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[quote=Anonymous]What you’re describing is not just “being emotional.” It sounds much closer to chronic withdrawal and emotional shutdown used as a response to conflict. Whether he intends it this way or not, days of silence, refusing eye contact, ignoring communication, and emotionally disappearing after disagreements creates a punishing dynamic in a marriage.

A few things can be true at once:

He probably genuinely does feel deeply hurt or overwhelmed.
He may have poor emotional regulation and need time to cool down.
And the way he handles those feelings is still damaging and unfair to you.

The key issue isn’t that he has feelings. Everyone does. The issue is that his coping mechanism turns conflict into prolonged emotional exile for you and instability for the relationship.

There are a few patterns this can come from:

Conflict avoidance / emotional immaturity — he experiences disagreement as intolerable and retreats instead of repairing.
Passive-aggressive punishment — consciously or unconsciously making you “pay” through distance and withholding connection.
Attachment insecurity — some people shut down hard when they feel criticized, rejected, or ashamed.
Learned family behavior — if this is how conflict was handled growing up, he may genuinely see it as normal.
Depression, anxiety, or personality traits can intensify this, though nobody online can diagnose him.

But regardless of the root cause, the impact matters. And the impact is:

you walk on eggshells,
repair takes forever,
conflict never actually resolves,
and you’re carrying the emotional labor of reconnecting.

That exhaustion you feel is real. Relationships can survive arguments. They usually cannot survive endless cycles of rupture with no timely repair.

One thing that stands out in your description is this:

“When he upsets me, he apologizes and we move on. But it takes days after I apologize for him to rebound.”

That asymmetry matters. It suggests the issue is not simply “he feels emotions strongly.” It suggests he may not know how to self-soothe, reconnect, or tolerate unresolved hurt without withdrawing entirely.

And therapy only helps if the person acknowledges there’s a problem. If his stance is:

“I’m allowed to feel what I feel,”

the missing follow-up is:

“Yes — and you’re still responsible for how you treat your partner while feeling it.”

Those are different things.

You don’t have to decide today whether to leave. But I would take your own despair seriously. “I think we’d be better off apart” usually doesn’t appear out of nowhere; it appears after years of unmet repair.

A productive next step is often shifting the conversation away from:

“You’re too sensitive”
toward:
“We need a conflict process that doesn’t involve days of emotional shutdown.”

Specific, behavioral asks are harder to dodge:

“I can respect needing space, but not 4 days of silence.”
“If you need time, tell me when we’ll reconnect.”
“I need acknowledgment, responsiveness, and repair within a reasonable timeframe.”

For example, many couples use agreements like:

take a few hours or one evening to cool off,
still respond to practical communication,
no stonewalling,
return to the issue within 24 hours.

What you’re describing is often called “stonewalling” in relationship psychology, especially when it becomes chronic. It’s one of the strongest predictors of relationship breakdown because it destroys emotional safety over time.

You are not unreasonable for being worn down by this....[/quote]

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