DH cannot 'listen' and it's putting me off sex. Please help!

[oneplusone]

DH is unable to listen to anything I have to say. He will literally walk off whilst I am mid-sentence, cut me off whilst I am talking to say something himself, look around and get distracted by the tiniest little everyday sounds, carry on watching tv as if I haven't said anything. Every time he does this, I feel belittled, unimportant, and hurt. I feel he does not respect me enough to pay attention when I am saying something.

I never feel like having sex with him and I have worked out that his inability to listen to me is why. It causes resentment in me towards him and I feel very disconnected from him if we cannot even have a normal everyday conversation.

I have told him how he makes me feel but he just says he doesn't mean to do it, he doesn't do it intentionally, it's all in my head if i feel belittled and hurt and he basically says he can't change and i have to put up with it.

I have tried but I can't put up with it and I don't really know what to do. Has anybody got any ideas?

He gets moody if I say i don't want sex and goes on about all the things he does for me. And to be fair he does do a lot around the house and helps out with the DC's as much as he can, considering he also works long hours in a sressful job. But I would be much happier if he helped out less and listened more. I never ask him to help, he just does it, but I have asked him to listen as that is what i want from him, but he says he can't. It seems like an impossible problem, please tell me there is a way forward!

[backtoworkthistime]

agree with dittany.

Also it reads as if suddenly you've found the reason why he is disrespectful to you~it's all your fault!

[oneplusone]

dittany you are right, but i cannot force him to change or work on his issues, all i can do is change my response to him and he will soon see he is not having the effect on me that he intended.

But i will get that book as i think it will be useful anyway. Thank you.

[oneplusone]

dittany, i don't know, will have to wait and see on that. But if he does, i am not going to get upset, i know it's because he has some issue he is taking out on me and i know i won't feel belittled or humiliated. I will just feel sorry for him that he feels he has to behave in such a childish way and that he cannot just tell me what the problem is in an adult manner.

TDiddy, i hope so. Will wait and see.

But despite my acceptance that a lot of our problems started with me, i am not going to let him walk all over me and feel that every single thing is my fault. He has his fair share of flaws too, the trouble is he is too arrogant to admit to them.

[TDiddy]

Pneplusone- you sound very empathetic which is commendable. However, after a good open chat with DH and with you showing understanding towards him, hopefully your relationship will move to a more supportive phase with him not compunding your childhood abuse but helping to overcome it. Best wishes

[oneplusone]

hello again, sorry for disappearing yesterday, DC's took over.

Anauntie, you are right, now that I am out of my depression I have the confidence and energy to tackle DH's behaviour towards me.

tmsb, hi and thank you for your post. You are so right in that the only way to deal with this is not to engage with him, and if and when he cuts me off, to see it as his problem instead of feeling hurt/humiliated as was no doubt his conscious/subconscious intention. It's almost a form of bullying, but very subtle, and i know exactly where he learnt it from, his mother.

tmsb, I don't expect DH or anyone to listen to every single thing i might say, but i do believe I am entitled to be treated with basic respect and courtesy and that means not interrupting me/cutting me off mid sentence etc. Without that our marriage is doomed.

However, since my last post, things have moved forward positively. I realised that DH was deliberately not listening to me as I have described. But I am no longer upset about it or annoyed with him about it. The reason being that the root cause of his behaviour towards me lies with my parents. That may sound unlikely, but it's true. It's a very very long story, but basically, because I was abused by my parents, I was a very damaged person when i met and married DH. I fully admit that when we first got married i often treated DH in a way that he didn't deserve because i, without realising it, had a lot of anger and bitterness stored up inside me because of my childhood. I would often take my feelings out on DH even though it should have been my parents who actually deserved my anger and resentment. So, because i was treating DH badly, he naturally built up bitterness and anger and resentment towards me. Although he still always tried to be good to me, my behaviour towards him over the years must have hurt and angered him deeply as he had done nothing to deserve it. So even though he would always try and be good to me, i could always sense in him the anger and resentment he had towards me, and that would make me feel hostile towards him. I was unable to see that it was my own behaviour which was causing his resentment towards me.

Over the past few years I have been dealing with my childhood issues. And it is only now that I have realised that DH was entitled to feel angry and hurt and upset at the way i was treating him, but my behaviour towards him was as a result of the damage done to me by my parents. And we have both realised now that rather than the two of us being antagonistic towards each other, we should both be united in feeling angry towards my parents. Since I realised all this and spoke to DH about it last night, i feel a huge burden has been lifted from me. I have treated DH badly, but i couldn't help it, my childhood experience meant i had no idea how to communicate, trust other people, believe I was worthy of being loved and respected and all my issues had a huge effect on DH and our marriage.

Sorry for the long ramble, but I hope it might help some of you in the same situation. ie The problem went a lot deeper than i first realised.

[TDiddy]

Very sad posts. I think some people come home from work and don't switch off but continue to behave in work mode. I think SGB's and oneplusone's points about not relying fully on DP for adult interaction is relevant. BUT we should not have to fight a battle for respect and consideration at home.

I think in the calmest manner you have to say that this is a fundamental issue and a possible marriage breaker. One strategy when not getting on is for each partner to list the three things that he/she would like the other to focus/work on without accusation or interruption, argument, counter claim.

You can even write it down and then both revisit it after a couple of weeks. And then a month and so on.

Most of all tell him that bitterness and unhappiness is being stored up which would be a real shame when you are 70 and look back at your lives.

Best wishes

[AnAuntieNotAMum]

oneplusone - having read your later posts I take back my suggestions, would seem that you know what's going on here and now that you are out of your depression you are getting the energy to tackle it.

[labyrinthine]

oneplusone
I read your op and then had to check the MN nickname as I thought I could have actually written it!
I have a current thread which began with a different issue but the underlying issues of communication and behaviour of my dh are exactly as you describe with yours.

It makes me sad to read it actually~for you,me and everyone else who starts off together thinking it will be fun and happy travelling the journey of life together only to find out it's more like a torturous,confusing life sentence.

Life is too short for this.

Sorry can't get it to link but it is an
"AIBU to feel that dh is being horrid and unreasonable?"

[toomanystuffedbears]

Hi oneplusone
Not very long ago, I said to dh:
'You know I blame Middle Sister for putting me down so much, but you degrade me your fair share.'

I didn't wait for a response, but he did hear me and has been aware since.

His father is a chauvanistic rather "old school"... and in spite of all the 'sensitivity training' dh has been through at work, I see some of his dad peep out occasionally. Dh does have a lot of frustration with people at work, so I understand he may have interaction overload and want the sanctuary as mentioned before. And I'm ok with that.

However, when he treats me that way, it is a stab in the heart. I have learned to disconnect rather than go through the frustration of trying to make him treat me differently. I think that is the course he wants-he wants me to try to make him-so he can frustrate me even more. So I don't play; *uck the housework, I'm working on my quilt for days...

It is not a perfect world.

I really don't think dh feels that part of his function as husband is to be wife's confidant. He does truck loads of other stuff (bathrooms ) but being my conversation partner/counselor/whatever just doesn't click for him.

[NotPlayingAnyMore]

"He says he is willing to try and change but I have to help him by jokingly and nicely pointing out to him each time he does this."

The only way pointing it out would work is if he's listening.

I think that either he hasn't quite got it or that he is perfectly aware and you've just caught him out!

[oneplusone]

Hello again.

Dittany, thank you so much for that, I do think it is a form of abuse and I do think DH definately feels the need to be one up over somebody else. All his friends are of the sort where he is the superior one, he has the upper hand and I think he needs to feel 'top dog' at all times. But if i try and suggest this to him he just denies it, perhaps he is not even aware of himself in that way.

I am going to get that book, thank you for the link. I feel shaky all of a sudden. Because the reason for my depression was that I was dealing with the fact that i had been abused as a child and an adult by my parents, mostly my dad, who was extremely verbally abusive towards me. And at the back of my mind i have always had a fear that i married somebody who was just like my dad. And although on first impressions DH seems very different to my dad, at a much deeper level i think the two of them are very similar. They both say things that are demeaning, belittling, disrespectful but when pulled up on it say it's all in my head, they didn't mean it, i got the wrong end of the stick ie blame me and try and make me feel it's my fault.

Sorry have to go, DC's are calling. Back later.

[mathanxiety]

He is also defining (it's all in your head), taunting (does it repeatedly despite knowing how it hurts) and countering (you have to stop me in a nice way and get my attention again). This is abuse -- thanks for this link Dittany.

[gettingagrip]

Oneplusone

Does he do this with anyone else? Has he always done this?

What he is doing is 'tuning out' of your conversations.

I think this is very demeaning for you. What is he like in other ways?

My mother does this....she talks over me and everybody.... she doesn't listen to a word anyone else says...you can actually see her tuning out...but she has a personality disorder and she does it to everybody.

Does he expect you to listen to him when he speaks?

Sorry for you...it is very disrespectful.

[SolidGoldBrass]

OK oneplusone, it is of course possible that your DH is being an arse - maybe he is of the type that thinks 'women talk crap all the time and it's only worth paying attention when I want a shag'.
but it's also possible that you are so starved of adult company that you are getting more hurt and upset than it merits, ie he is listening to you quite a lot of the time but you are over-noticing the times he is distracted.
I think whatever the actual state of play is, you need some more adult company. It;s not good for anyone to be cooped up alone all day and reliant on one other adult for conversation and stimulus.
What is there in the way of toddler groups near you? Are there any clubs or organisations for hobbies etc that are suitable for attending with small children?
INteracting with other adults will boost your confidence so that you can either tell your H to stop being a nobber, or no longer feel the need to talk to him about stuff that he is not interested in because you have enough other people to talk to.

[oneplusone]

Hi all, sorry I disappeared, pc crashed.

Have only had time right now to skim through your responses, but thank you very much for your suggestions.

I am not someone who talks all the time, I am fairly quiet most of the time. So that's what makes it worse really because I don't just talk non-stop all the time in which case I think DH could be forgiven for sometimes not listening. The sort of things I am talking about are where I want to tell him about something funny or interesting or unusual I saw/heard/did and I start saying something, DH seems to be listening, but then all of a sudden he'll walk off whilst I am still talking, get distracted by a plane flying overhead, suddenly become engrossed in a previous boring tv programme.

The reason it upsets me so much is because to me it seems deliberate, a way of demeaning me, humiliating me. He interrupts a lot as well and talks over me. He says he doesn't mean to do it, that sometimes he does 'drift' away from what I am saying because of things he is thinking about which could be work related or other worries.

He says he is willing to try and change but I have to help him by jokingly and nicely pointing out to him each time he does this. But I can't be joking and pleasant as I am really hurt and upset every time it happens.

I think being starved of adult company during the day is part of the problem but even aside from that, i don't expect DH or anybody really to walk off whilst I am talking or make it obvious they find the tv/anything else more interesting and engaging than me. It could be that I'm boring, but I honestly don't talk that much and when i say something it is because i think it is funny/interesting etc. I don't just endlessly drone on about every little thing, sometimes i wish i was that sort of person but I really am not, i just don't do small talk.

[SolidGoldBrass]

I do think it's possible, though, that the H's patience has worn a bit thin. Not only is it hard to live with someone who is depressed, but it's difficult to remain constantly attentive to someone who never stops talking about fuck all.
This is not, specifically, a man-woman thing as I have little or no patience with witterers. Also, does your H have to listen to a lot of unimportant bollocks at work ie is he in some customer service job? That would also make him inclined to want a little quiet time rather than more talk.
Oneplus, have you tried negotiating with your H? Say, when he comes in from work he gets an hour's peace but then he gives you an hour's concentrated listening? I think you have to be pretty specific but also to be fair you have to respect his right not to be yakked at constantly. Some people like to talk endlessly, other people like to have some space for their own thoughts. Neither type is 'better' than the other, but when they live with each other they have to learn to compromise.
You do describe your interaction with your H not so much as you being starved of conversation which is a two-way thinb, but it comes across in your posts that you want to talk endlessly at him and TBH I can see why he might be resistant to this.

[slug]

You could use the old teacher trick of stopping mid conversation and ask "Are you listening? What did I just say?"

Perhaps you could draw him a diagram. You talking>him not listening> you feeling belitled> him wanting sex> you not wanting sex with someone who bleittles you.
You talking>him listening>you feeling treated as an equal in the marriage>him wanting sex>you reciprocating.

[candyfluff]

i have a very good friend who does this also ,i find it very annoying so symapthise with you

[NotPlayingAnyMore]

It seems to me that he won't listen until the times at which either

a) he wants something (sex)

b) he wants to prevent you from thinking that he's not someone you wouldn't leave (by being suddenly able to have serious conversations, but not until letting things get to that point).

[thumbwitch]

toomanySB - you are funny but your post is also a bit for you.. GLad you can deal with that level of response so well.

Although - it is an idea to chuck random shocking things into the conversation to see if he is half-listening - as in, "we went to the park today and DC did so-and-so and then an enormous black hole opened up under the climbing frame and the Lord of Darkness came up and ate this person's pushchair!" see if he notices.

(note - am not making fun of your situation. Am trying to suggest a way forward for you to make you feel better)

[TDiddy]

toomanystuffedbears - you are very funny . But spot on.