# No communication!



## MerryMerry (Dec 6, 2009)

We've been married 1 1/2 years and have been in counseling for 1 year. Yes, I know. We've seen 3 marriage counselors and we've both done individual counseling on top of it. We've had major issues which I won't get into...very bad..but now the thing that we're working on is his inability to communicate with me. He just won't or can't. All our counselors have tried to work on this with him. He's very intelligent...PhD, etc so it's not that he doesn't have the words. He doesn't seem to have the ability. I will say "Honey...I am hurting right now" and he will stare at me for a few minutes and then walk away. Then, an hour later and having no conversation since I told him I was hurting, he says "do you want to fool around?" Heck NO I don't want to fool around when he can't even respect my feelings enough to address them verbally! I've even thought he might have aspergers or something that would explain why he can't seem to talk. I can ask him yes or no questions to try to gauge his emotions, that doesn't work. I try to tell him "it would be nice if you could tell me that you are having a hard time expressing yourself but you do still have feelings about me nonetheless." Long stare and walks away. I don't know what it is. Our current counselor (also our minister) has given him sooo many tools to use, very creative and plausible tools. He won't even try them. It's so frustrating because he just goes into shutdown mode and is so moody. He'll lock himself up in his home office and sometimes won't talk to me for days, other than a cold "good morning" or "goodnight." When we're getting along things are great. We have no problems with conversation, but when the slightest problem comes up or he doesn't get what he wants he just stops talking and nothing I can do can get him to speak. What the heck should I do? I can't live like this the rest of my life!


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## steve71 (Feb 5, 2010)

Hi Merry...I bet a lot of people here have been in a similar situation and, in my own case, my lady appears to be starting to emerge from several years of equal withdrawal. I know it's hard to live with.

I couldn't speculate on why you're having this problem but I wonder if you have identified a set of triggers that lead to shut-down, any set patterns maybe persisting from childhood? Is it specifically a response to conflict, does he deal with other problems and social situations more constructively? I'm trying to tease out the dynamics...


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## MerryMerry (Dec 6, 2009)

Yes Steve, a lot of this stems from triggers of past experiences. His ex-wife...his mother...general stress/conflict in life. I'm as verbal and he is non-verbal. I can analyze (had LOTS of therapy) and communicate effectively, suggest tools for him that have helped me, give him time/space, even suggest phrases he can use to tell me that he's not able to communicate at the moment but he can get back to me in ten minutes...none of it works. I think he feels attacked when I express myself, even if I'm merely whispering to him my feelings. It's not always my tone of voice (which I've tried to temper...no more yelling in our house, that's a rule.) It just seems that he's hyper-sensitive and anything I say regarding a conflict makes him want to run and hide. If his moods carry over into say..going to church, he'll say hello to people there, but it's very stoic. He'll be friendly to a certain extent, but others can see that he has some sort of rock on his back. Sometimes it'll take up to a week for him to "snap out of it" and then he'll apologize and say he's working really hard to change. I say that I don't expect overnight changes and I'm trying to be patient, but I honestly don't see that much progress. I told him today that it's wasting every day of our marriage when this continues and he has a choice to be happy or a choice to be miserable...it's optional. He says he chooses to be happy and loves me so much, but he doesn't seem to be willing to risk his ego or humility to be different. I'm wondering how extensive a problem this was in his former marriage, but of course he'll never admit his role in that one so I'll never know. It seems like a disease that he could recover from if he'd just take his medicine...but he doesn't want to take it. How rational is that?


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

Have you ever looked into toxic shame?


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## MerryMerry (Dec 6, 2009)

Turnera, thanks for the idea. I googled it as I'd never heard the concept. I'd have to read more on it to see if it's applicable. There was a section on communication that I read, but I have to tell you...I have tried everything and he has tried very little. Every single website, or philosopher, or doctor, or therapist, or prescriptions lead nowhere. Maybe if I read up on this it will at least help me if not him.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

May not apply, but it may. With toxic shame, you feel so unloveable, so perpetually 'at fault' that you spend your whole life trying to hide that secret from everyone.

Good shame: don't steal the candy bar, Johnny, we're good people so we don't steal.
Toxic shame: you're a bad little boy, Johnny, and if you don't act right, I'm going to trade you in for a better boy.

And it translates into adulthood.

Here's a great example. I had some clothes I wanted to take to a resale shop. But I'm so full of toxic shame that all I could envision was the lady looking at my clothes and deciding they weren't worth keeping to sell, and me having to skulk out of her store, ashamed to my core that my clothes weren't 'good' enough. It took me two days to get up the courage to take my clothes in! I actually drove by the store Tuesday, and chickened out, and MADE myself do it yesterday - part of my work on myself.

If he has this, it virtually rules everything he does - his constant search to keep people from knowing the real him. Thus the deer in the headlights look whenever you say anything that even remotely resembles him being a 'bad' husband.


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## MerryMerry (Dec 6, 2009)

Wow, that might really be something to look at. He does say how he always feel at fault for our marriage problems. I take responsibility for my part too, by the way, even though his actions (or inactions) are largely the source of our arguments. I have three arrangements of dead roses in the house right now just in the last month from his apologies. Yes it's nice to get flowers, but they have become a symbol for me of regret and sadness instead of an expression of love. I will look more into toxic shame if that is something that would help him and us. Thanks for the example so I could better understand what it is.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

As you're learning, take time to reassure him that you DO love him. TS people are desperate to hear honest good assessments of them, reasons to love them. He needs to feel safe to be himself with you.


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## steve71 (Feb 5, 2010)

Merry, let me ask a seemingly odd question - does he open up more when talking over the phone or in, say, emails?

That aside...I'm reminded of a couple of people I've known who are so deeply into their very rarified work - genetics, maths - that they seem almost off-planet. It's the one forum where they really let go and find themselves. I get the feeling that your man - PhD and all - may be a guy with little sense of self outside the totality of his specialism. I don't get a sense of a rounded personality interested in a broad spectrum of issues. Do you have shared interests - what...dancing, religion, fossils, cooking, art or whatever, things that creatively affirm and grow your life together? (Don't answer in a way which might compromise your privacy!)


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## MerryMerry (Dec 6, 2009)

Steve...you are DEAD ON. Instead of talking to me, he will email me (not kidding) a 7 or 8 page single-spaced email, detailing all the things that he's feeling, or just complaining about my not meeting his needs (sexually or otherwise.) While that has its merit (because its at least some form of communciation) it's still not ideal when you're trying to work out problems face to face. He will say absolutely nothing, and when I leave the house, he will send me a barrage of texts asking me what's wrong, or why I'm mad. I respond that I cannot solve our marriage problems via text and we should talk when I get home. When I get home he shuts down and is "unavailable." 
We have everything in common (except for his work which, as you guessed it, is highly specialized. No one in the world does what he does for a living.) Other than that, we fell in love immediately, sharing all the same interests: music, art, friends from college we both knew (but didn't know each other ironically), architecture, style, (not as much on values I discovered, but that's improved.) We felt we'd met our soul mates, as cliche' as that sounds. It's heaven when we're getting along, but when his frequent moods strike I immediately start thinking divorce. I have to get over that black/white thinking; it's not healthy for our marriage, but I can't imagine living with someone the rest of my life that cannot proactively work on a solution for improving the quality of our communication. But you're right, his aptitide for writing his feelings is great; good call. 
Regarding the toxic shame thing Turnera, I am ALWAYS building him up and letting him know how much I love him, just as he is. He has an image-thing that is important to him. He wants to come across as this kind of brilliant rock-star kind of man; and when I tell him that I love him for his character flaws as just a run-of-the-mill husband who uses the bathroom and gets food stuck in his teeth like everybody else he is floored. He can't imagine that kind of love; it's nothing he's ever experienced. I think in a way that he's protected himself from pain and potential hurt by building up this great big ego, one which pervades our marriage and destroys our home. I believe that I cannot change people, places, or things and that I have to practice acceptence with him, but I am really feeling that I can't accept this.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

> when I tell him that I love him for his character flaws as just a run-of-the-mill husband who uses the bathroom and gets food stuck in his teeth like everybody else he is floored. He can't imagine that kind of love; it's nothing he's ever experienced


Sounds like TS. If things are good, one feels safe to be like everyone else; but once something goes bad, it's like you're waiting for the firing squad to find you. 

What was his childhood like?


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## needhelphere (Feb 17, 2010)

Turnera, I have pm'd you.


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## MerryMerry (Dec 6, 2009)

Turnera, he grew up with a domineering father and a matriarch mother. Talk about "toxic." I guess I'll bring up the issue w/them...he has a very strained relationship w/them. They hate me so he doesn't allow them in our house to protect me from them. In another post I explained some great problems we had w/them over the summer. I can't imagine what it would've been like to grow up in their household. They have money and they used it to completely destroy his former wife in court during the divorce, like overkill. No real spiritual upbringing, I mean they went to church but it was superficial, for show imo. I think my h rebelled from his parents during youth so he got into the whole drugs/party thing to get away from them, then cleaned up after college moving across the country to get his masters then his phd....far from them. He moved back close to them only to marry me, where he now sees them even less than when he lived far away (mostly due to their disdain of me.) He has learned to bottle up all his feelings because of them and because of his ex-wife. I don't think he was ever comfortable in his own skin. As I mentioned above, he always had to be the "cool guy"...wanting the hip friends, party lifestyle, ivy-league schools, recognition in his field of work, denouncing all things considered "average." When he met me he wanted the "hot wife" who fit into that picture of idealism. I think he struggles with the idea that he's just a guy that came out of the birth canal with defects and flaws just like the rest of us. I try to boost his ego by focusing on his God-given talents and assets, not on the superficial stuff. I think that will strengthen his ability to let his real self show through and feel comfortable expressing his emotions in a heathy way, but he needs to be able to get there on his own. It's a personal journey in growth and development, not something I can "bestow upon him." I get what you're saying though, and I try to let him know he's loved, but come on...he's got to be able to talk to me without sending me emails and texts. This is ridiculous. I've been able to overcome a lot of adversity in my life without taking him as an emotional hostage or playing the victim role in life. Why can't he do the same?


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

Utter fear that you will reject him if you see him as anything less than perfect. On paper, he can be himself. In person, he has to see his life reflected in your eyes. Or see your disdain of him.


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## MerryMerry (Dec 6, 2009)

I read some info on TS to him the other day and he just scoffed at it. Some parts resonated with him, but the next day he just made jokes about it. "Oh, that must be the TS coming out in me." Whatever. I'm so over it. I'm trying to explore possible answers and he just shoots everything down.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

Well, he's not going to want to hear you tell him what's wrong with HIM. Not out loud anyway. 

After your description of him throwing you out of the house...I'm not sure I'd just set it at TS with him, though. Maybe a professional would have a better analysis.


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