What's prompted me posting is a few things.
The stuff at work is really bad. I can talk to anyone- friends, partner, colleague, son about the toxicity, the incompetence, the arrogance, the details and the specifics. But no one knows that I sit in the garden and cry before the day starts because of how it has impacted on me personally or mentally. No one knows how it's made me feel about myself and how I'm viewed. (Issues are general but certain people have been targetted specifically).
Last night, my partner's friend came round for the evening. He's a lovely man and I really like him. The three of us were talking in the garden. He is very much an open book and shared some quite personal and deep thoughts and feelings on all manner of things.
My partner also opened up and revealed some deep thoughts and worries that I was completely unaware of. He doesn't even share the surface level stuff with me. I gave nothing.
I hide behind humour. So I can talk about truly awful stuff that has happened to me but relay it in an unemotional way. Never the impact.
It wasn't safe to open up to my parents when I was younger because they'd mock me for it or make light of it. So I just stopped telling people how I felt.
My partner has always maintained that he doesn't think about things too deeply and doesn't dwell on things. That he always lives in the now and what's the point of thinking about things that have gone and haven't changed?
But last night's conversation showed this isn't true at all and he definitely thinks about some things, at least, very deeply.
I think it would be easy to say that he doesn't open up up to me because I haven't created the emotional safety for him to do so. But he hasn't even shared on a superficial level. He literally presents to me as someone who has no worries.
I just think I realised that I don't have a deep emotional connection with anyone.