After 10 years together DH still does not seem to know the real me and instead has a stereotypical woman in his head and thinks that is who I am

[wanttostartafresh]

I feel DH, after being together for nearly 10 years, does not know me at all and he seems constantly surprised when i turn out not to be the stereotypical idea of a woman he seems to have in his head. Eg when talking about films, he always is surprised when i say i don't particularly like romcoms or chickflicks and instead i like action/adventure films or thrillers. Surely after being together all this time he should know by now what sort of woman i am. He seems to have a stereotype in his head of what a woman should like and be like and he cannot seem to grasp that i do not fit his stereotype; that I am me, an individual and that i would like him to ditch the stereotype and instead see and know me.

He also seems to find it very hard to grasp that a person can change over time. When we first had DD over 6 years ago, i thought i would be happy to be a full time SAHM and i have mostly been happy in that role. But recently i am starting to feel bored and dis-satisfied and feel i need to go back to work/study. He cannot seem to understand this and keeps saying "But when we talked about this 7 years ago you said you would be glad to leave your job and stay at home with the kids". FGS, that conversation was 7 years ago, things have now changed and I have changed, but he seems 'stuck' at the moment in time 7 years ago when i said, without actually knowing what it is like to be a full time SAHM, that i would love to do it instead of going back to work after having DC's.

He seems to have some very stereotypical even sexist views about women and i am finding his views increasingly infuriating but am also wondering whether it's futile to hope he might change seeing as he is now 41 and has presumably had these views all his life. I have no doubts where he gets his views from, his parents are from the dark ages, his mother even thinks i should be out buying DH's clothes for him (at which point i openly laughed in her face as i genuinely thought she was joking).

Is it hopeless to think he could change? It's not a 'dealbreaker' (ie divorce) issue, but it is extremely infuriating and does not make me feel at all close to DH.

Re: the comments about staying at home with your daughter; could it be that he thinks you are saying you were not happy and didnt like it, instead of simply wanting now to move on and change. Perhaps he has misunderstood?

Him not understanding you as an individual is a while deeper issue

I think you should always challenge him on sexist views or things you don't find acceptable, it might not change his views but it might make him think twice before saying them to you in future.

Regarding not knowing you as a person, I think this can be changed if you're both willing to work at it. Perhaps you could start "dating" again? People change over time and it can't hurt to spend time one on one getting to know each other a bit better.

It sounds like you need to sit down and have a big honest conversation about what you both want out of life and your marriage. Then maybe you could put some actions in to place for 2010 - weekly date nights, you returning to work/study etc but he will feel that he has been involved in that decision making process too.

Thank you both of you for your posts. I think a big talk is definately needed. And 'dating' again sounds good, we just need to get around to sorting out a babysitter, have been meaning to do that for ages, always seems to get left.

I am just worried that he is the sort of person who cannot adapt to change. Once he gets something fixed in his mind it is very hard for him to take on board any changes. He admits to this himself, he says he is very slow to adapt to change so in perhaps 10 years time he might grasp who i am now but of course by then i will have changed again.

It bothers me that he has no clue what to buy me for birthdays/christmas etc. In the past he has bought me nice things but things which are just not 'me' in the slightest. I worry that he is so self absorbed that he simply cannot take his mind off himself for long enough to take any notice of somebody else. In the past wrt presents i have never said anything about his presents not being at all what i want as i feel he has tried to get something he thought i would like, but now i feel all he has done is got what he thinks the female stereotype he has in his head would like and he actually has no idea what I like.

It would be ok i suppose if i fitted the female stereotype but i don't, not by a long shot and i think he is finding it hard if not impossible to ditch his long held view on what women like and are like and replace it with who i am and what i like and don't like.

I can really sympathize wtsaf.

I am in the process of separating atm and this is one of the things which I realized after we made the decision, has driven me mad about my H for years.

He would never have any idea what to buy me for Birthday / Christmas, often used to say "I don;t understand you" - er no, because you never made any effort to - and HATED it when I changed my mind about things.

Sadly my nature IS to change my mind about things - or rather, want to move onwards with things all the time. I need projects, I need things to look forward to, I need to be aiming for things.

H was very resistant to this - I find it difficult to live in a house for more than 4-5 years, for e.g. - H never wanted to move / buy houses / do anything to a house once living in it.

He hated it when I decided to go back to work (p/t) when DS was 2 and I was going mad at home - or acknowledge that we were struggling financially and the money would really be useful. The only comment he really made at the time was that he thought I wanted to go back to work because I wanted to meet someone else At the time I really needed his support and he couldn;t give it.

However, if everything else is pretty much OK in your relationship I'm sure this is something you could work through in counselling. My H's resistance to things seemed to be rooted mostly in insecurity (there were some reasons for that) and initially ( for the first few years) I tried to be sensitive towards it but eventually you get to a point where you think - you should know me / trust be by now. When someone can;t do that it really starts to erode things.

Do you think it's insecurity?

Hi FrayedKnot, thanks for your post. Although DH doesn't actually say he doesn't understand me, i think that is exactly what the problem is.

And like you, it is in my nature to always want and need change and i need things to look forward to like you said.

In my case, it's not so much that DH doesn't want me to go back to work or study or whatever, he just cannot seem to understand that where onceuponatime i thought i would be happy as a SAHM (before i had any idea what the job actually involved) now, 6 years down the line, i am bored and need to do something else.

I do actually think there may be an element of insecurity on his part. Perhaps he feels he has failed in some way because i am unhappy being a SAHM. Perhaps that's why he tries to make me feel as if there is something wrong with me for not finding being a full time SAHM utterly rewarding and fulfilling and needing something more, because he'd rather think there's something wrong with me than feel like he's a failure in some way.

What he cannot seem to see that it is neither of those things, he's not a failure because i'm bored after having been at home for 6 years and there's nothing wrong with me either. Again it;s down to stereotypes, in his mind a typical woman should enjoy being a housewife and looking after her family and should find it rewarding and fulfilling and not want to do any more with her time or her life. He even found it hard to understand that i felt sad and even a bit resentful that he goes off for nice lunches and dinners with work whilst all i ever do is wolf down a boring sandwich at home with DS tugging at me to play with him. He thought it would make me happy to know he had done something nice and that is all that i needed, not that i needed to do something nice myself in order to feel happy sometimes.

He seems to think i should be some sort of saint or Mother Theresa type figure, endlessly looking after him and the DC's, living vicariously through him and having no needs or wants or wishes of my own.

When i talk about being unhappy and things i would like to do, he is not against it, but what bothers me is his surprise that i actually do want more than just to be a wife and mother. His view of women is not only stereotypical but the stereotype is from the 1950's.

Arrgggh, i just want to shake him and make him sort his head out and drag him into the 21st century!

Do you think Relate could help?

Hi, wanttostartafresh. I wonder if your DH is a bit Asperger's? I had the same feeling that my X mixed me up with a "template wife" - that said, he learned things about me (almost as if I were a study project) and then got upset when I changed my mind! I didn't realise he was an Aspie until long after we split, then everything fell into place.

There's a mini-quiz here if you want check it out for starters.

Aspie or no, many people find it hard to accept change. They need a gradual introduction to it, with lots of feeling that they are involved in any decisions. You've been offered some great advice on that, above.

Btw, if he is an Aspie, you don't need to worry about insecurity! The condition comes with rock-solid self-esteem built in :p

I think your OP is very sad indeed.

You are quite right to want more in life than taking care of your DCs, your DH and your home. That may or may not mean getting a paid job outside the home. What sort of income do you have? Do you have disposable income to do things beyond the home? What do you do as a family? Where do you go on holiday? Do you have hobbies?

justabout, thank you for your post and i think you are spot on in what you said here "you have affection for each other but that attitudes brought into the marriage (mainly about gender roles) are affecting your relationship." That is exactly it.

In so many ways DH is a great guy and I love him and want to be with him. But it is definately his attitude about gender roles that i find worrying and upsetting at times as well. He often makes me feel i am not a proper woman if i don't feel a certain way or like/dislike things he thinks woman are supposed to like/dislike. And of course it all makes me feel like he doesn't know me at all, he just knows I am female and automatically attributes me with female traits that he thinks all females have/should have. And then he is always surprised when i say i don't like x,y and z, things which he seems to think i must like simply because i am female, romcoms and chickflicks being a good relatively harmless example.

Grace, he could possibly be Aspergers, will have look at that quiz. He certainly has rock solid self esteem (or at least that's the face he shows to the world, including me)but as you have said the self esteem could be geniune if he is Aspergers.

Bonsoir, i do have my own disposable income and do not rely on DH in this respect apart from big purchases. But wrt money, if i particularly want something that is fairly expensive (not very often as again, contrary to his female stereotype i actually hate shopping) DH never objects unless we don't actually have the money.

What do we do as a family? The usual i suppose, days out here and there, visiting friends, having friends over etc.

Holidays? This year we went to Portugal for a couple of weeks, next year we will hopefully go to Greece. But I am not sure of the relevance of your question(s) to my actual problem? Have i missed something in what you are saying?

Totally sympathise. My DP can be a bit like this and my ex was totally like this.

My ex seemed to get his ideas of relationships and gender etc from sitcoms and films. He thought that women loved shoes and chocolate and that men were supposed to like beer and football. Honestly, it felt as if he was delivering lines from a cheesy scriptwriter rather then responding to how people actually were.

Current DP hates it when I change my view on anything, cue 'But I thought you said...' etc etc, regardless of when I said it.

Only you know where the line is drawn. I know nowt about relate etc but this seems like a classic relate type issue to me.

Hi Morris and thank you for your post. It helps to know I'm not alone. I often also think DH gets his idea of how I should be from films and tv!

I keep telling to go on MN and just randomly read some of the threads in relationships and parenting etc and he will get a much more realistic idea of how women really feel about lots of things instead of going by what he reads in the paper and sees on tv and by what he thinks he sees in RL. He seems to have no idea that most people put on a facade when out in public and that things can be very different behind closed doors. I think it might be dawning on him a little bit since a close friend of his has told DH he is having problems with his DW and yet whenever we see them socially they act like there is nothing wrong and they are happily married. I hope DH is beginning to realise that what people portray of themselves is not always necessarily the truth.

My ex has Aspergers and you could be describing his attitude to women, wanttostartafresh. He didn't know the real me at all, but had strange ideas about how women 'should' be - ladylike, polite, nice, not rude, etc, etc. - not me at all! He was as puzzled by me as I was by him and I'm surprised our marriage lasted as long as it did. I had no emotional support from him whatsoever and he had absolutely no intuitive feelings towards me at all. Unknowingly and instinctively, I was his supporter, interpreter, translator and protector throughout our time together and it was absolutely exhausting.

Sorry, that was a bit depressing, and probably not much help for you - I have not idea if your DH will change, but when I realised that mine couldn't I had to call it a day and end our relationship.

we went to relate this year and it was fantastic - it gave us practical tips for how to get on better, and the counselor was very intelligent and helpful

if you dont want to go down that route yet here are some ideas:

weekly babysitter - so he knows in advance you are going out and he can think of what to say/things to do - go to films/shop/see a show - whatever, and it helps you to be close again

break habits - if you stay in a lot, one of you always cooks, one of you does school run, one always works, then make changes, however small or big

drink more/have more fun - we get so set in ways as parents we can get serious and boring - both partners - doing fun things can help you enjoy being together

read the same book - talk about it?

turn off the tv so you have to talk?

sorry if that all seems obvious but it sounds like little tweaks are prob all you need

moresprouts, OMG, that's my DH. He also thinks women should always be ladylike, polite, not rude etc. He doesn't think people should be like that, just women. So if am not like that, which sometimes i am not because i am human, he thinks it's because i am not a proper woman or authentic woman.

It is worrying that you all talk about your Aspergers partners as your ex partners.

newgirl thank you for your post and suggestions.

I think perhaps we do need to spend more time alone together when we can talk. It's almost as if over the past 6/7 since having DC's, DH has forgotten or not kept up with who I am, what I am thinking, what i want, what I like, and he is still going by things i said years ago, when i was a different person.

Will definately sort out a regular babysitter. I think DH needs to see me as a person in my own right again, instead of simply as a stereotype/cardboard cutout wife and mother which seems to be all he is seeing right now.

It very much depends on how Aspie your Aspie is, wtsa! Mine was pretty severe but, even so, I would have coped far better with it if I'd known at the time.

If the quick quiz suggests it to you, see if you can get DH to do the quiz. Very often, Aspies have spent their whole lives feeling like "a bad fit" and discovering there's a reason for it makes them feel better

Usually, after that, they go "Oh, okay, I'm just very logical, yay me" (self-esteem, remember ) But it can help YOU a whole lot!

Is he a bit creative, kooky, and funny in unexpected ways? Some things might be worth going through the hassle of 'managing it' for ...

Added: This is from my thread in 2-in-2-1.co.uk

quote ...
I read, somewhere, that most Aspies - not all - struggle with the concept that other people 'exist' in their own right. You know how very young children think something has vanished if they can't see it? Like that. I often felt as if Jon didn't realise I was still around, breathing & doing stuff, when he wasn't there.

Different people (even NT people!) need different kinds of explanations. This is the one that works for me:

An experiment has been run several times, using PET scans of brain activity.

In the first test, Aspies and NTs are given some logical tests to do. In both groups, the same area of the brain lights up while they are doing the logic tests.

In the second test, which is more intuitive - for example, looking at photos of people with various facial expressions & saying how the person in the photo feels - a different part of the NT brains lights up, but the Aspies are still using the logic area.

wikipedia

What this means, essentially, is that the Aspies have to figure out every tiny thing that the rest of us "just know". I can well see how exhausting, and frustrating, it must be!

... /quote

I'm not suggesting for a minute that your DH is anything like my XH. Just that it can be very, very helpful to know what's going on!

Grace.

My questions were asking you what you actually do beyond the home - which of course is to some extent constrained by your disposable income, though this doesn't seem to be too much of an issue.

It is very relevant to your "problem" in that you may not feel as if you are the woman your DH expects you to be - but are you actually being demonstrably a different woman to the one he feels you should be? Men find actions much easier to understand than words/feelings.

Does he have male friends, does he get on easily with them and understand them, can he cope with them changing? Female friends - has he any and is he OK with them? What about siblings? Is it just you he is like this with or everyone IYSWIM.

As an aside I wonder why it would be that some of the men mentioned on this thread with aspergers have this problem with women but not with men - does anyone know why that is?

WTSAF H couldn;t understand why I said I wanted a baby and then decided to go back to work.

Men are allowed to do both, no?!! But somehow it was wrong for me...he thought I would be happy being a SAHM and was shocked when I admitted to not being all that happy at all. I felt tremendously guilty about it.

wanttostartafresh - some men just really like women who want to be SAHM that they can provide for. There are many happy marriages built on that implicit contract. There are also many happy SAHMs on here who have a DH/DP out at work. I know a fair few friends in RL like that too.

The thing that I was wondering is if your DH is one of those types of men and ten years ago you perfectly fitted what he was looking for. What I am sayng is that this is a bit more profound than him just being a bit sexist and refusng to acknowledge you have changed your mind. It is rather that your change of mind strikes at the very core of what he was looking for AND it will take him time to adjust such a fundamental part of the implcit contract you agreed.

Not saying you should not change your mind but give him time and help him express why he feels unhappy and feeling a bit insecure about his role in your life. Most of all reassure him. Maybe it is something a bit to do with Aspergers but I do not think all of it is.

ImSoNotTelling, I never said XH didn't have problems with male friends. He had problems with people being neuro-typically human, regardless of gender. I haven't seen anybody else saying it either, so can only suppose you have your own axe to grind re: male-female relationships.

ABetaDad - yes, there are such things as rigid expectations. But what you're saying, in essence, is that you think WTSA's partner married her in order to fit his preferred stereotype. She hasn't written anything to suggest that is the case - and who would choose a life partner on the basis of their pre-determined role? A job, yes - but a relationship? How loving would you feel towards a woman who baldly stated she required you to fill her bank account, nothing more?

wanttostartafresh Yikes, I hijacked your thread. I'm sorry! Will now step away from the keyboard ...

It wasn't your post that I was thinking of itsgraceagain. I was genuinely interested, nothing more. Looking back it was some dialogue between moresprouts and the OP that led to my post.

I have found your response quite upsetting really, I was only trying to be helpful and learn something, I will fuck right off now. Merry christmas.

Urgh. Sorry. I definitely need that screen break.