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.

ItsGraceAgain - "How loving would you feel towards a woman who baldly stated she required you to fill her bank account, nothing more?2

Well, not at all but that is me. I am sure there are men who really like to see their role as provider though and women who like that too. It goes way beyond just 'filling the bank account' though.

Hi all, sorry i disappeared for a while.

Thanks for all your posts. ABetaDad, what you said seemed to strike a chord. About me changing my role in the original contract DH and I implicitly entered into when we got married and decided to have DC's. In fact I think you might have hit the nail on the head.

Because before we had DC's, I had always told DH that after having DC's I had no desire or intention to go back to work (mostly because i wasn't particularly happy at work and at the time i thought i would enjoy being at home full time and would find it rewarding and fulfilling.....silly and naive of me I realise now with hindsight). But that was almost 7 years ago and surely he should realise that things have changed, i've changed, i've been at home for a long time and now i'm seriously bored and need to do something for myself.

That is one of our issues, but it is only one issue. The overall problem is that DH has a stereotype in his head of how a woman thinks/feels and behaves and if i do or say something that does not fit with his stereotype then he thinks there's something wrong with me or that i am not a proper woman. And that is my main problem with him. He just cannot seem to understand that I can still be a woman and eg hate shopping, dislike romcoms and chickflicks/chicklit, like action thrillers etc etc. It's like saying if a woman goes into the army it must be because she's not really a proper woman, not feminine in some way.

I don't think he sees women as real people, as individuals, we are just here to fulfil a role as wife and mother.

I have written about this before but it is fascinatng that you feel you need a change after about 7 years of SAHM. I believe that everyone has an internal life clock that ticks over to a new phase every 7 years. We know about the '7 year itch', people take about 7 years to get over the death of a close relative, and things like business cycles last about 7 years. I think it is something to do with how long it takes the brain to adapt to new cicumstances. You say you are bored and want a new challenge.

Looking back on my own now 25 year relationship with DW we have always quite deliberatley changed our life roughly every 7 years. It is not exactly planned but has happened that way. The last time was about 18 months ago. We changed everythng from our clothes to the city we live in. Threw everything in the air and are stil working through the process.

I wonder if the solution here might be to redefine everything in your lives together. Move jobs, city, country, etc. That might allow both of you to achieve something new in life. How about DH does a bit of SAHD and you go out to work to make up the income? How about travelling together for a year? It would allow you to change and DH to change with you.

Fascinating thread.
Do you really think he has aspergers then OP? becasue i thought it sounded like he just needed a bit of 'tweaking', but maybe I am underestimating how strong you feel about his gender-role-views.
What have you decided then ?

ABetaDad, perhaps you have got something there, about the 7 year thing. In theory I would love for us to ditch our current (very nice but boring) lives and go travelling for a year as a family. It's something i've always wanted to do. But DD is very settled at school and her school is so oversubscribed that i am sure we would lose her place if we decided to go away for a year and DS is due to start school in September so we would lose his place too.

I am really happy where i live, i love the area so wouldn't want to move from here. I think i just need to find myself something to do that gets me out of the house, puts me into contact with adults with whom i can have an intelligent conversation and gives me some purpose to my life other than simply running around after the DC's all day. But it's hard as I only really have 1 hour a day to offer a potential employer as DS is only part-time at nursery and will be part time at school until Jan 2011.

Oblomov, i am going to try and get DH to do the Aspergers quiz, although i don't really think he is Aspergers. I think he has just got some very old fashioned, out dated and quite frankly incorrect views about women and i think by gradually making him aware of himself he will start to change. It's no surprise where he gets his views from, like i said his parents are literally from the dark ages when men probably dragged women around the cave by their hair so i have to try and de-programme his parents' 41 years of brainwashing.

i think abetadad is very wise - we all get so set in patterns that it can be hard to step back and try something new.

another thing the relate counsellor said to us is that you should share your hopes and dreams - go to the pub and tell each other all the things you would like to do if time/money/kids were no object. Between you try and make it happen. At the very least you get to know more about your partner!

I know where you are coming from. I sometimes feel my DH is relating to a big cardboard cut-out that he perceives to be me, but the real me is someone completely different and he has no idea who that person is.

I have decided just to give up on it for now. The good balances out the bad, considering the fact we have two tiny children but its a knawing ache in my side. And more than anything, its so lonely knowing that the person you are with has never really fallen in love with you at at all, just their imagined version of a woman.

I don't know if you've read much about psychology but this is one of the traits of a controlling person i.e they put the other person in a little box and then get confused (and in extreme cases, angry) when that person doesn't behave inside the box. So when the "boxed" person reveals their true, authentic self the "controller" feels like something is going wrong, something is not right.
I'm not saying this your husband is a controller, but just that this behaviour is recognized in phsychology and they have words to describe it. In the most extreme cases the man has no empathy and just replaces the woman with another "cardboard cut-out" if the woman begins to react with anger to the fact she can't cope with not being seen any more.

But thats an extreme example. Whats most likely the case is that your husband is a bit self-absorbed and self-centred (like mine) and has never really been taught to look outside himself and to realise that just because he likes the feel of something doesn't mean its ideal for everyone involved. If so, then he can be taught and he can change. I started becoming more assertive, even speaking with a louder, more powerful voice that couldn't be dismissed. "No, I like RED. I've always liked RED". What's he going to do when you assert yourself calmly and confidently with facts about yourself that only you know, that he can't possible dispute?
So if you say, "I'm unhappy now, and I want the status quo to change" confidently and powerfully, he has nowhere to go. As you say, it matters not what you thought 7 years ago.

Anyway, I hope he has it in him to "see" you and I hope he has lots of other good traits to make it worthwhile.

newgirl and sakura thank you. And I agree that ABetaDad is very wise and enlightened, a rare quality unfortunately.

Sakura, (you may not know but I am opo from the stately homes thread), what you said here struck such a loud chord with me "more than anything, its so lonely knowing that the person you are with has never really fallen in love with you at at all, just their imagined version of a woman." That is exactly it. I feel I am with somebody, with whom i have lived for 10 years, with whom I have 2 DC's, who knows a lot about my childhood history that many other people don't, and yet, despite all this, I still am constantly reminded by his comments that he simply does not seem to know me in any great depth. He sees me very superficially ie I am a woman and therefore i must have certain stereotypical traits, thoughts, feelings etc. He doesn't actually go beyond seeing that I am a woman and getting to know exactly what sort of (complex) woman I am.

I'm sure I am very confusing to him. In some ways i suppose i am a typical woman and probably fit the stereotype he has in his head, in which case we are both happy as i get the illusion that he 'knows' me. But then in lots of other ways i do not fit the stereotype and he will make a comment and many times he has really hurt me by making it obvious that he thinks i am not feminine or a 'proper' woman simply because i realise now, i did not fit into his own personal idea of what a woman is and how a woman should think, feel and behave.

Sakura, i don't think DH is controlling or trying to be controlling. But I am sure he has never been taught to look outside himself as you say and notice the myriad of different ways other people think and behave.

I think he cannot cope with the complex person that i am (that we all are) he does want to be able to slot me into a box as that is the only way he feels comfortable. He cannot cope with the fact that my box is actually made up of bits of many other boxes and not only that, it is constantly changing and growing and evolving and only by constantly listening to me and paying attention to me will he ever hope to keep up with who I am. I think when we first got together, he thought he had figured out who I was and which box he could slot me into, but unfortunately for both of us, i was never actually the person he thought i was initially anyway and even if i had been, i have changed enormously in the intervening years and so his initial assessment would have been 'out of date' by now anyway.

Having said all of that, and despite his limitations in some areas, DH is a decent, caring, loving man and he tries to make me happy and I appreciate that that is something to be valued so I suppose i will just have to be patient over this issue and try and gradually get him to become a bit more self aware and make some changes.

This is such an interesting thread. Thank you.

I do agree Beta Dad made an important point about 7 years, give or take - even the weather follows a similar pattern!

I love what New Girl said about going out to discuss hopes, dreams & plans It's the sort of thing we tend to leave by the wayside when life gets busy - but is part of what made us fall for each other in the first place!

WTSA, what dreams does DH hold at present? Can you weasel a few of them out, see if there's something you can work with?

Hi Grace,

All DH wants to do is to make enough money asap to retire when we're 60 if not before and then he wants to read and travel and generally do all the things we don't have time for now because we are so busy working etc.

That's fine by me, but that's 20 years away seeing as we're both still only 39 and 41, and in the meantime, i would like him to spend some time getting to know ME!

His other dream is to have more sex but actually, the issue that i have raised here gets in the way of me wanting sex with him. Because i do feel very lonely and alone, within our marriage, because i feel as if i am a stranger to him. I don't feel he is somebody who knows me well, knows me better than anybody else, knows what makes me tick and i am worried that he is not capable of getting to know me as his female stereotype seems so firmly fixed in his head there is no space for him to take on board my personal and individual thoughts/feelings/likes/dislikes etc.

I am sure his views also come from years of not really getting to know his mother as an individual. He has admitted he has little respect for her as a person and I don't blame him for this as i have no respect for her either. She is like an 8 year old child trapped in a 68 year old's body, she is immature, judgmental, critical, not somebody who's opinion one would have any respect for or seek out. And i wonder sometimes whether because of this DH has little time or respect for any woman, including me, subconsciously thinking we are all like his mother, only good for certain things, (cooking, cleaning, childcare) and basically to be ignored or not taken seriously in all other respects.

thanks grace again!

i think what your dh says about paying off the mortgage is a common one - ive heard that a lot from my mates' dhs.

i come from a different perspective because my bestfriend died a year ago - she worked really hard, and it was her focus, rather than having a good time. It made us realise in an extreme way that living your life for the future is only one dream - you have to enjoy life now.

i think it is a pattern some men have in their heads from their dads - a provider - pay off mortgage. Its a good thing, but not the only thing. eg perhaps ask him if you moved somewhere smaller, and paid it off, what would he like to do? my dh says work is important to him and he would feel lost without it, so he doesnt want to give up ever really. But his aim is to work more at home, take the max holiday, get weekends away walking etc

newgirl, yes, i'm sure paying off the mortgage is a common dream amongst men. But like you said we also need to focus on the here and now as we may not be around to enjoy our retirement. I know so many people, mainly men, who died suddenly after retiring and after working hard all their lives, i certainly wouldn't want that to happen to DH.

We are actually taking some steps now to improve our life style. Next year DH is going to leave his job and work as a contractor meaning he will hopefully be able to take time off in between contracts and spend a lot more time at home with me and the DC's. That's the plan anyway, i hope it works out like that, we all know what they say about the best laid plans....