Reply to Anyone in a marriage with an emotionally unavailable man?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hi OP, I've been in a similar situation before...by that I refer to being in therapy and reading all of the research and trying to "figure him out".  IMHO, it can do more harm than good.

Why I feel this way: you have problems. You are already in therapy and committed to working on them. I'm sure your therapist recommends some books or articles also. However beyond that, your life can often become "working on it". Not just living life and reconnecting and using the tools that you are learning in therapy.

Add onto that your own "discoveries" re: why you think your dh is a certain way...and it can be very very very overwhelming for the person being told why they are a certain way.  Let your therapist, a trained professional, make the diagnoses.

Your job is just to put into action what you are learning and provide a good environment for your husband to do the same.  But you can do all of the reading possible and it won't make your husband "hurry up and change".  In my experience, it did the opposite: I was so convinced due to my armchair diagnoses what was wrong and what needed to be done to change things that I got quite frustrated when they didn't immediately change.

I would recommend that instead of all of the extra reading and focusing on your husbands challenges and past and emotional unavailability, take that energy and watch tv with him. Go see a movie. Go for a walk or go get ice cream. What did you do for fun when you were dating?[/quote]

OP here and this is great advice. DH has even pointed this out to me. He is like take a break! I am settling in. There is a balance because  for a long time I felt this was MY problem, my fault, etc. and even at times like I was needy or crazy. Researching and finding out this is a) pretty common, I'm not alone b) not my fault or a reflection on me c) partly things I did bring to the table that I can change and d) there are strategies that help, has been hugely helpful. But you are right. He is not my problem to fix and there is danger of putting on too much pressure. I have definitely realized that! I think now that I'm not so scared he is just going to bolt or be so stubborn in his ways that he refuses to recognize any issues I am relaxing a bit. I'm one of those people who finds a lot of comfort in knowing I'm not alone, that other people have confronted these issues.

So you are right to keep reminding myself of that and try to settle in more and realize this process is going to take a while and if we stay married, will probably be somewhat ongoing. I have been good in the past couple of months about doing more things like happy hours, getting together with frieds away from DH, etc. And it's no fun to always talk about our "issues" all the time and can be overwhelming. Thanks for chiming in.[/quote]

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