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?

Have you considered divorce, OP? You sound very unhappy with your husband and unable to find any way of improving things. You might be able to establish a way of living that feels OK without him.

Same. Although he did try to intellectually engage when we met. He's talking about anything I had interest in. But as time went on, he revealed the real him was someone who'd rather not.
I ring a friend when I need to think through life at home and she's recognised he's simple minded too. She says everyone she tries to talk to him about anything, he just jokes around. Same thing to my parents and siblings. Even when we go to stores or serious activities, I've witnessed people tell him to stop joining around in a conversation they are leading as they don't find it funny.

Thank you. No, I haven't considered this option as I do want to see whether there are alternatives as we do have a LO.
Hence, why I was keen to hear about whether others experience this and how they manage the situation.

How about couples counselling?

We have tried counselling before. Every session seemed to be the same -he explaining why he can't do life (he seems most things as unnecessary) and the Counsellor suggesting he grows up and then he being upset for days about the telling off.
I suppose we could revisit Counselling again. But I hated the cycle of sadness we used to be in.

That thing he did in the early days is called mirroring. Intelligent autistic people learn how to gain rapport through talking about and getting involved in the other persons interests. Eventually this becomes too exhausting to maintain and they revert to type.

Best thing you can do is learn about autism (there’s a thread for people supporting an autistic spouse) and work together to build
strategies to manage the trickier bits. Once you see the patterns and traits and understand them, it’s easier to adapt. Clothes are often a massive challenge, my kids have never, ever worn jeans because they feel weird. They’ll have mountains of clothes, one will change several times a day, the other wears the same on repeat. On talks for Britain the other says very little but will occasionally offload so much. It’s def worth looking at as it’s sounds fairly obvious to me

I feel very sorry for your husband. He must feel trapped, exhausted and judged by the one person who should be on his side.

You sound too concerned what others think. I feel your world is very small and he's constantly getting it in the neck. There's no fun in your relationship, no joy, you just want him to be a successful man (ie rich) without caring really about him at all.

Was it an arranged marriage? A marriage of convenience where parents and family pushed you together?

Poor guy. He must be in hell.

It just sounds like he disagrees with you and that’s not allowed? He has house and holiday ideas but they aren’t the ones you approve of, he chooses his own clothes but you’re embarrassed by them, he has friendships but you think he should have different ones? He might shut down from discussions if the range of possible answers is already decided in advance by you and so there’s no point him having an opinion.

OP, you sound insufferable.

You are an over thinker and seem more intense and ambitious than your husband.
If he is genuinely non fussed about many details, then you must take the lead on what is important to you.

You book the holiday and tell DH the dates.
You view the schools and choose your favourite two to look at together.

Buy DH new clothing for birthdays.

If you are happy to have differing opinions to each other and if you enjoy being together stop focussing on DH being non fussy.

Maybe yours is a case of opposites attract.
As a team, you could be strong.

This is hard to believe. A counsellor telling off a client for having a different approach to life than yours seems unlikely.

Could you answer the earlier question about where you are from? As has been mentioned, your use of idiomatic English suggests you are not a native speaker, so cultural differences could be playing a part here.

I think it’s clear he will not change so your options are, to live with it and find workable solutions and hope it doesn’t drive you mad in the long run through frustration or leave. We have a family calender where we put holiday dates and agree then the beginning of the year. Maybe you buy him the clothes you like for his birthdays/Christmas etc. you might just have to make some decisions without him and tell him ‘this is what we are doing’.

In terms of the friendships, he sounds too needy. I suspect that the reason his friends are not reciprocating is that they already see more of him than they would like.

I once had an acquaintance at university that really latched onto me. She was really put out that I never phoned her, but she phoned me nearly every day. There was not a chance I would invite even more contact.

I do think you also sound a bit quirky @ffspls . I think from your side, it might help to filter out the philosophical from the essential and see if it improves if you keep your expectations of him to the essential. Don't let hime get away with the 'big picture' BS.

Sounds odd to me, I like my light hearted convos with my dh and the rare serious one..I would switch off to

I think there may also be an element that you wish to socially climb and he is not bothered. Neither is wrong.

Is it possible that he finds these issues that you are bringing up a bit trivial? What the neighbours think of you, what clothes he wears to go shopping, how you are placed socially and so on, these are to many people minor things.

Have you tried engaging with him more cerebrally?

Does he need to have the final desision? I searched for, viewed and made the offer on our house. I knew what I wanted an̈d dh was less invested in the vision I had to buy to extend.

Some with nursery. If he isn't invested why does he get the final say?

Is there any divide of the mental load he will do?

I had one like this. Currently getting divorced and for the first time in my life with him, I’ve seen the fire in his belly/ambition show up - to paint me as the wicked witch of the East/West/North/South and to destroy anything we’d built together. Sort YOUR finances and goals out for you and your LO and leave this shit to it.

This is what my partner is like. He just isn’t deep, didn’t come from a chatty or affectionate family, doesn’t talk to his friends in any deep or meaningful way. He goes silent when I have an issue and gives me solutions. I don’t want solutions sometimes, I want someone to sympathise with me. Nope. He just can’t do it. He doesn’t know how to comfort people, he doesn’t know how to be romantic, he has his ambitions and loves that I have mine but they are completely separate. I love him but I’m really struggling with it. He’s a nice person but just doesn’t have any emotional capacity. I’m 30 he’s 28. I’ve spent the last 10 months trying to gently teach him how to love me, how to talk to a girlfriend (as his last one was when he was 17…) and he just sucks at it. I’m willing to give it a chance for a bit, but if nothing changes unfortunately I will have to call it quits. I need someone to be able to communicate with me, not shut down and go silent. It’s deafening. I love him so much and it hurts that he is just unable to have a serious conversation. I believe he is ND (I’m AuDHD).

She’s concerned about her family’s future because her husband doesn’t take the lead and struggles to carry an intellectual conversation? Since when is being ambitious and wanting a better life excludes fun? I find it sad when a woman needs to step into the role of “pushing” their family further in life because the man is just too comfortable and then the woman gets called insufferable.

I think someone told her she was 'special' all her life which has given her an (unwarranted) air of authority over her husband. I'm presuming she has a double 1st from oxbridge and a size 8 with a beautiful face?

Social climbing? Good god. This isn't Downton or Bridgerton. No one cares.... And look at the wealthiest people in the world, the musks, the bezos bunch... You are welcome to them.

She lives in a world that has long gone.

Insufferable.

If I were the guy, I'd be looking for a way out ASAP. Sounds like he already checked out a long time ago... Don't blame him. The OP naturally, can't see that she's not helping his life. More like a burdon

I agree with those who say you sound incompatible. I could not be in a relationship like that, it would drive me up the wall. He sounds apathetic or perhaps lazy, sorry. There might be a ND at play but even if he has one, you don’t have to be obliged to carry him through life.

As you have a child together, you need to consider he might model him in his attitude to life. If you don’t want that, then perhaps staying in this relationship for your child’s sake is not such a good idea.

I don’t understand the negative comments in this thread, btw. You’ve explained yourself well and it’s clear he’s not the right partner for you.

So much negativity towards OP on this thread because of how she phrased things. She’s not insufferable for wanting her partner to engage in serious conversation with her.

OP - when he responds to you by making a joke, have you tried gently challenging, along the lines of “haha that’s funny, but can we have a serious conversation about this? I want to know what you think.”

This works with my partner who does often default to thinking he has to make a joke of everything (which gets exhausting). He often fails to read the room and respond appropriately but can do when it’s pointed out nicely - he’s also autistic.

You both have professional jobs and it sounds like you're doing well enough financially - isn't that probably an indicator that he CAN have detailed conversations, problem solve, and cooperate and collaborate with others when he has to (or wants to)? I'm not sure how old he is but as you've only been together for three years then unless he'e still in his teens or early 20s he must have been able to do things like find a rental flat, find a job, take time off work, plan a holiday, etc. before he met you?

What I'm getting at is, can he really be UNABLE to have productive conversations, or is he for some reason unwilling to have them with you right now? Most importantly: does he know how unhappy you are, and is couples counselling something he'd consider? If he would, and you both were willing to work at it and attend multiple sessions, it would at least hold him accountable for talking, contributing, and saying how he feels and give each of you some insight and ideally some common ground where it currently feels like you're not connecting.