Originally Posted by atruckersgirl

I think everyone has at least one need that their partner doesn't meet. For me, the only one that comes to me off the top of my head is more of a material/physical need, in that he is an otr truck driver, so he is never home to help me with housecleaning, taking care of the kids, etc. Even in that, though, he does try to do what he can from the road. He will discuss with me what to do with the kids if they've done something wrong.

One thing I wanted to mention in regard to your writing. For me, my intelligence and understanding is very artistic in nature: I write poetry, stories, articles, etc., I take photos, I like to bake and decorate and things like that. My boyfriend's intelligence and understanding is very logical and scientific/literal in nature: He looks at the grammar and spelling, can tell you how to set the settings on the camera to take a great picture, can write a computer program, or explain quantum physics. So, sometimes he has a hard time understanding something I've written because he's not creative/artistic in the same way I am, just as I can't understand a computer program he's written. It's just the way our brains work. I'm wondering if maybe that's what's going on here. Maybe your brain works one way, and his works the other, so he can't fully grasp whatever you're talking about. If that's the case, though, you two can work together on being able to better understand each other. You just have to learn patience and how to calmly keep explaining yourself, in more and more detail, until the other person gets it.

One other thing...my boyfriend tends to also be slightly insensitive when expressing his thought that he doesn't get it or it doesn't make sense to him. He is one of those "say it in the least amount of words possible" types. He doesn't always consider that saying it in the least amount of words possible can make it come across very harshly and can hurt my feelings. When he does that, I just tell him so. "That seems silly to me." "Honey, that really hurt my feelings that you think my idea is silly." Then he realizes that that's how what he said sounded, and he'll apologize and expand on his thought. "I thought people would be smart enough to figure that out for themselves and that it wasn't really necessary for someone to write an article about that." Then I'm able to see what he doesn't understand so I can explain it better.