Emotional Intelligence

[Snafu49]

is anyone in a relationship with someone who has much lower emotional intelligence than them and found a way to make it work? (Not me saying DP has low EQ - our counsellor explained that DP has much lower emotional intelligence than me)

We’re having couples counselling but she sees us together and has also seen us 1-2-1. She explained that I have to lower ‘my expectations to get understanding from him because he has low emotional intelligence and best thing I can do is pull away from
him and he’ll be drawn back in.

im not entirely sure it sounds like great advice but she’s the expert.

This is the wrongest thing I’ve read in a long time. Not all men are knuckleheads, that goes without saying.

Do you really think a CEO with money and power just grunts at people and flexes his muscles?? No they need tons and tons of emotional intelligence and intellectual horsepower.

So it’s things like I will say how something made me feel and he takes it as criticism
or an attack on him (it isn’t worded like that though - I’ve tried adapting how I put things)
He’s very reactive, goes from 0-100 very very quickly so never a chance to explain or clarify anything
if he’s ever done something then he’ll apologise but it will always be a “sorry but you….” Or he’ll say sorry and rationalise why he did it and tell me I shouldn’t feel hurt.
He doesn’t seem to understand difference between intention and impact.
My emotions feel like pressure to him. He can’t tolerate other people’s opinions theyre different to his.
that’s general gist. He doesn’t listen, and hears everything as an attack on him no matter what you say so it’s like treading on eggshells to make sure I don’t inadvertently say thing he perceives the wrong way.

(Please dont think im
putting all blame on him for our issues; I don’t think I’m perfect by any means)

I so agree!

He automatically goes into defence mode. It’s not really just with me but I get it on a bigger scale. No mattter what you or how you say it, he’ll take it as criticism, go on defence mode and then he can get so defensive that he can say nasty things, sometimes to hurt me because he doesn’t know how to release how he feels. We’ve had counselling but outside of it, he’ll say he doesn’t need to make changes as I’m the issue and he just reacts to me. He’s very little accountability but then will also say he’s sorry and he listens (not sure he does)

he has a tendency to downplay what he does that isn’t ok and focus goes on me a lot. He doesn’t have ability to have uncomfortable conversations that are sometimes needed for repair, he’ll storm off instead. So if we discuss something emotionally
tricky, it’ll usually be me who starts conversation (I know I need to pull back but he’ll never raise anything hard or uncomfy for him to discuss), I’ll say something like “this isn’t about criticising him, it’s about how I feel” as a forewarning (which I think is wrong but if I don’t he automatically assumes it’s a go at him) he’ll start explainingijg himself or tell me I shouldn’t feel like that as I’ve got it wrong. I then try to clarify what I meant and what’s been said and it overwhelms him and then he either explodes and it could be name calling etc or he storms off

That sounds terrible. He’s not going to change unless he wants to work on himself. I know someone very similar and they’ve remained emotionally immature and are in their 50’s. His own kids think he acts like a teen, storming off and having dramatic reactions.
This person had a traumatic experience in his late teens and seems to be emotionally stuck there.

What's he like if you try to set boundaries OP? Any issues there?

That sounds abusive to me OP. Not "low emotional intelligence but not his fault poor dear." He's just your garden variety abusive man.

Exploding and name calling are abuse, and never acceptable in any relationship. If you've been honest with your counsellor and s/he still thinks you should stay with him and tiptoe round him, I suggest another counsellor. A competent one.

Agree with all of this.

And btw, even if this emotionally stunted and abusive guy would ever want to work on himself to become a good partner to you, it would take at least a DECADE of HARD work. That work would involve seeing a therapist twice a week for years; reading and discussing with you whatever literature you think he needs to know about; learning above all to contain his defensiveness.

The defensiveness is a real killer. One of the worst things about men - and this is true for ALL men that I have met, including my H for a long time, and I've heard this from SO MANY women - is their self-defensiveness. The minute men hear criticism, especially from women, their walls shoot up from the ground and slam into place like a forcefield. They can't hear or understand ANYthing because they're so busy defending themselves and/or counterattacking (and pitying themselves). The root of this problem is patriarchy, that men are afraid of other men, like women are, but they've accepted that relentless competition and aggression is the price they pay to be a man. It's part of their collective identity, and they reinforce it with each other constantly. Ultimately, this means that they are constantly on guard, primed to instantly and reflexively defend themselves and attack anyone who scares them or might take things from them. It's really primal, they're really primal. And the ferocity of this defensive reflex means that OUR words, women's words, have no effect. They penetrate those walls about as much as motes of dust penetrate a windshield.

It IS possible for men to effect change: my H has managed it after a ton of hard work. But what that required was the will, which came from me telling him I was done and would leave as soon as the kids had finished school. And I wouldn't wish on any woman the years of grinding frustration that led me to that point.

And he STILL falls back into old patterns occasionally and then corrects himself. It's all done a lot of damage to our romantic relationship and much as I love him, had I known about all of this BEFORE I got with him, I would have walked on by.

OP, your counsellor sounds incompetent. The problem is not you or your communication: it's your partner and his societal conditioning. He needs to want to work on that if he is to become a good partner to you. I don't think he is capable.

And there is another major problem: he is fundamentally abusive towards you. My H never raised his voice or said cruel things to me, I was never afraid of him turning discussions into opportunities to abuse me.

If I were you, I'd let this guy go. Don't waste your life on this one.

I think this is a very old fashioned and unhelpful way to look at it. I have a boy who's almost 14, a very masculine boy - very very sporty, has a good group of male friends, totally comfortable with his masculinity - and yet in a serious conversation I was having with him and his sister (15), he talked about the importance of emotional intelligence and how not everyone has it, but he thinks he does as he can understand why people might react in certain ways, and considers this kind of stuff a lot. He can be a very spaced out teenager a lot of the time, not paying much attention to daily stuff like where we're going, what we're doing etc (he's always two steps behind with any plans), but when you sit down to talk to him, he's mature, kind and absolutely values emotional intelligence as a way to better relate to other people.

We as parents have to ensure our sons see emotional intelligence as being high up on the list of good qualities and fully compatible with being a man. If we think 'oh other men will see it as a weakness' we will help to perpetuate the existing problems of the older generation.

This is great - I've not thought about this before, it's a super helpful way to frame it.

This sounds really hard. How old is he? I have seen this in men in their 50s and 60s, particularly. I think it can be a combination of things - childhoods without any real emotional attunement, fragile inner self which is so scared of anything that could impact its own self image (a secure person doesn't immediately go into defensive mode, because they don't feel their entire sense of self is about to collapse just because their partner has an observation to make), and maybe - if he's successful - also combined with a lifetime of being told (at work) that's he's great and always right, and not having to be challenged in that kind of way.