I no longer feel connected to my husband -not sure if therapy is right here - things feel like crumbling[F39, M44]

To start- Apologies for the length of the post, I tried making it shorter, but it was difficult.

We have been together close 3.5 years, married for 2.5.

For a long time I though I met the perfect person for me.

He is kind, we laughed together a lot, doesn't have bad habits, he is supportive of me, we share similar cultural backgrounds, educational level (MA in art related subjects), values, and goals. We respect each other, and each other boundaries.

We share a strong emotional/intuitive connection in the sense that we "read each other" easily.

He has some issues with confidence, people pleasing, and generally confrontation.

For this reason we sought couples therapy, but everyone involved thought that it would be better for him to have individual therapy first to work on these issues. He "finished the" therapy after few months and we haven't discussed going to going therapy since until recently.Our communication is good when it comes to taking about relationship issues- at least from my side. I feel heard. From his side, I am not sure how much he is able to express how he feels, but he gives the impression of being able to do so. He tries to accommodate me when it's needed.

Our shared love language is touch, and I do feel loved in this relationship.

Ok. These are the good sides.

So here to the issues.

He is extremely conflict-averse, which has created these issues:

1. He is accepting and supportive, but he is not pushing back on me in any way. It is all good when I know what I am doing, but as soon as I am encountering difficulties, he is not able to advice, relate or offer a counter-perspective at all. He *is* capable of it, when I really push him to do it, but generally, he is not expressing any oppositional view. It is toxic, when I am going through a rough patch, because he reinforces my negative thinking, rather than challenging it.
2. He is not able to stand up for me to a satisfactory level, despite knowing he should, because he doesn't want to be confrontational to his family members. He initially made me feel like he will always take my side with others, because we are together. But since then there were many situations where he was influenced by others, and did not stand up for me (or at least struggled for a long time with doing so), when it came to family misunderstandings. Examples include not being able to ask relatives in advance to put a dog away before a visit (I am afraid of dogs & did not know the cousin in question), resulting in me not attending a family birthday, and not being able to mention to his mother that she was rude to me for *months*. On another occasion he accepted her apology "on my behalf" instead of asking her to apologise in person, when she completely ignored me after I spoke to her about my miscarriage.
3. the relationship feels very one-sided, especially on the communication side of things:

He is more introverted than me, and isn't as used to "cultural/mental connection" as me. By it I mean "connecting emotionally and intellectually over external things, such as music, culture, events, work things that exist externally to the people talking about them". It sounds pretentious, but I don't know how else to describe it.

It was fine initially, because we connected emotionally, we were comfortable breaching personal subjects - experiences, spirituality, and we connected through humour.I felt heard, accepted, and understood. It felt like a good contrast to my previous relationships were I could not broach spiritual topics, and where my partners were often more extraverted than me, as a result I could feel a bit overwhelmed. My exes always had some experience, something they learned, or something they thought about to share. I felt connected to them because of this, but at the same time I also felt like I needed more "alone time" to collect my own thoughts. With my husband I did not feel the need to get away, and that was what made me feel comfortable around him.

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However with time, I started to feel that my husband is really limited when it comes to communication. The responses he gives are often "stock" responses, neutral, inoffensive, and basically do nothing more than reflecting some portion back of what I already said. He doesn't know how to do the natural "ebb and flow" of conversation, where one person says something, and another contributes something else to the conversation.

He doesn't describe anything, or give an actual opinion, he communicates the bare facts of situations, which makes it feel very limited. Most of what he says is incredibly predictable, and he never, never asks any questions. It has to do with is extreme need for privacy - he doesn't like people asking *him* questions, so he does the same to me. But this leads to a really bad dynamic, where I feel like I am "talking at him" when I want to share any of my experiences or thoughts, and I don't want to do that anymore. It is not really possible to have a connected or deep conversation with him about any other topic than our relationship.

I find it really difficult to cope with - because if I spent any prolonged time just with him, I feel like my ability to talk with people regresses. I feel my vocabulary is shrinking. I feel like I am living alone in the woods, in this relationship.

When I meet with friends, it takes time to readjust to the pace of the conversation, the fact that they share their experiences, thoughts and views, and that they engage with what I am saying.

1. this is by far the most hurtful of things. I was always uncomfortable with the idea of pregnancy, but with time the wish to have a child kind of won over the fear. We spoke about wanting a child, and he said "let's do it", despite us not being in a "perfect" situation (we basically don't know where we want to live permanently). I kind of put the breaks on it, as I felt not 100% certain then, but my understanding was that we both want it, and that if I feel pregnant we would be happy.

So I did fall pregnant. I was really happy. And his first reaction was "so now one has to earn money". He earns a decent salary, and we managed fine when my income was diminished due to studying. He previously expressed that we wold be able to manage. But somehow - in the moment, the responsibility of it scared him, and I could see it. Later he said that he was "mostly positive" about the pregnancy, because "he isn't 100% for or against anything,and when he wanted something very much it never happened".

Edit: I understand that this is how he is, but for me children are a bit an exception - if it is not 100%, then it is a "no". For me it was "less than 100%" only because of being afraid of pregnancy and birth, not because not wanting a child. I needed his 100% and his happiness to manage the pregnancy, because I was doing this for him as well, and not just for me. And his lack of enthusiasm made it hard for me to feel positive about the pregnancy, especially because it was physically difficult and there was a worry about ectopic pregnancy due to severe pain.

It eventually had a miscarriage and I was in a lot of pain in that time. Throughout that time, he basically withdrew his love towards me. His reason for it was that I asked him to dial down on cute behaviours, as I felt them inappropriate and irritating. I stopped feeling his love, because all he could do at the time was to be either "cute" or "cutely sorry" for how I was feeling, because he saw my pain and felt sorry about it. I kind of expected him to be *there* for me, and I felt pity was inappropriate. I was suffering, and I definitely pushed him away a bit too, and his response was that "he did not want to make things worse by scratching an open wound". I feel that this was again his inability to cope with negative experiences and conflict. I also felt mildly deceived, because I feel pregnant after he told me "let's do it". It was me who was a bit hesitant about it, but I thought he was not. I feel pregnant after him initiating unprotected sex in my fertile window, without asking if it was safe. When later I queried it, he said that I could have stopped him. I did not, because I was under the impression he wanted it 100%! /Edit

This experience, combined with the mental/intellectual differences led me to feel that I do not want to have a child with him anymore.

So now I am left in a situation where I stopped trusting him, and feel disconnected from him.He is still showing me affection and is happy to spend time with me, but I am increasingly unhappy and depressed, because I feel like I am lacking a "level" partner.

The worst part is, is that he is actually financially supporting me right now, which was unplanned, and so I feel that he is doing a lot for me- but I still feel there is lack of adequate partnership there.

He suggested going to therapy again. I am hesitant - because I feel that the issue might be more severe incompatibility, rather than just communication between us. At the moment I don't know if the issues are things that he can work on, we can work on, or if they are actually his personality. He told me he "gave up" communicating with others because he was bullied when he did so. Which he could address in therapy. His conflict aversion is also something that he could address in therapy. But, I am reluctant to accept this as a "solution" because it entails him changing, to make this relationship work, and I feel that nobody should have to change themselves fundamentally for a relationship. And meanwhile, I just stopped enjoying taking with him, and I worry that it might be to the detriment of both of us. I get irritated at another one of his "stock responses". I opt to talk to friends rather than him, because I don't want to "talk at him" and my friends have more input.

I still love him, and I think he is one of the best people I know in my life, and I don't want to hurt him by being so negative, but at the same time I am also recognising that I am feeling depressed in this relationship. He also said that he feels stuck in a rut recently.I lost a sense of perspective here - and I don't know if it is more reasonable to still work things through in therapy, or if this relationship is actually doomed because of the mental difference.

TL;DR Husband is extremely conflict averse, which bleeds into how he communicates with me. He doesn't push back on anything - which is toxic in difficult times which it makes bad things worse. I feel like I am verbally regressing when I spend long time with him. I don't know if there is hope to address this in therapy, or if this would be too much to change. He is loving and kind, but withdraws when things get difficult.

Thank you for reading!

Submitted September 28, 2022 at 06:34AM by TeaPot_on_the_moon https://ift.tt/WzmMdyC