negative and are really derailing my post from getting meaningful advice by making ridiculous conclusions about who I am and what matters to me.
I want to discuss my LO getting a nursery place, going on family holidays, my LO's health and what the doctor says about it, our savings and how we could find opportunities to enjoy whatever we do for work, our time and resources being wasted on 'friends' who don't reciprocate.

You think these are intense, superficial, arrogant and pompous?

Thank you, but your advice isn't objective or helpful. Sounds like you're deriving pleasure in being critical and mean.

This is life being married to an Autistic man. (From experience)

I'm not negative, I'm actually trying to be quite neutral and say to you that you don't seem compatible and why. So, the choice is to accept that and whatever DH traits can assist you, or cut your ties and live your life as you choose.

I'm very neutral. I don't think it's a bad thing to be superficial. I think it's an unrealistic thing to be this way and try to create this in someone else and then resent them for not being what they were never meant to be.

Some of the things you state you want to discuss sound very reasonable and some sound so beyond the pale, as though you dine with royalty daily and your DH is just some doofus following your around and making an embarrassment of you, that it's hard to discern what you want besides everyone taking your side of things.

If that's the case, it wasn't clear and I will withdraw. I'm not in the habit of aggravating people online. I genuinely wish you the best but I'm not sure how you are going to attain that for yourself if you don't have the ability to discern between criticism and constructive feedback.

All the best.

OP are you from another country ?
That might explain some of your strange phrasing and possible cultural differences.

This sounds painfully dull though. I imagine he nods, switches off and wonders why you aren't hugely successful and achieving more.

I take it the spark has long gone?

No wonder you’re frustrated.
Living with him must be like trying to push water up hill.

Why does everything need to be discussed in such painful detail? Would be way too intense for me.

If you want to go on holiday then tell him that you’re going to book something and get it done. Same with looking for a new house - book some viewings and tell him the date and time. Stop dragging everything out.

I feel for you OP, I had similar experiences with my DP. We also live in an affluent area and the dress code is very real. You may wear your horse riding gear and SB leggings but God forbid you do your Waitrose shop in jogging bottoms. And that’s just one of the many aspects people are being judged in the complexities of the British class system. It irks me when some say nobody cares - oh they do. As someone who moved from another country, Brits have an incredibly judgmental society. I wonder if your DH has confidence issues hence why the lack of initiative and letting others take advantage of him.

Because we work and there are dates we both can't take annual leave, so we have to find availability that aligns. Same applies to home viewings.
And because we are still yet to find a new home months on as he says none viewed are suitable but he is unable to bring himself to let us agree what our search criteria is as a couple.
He isn't a pushover. He ultimately makes the final decision hence why we are yet to find a new home.

Thank you. I'm from another country.
I know the world we live in. People can continue to pretend and say that no one cares - some really do in real life as I know my experience is real and I'm not alone in this.
I just want better chances in life for our family. I suspect he has confidence issues and I sometimes just want to hug him and help him see we are enough and worthy of friendships where we aren't trying so hard.

I’m actually confused by what you want, OP. Is it engagement from your DH and help with the mental load of booking holidays and house viewings, or to mold your DH into the kind of man you think he needs to be for you to climb the social ladder and fit into the snooty/affluent area you find yourselves in?

Does he need to step up and contribute to decisions on where to live and where to send your son to nursery? Absolutely, it’s his child too.

Does he need to change the way he dresses (presumably he is dressing the same way he dressed at the beginning of the relationship 3 years ago) so he doesn’t show you up, as you see it? Absolutely not - no one should tolerate this kind of intense, controlling behaviour from a spouse.

Sorry @ffspls you sound exhausting. Not everyone enjoys or gets much out of “deep” conversations. Surely you noticed he’s a man of few words before you had sex?

Okay. Doing life is exhausting. Thank you. Stop detailing the essence of my post by fixating on what my partner wears. It's very typical. Cherrypicking. I gave it as an example of how he can't have any conversation about anything but is happy to moan or fantacise about life. If you think it is ok not to enjoy doing life is ok, you are clearly not someone I need advice from. You are equally exhausting and the cherrypicking is just like gaslighting and daft.

Thank you. He is considering getting assessed.

I've answered some of the questions in my responses. We have good savings, mine from work and most of his from his parents. If I make financial plans, he vetoes it and says we just need to livem we don't need to do anything.