Can't get my husband to open up

[Meg330]

I have been married for 3 years and i can't get my husband to open up to me emotionally. I have tried multiple times to talk to him about it, and I've tried telling him how I feel hopeing he will open up to me about how he feels but it never works. When i share how i feel i get responses that I need to "grow up and stop being a little girl" and how my feelings are not his responsibility and he doesn't think it's right to burden someone else with his problems either because they are only his problems, just like my problems are only my problems.

Those are the kind of responses I get and it just hurts me. In my mind, if I have a problem, it should also be his problem(at least if it is a big one) and if he has a problem it should also be my problem because we are a couple and we are supposed to work through our problems together. I just don't understand it. We should be able to express our feeling and not feel like we are burdening each other because we are a couple! he's supposed to be my support system and the person i turn to, and I'm supposed to be his but it's not like that and i hate it. I feel like I can't even express my feeling to my own husband because I feel like I'm burdening him as that how he seems to feel about it and that just seems pathetic to me.

I have even tried talking to him about his childhood and about mine to get us to connect, but it seems that I've already told him most of mine, while i'm still stuck not knowing much about his. Whenever he tells me something about his childhood, it's like i'm hearing it from an outsider, he puts no emotion into it, it's like he's reading someone elses story. If that makes sense to anyone lol

Maybe it just stems from his parents. i don't know. His parents basically hate each other and live under the same roof but that's about it. They can't afford a divorce and anytime we visit we always have to be brought in the middle, his mom telling something bad about his dad and vise versa and it just saddens me. There's no happiness between them and no love, and I am so afraid that that is what will happen with us, and that that is the example my husband is following, and I can't change it by myself. I don't know what else I can do or say to change anything, if it can even change with just me trying.

I want to be friends with my husband, I want to be able to share anything with him and not feel like I'm just burdening him with it. Is there anything else I can try or anything I can do better?? Oh and just to add, my husband HATES psychiatry. He thinks it's a "pointless field of so called doctors who are just in it for the money and are jsut listening to problems that individuals should be able to handle on their own."  Yeah that's a quote from him, so marriage counseling will not be an option here.

[mami1323]

It's hard for some people, like you said, he's always been this way and probably had to deal with things on his own since he was young.  So it's going to be hard for him to change his ways.  It's also going to be hard for you as well, since you've always been the more emotionally open individual.  But you can't change him but you can change you.  So try to see what happens if you take a different approach.  Maybe he will notice and give in a little more.  Keep us posted.

[Meg330]

Yes that did help, thank you. i do tend to put pressure on him, if he seems upset i do usually think maybe i did something and then pester him about it. Which just makes him more upset. I'm a really sensitive person also, I've been known to cry over a commercial haha and i grew up with my entire family like that so it's hard for me not to blame myself for him not opening up because i always think ok well did I upset him, or what. And i always feel so much better after just letting all my feelings out and I want him to feel better too and i guess i've just been trying to help him to feel better in my own way and not his way. I don't know lol I'll try the backing off thing and not putting pressure on him about it and see how it goes. I don't expect him to do a complete about face and just start pouring his heart out lol I would just be very happy if he would tell me about one thing that has upset him or made him happy a week lol

[mami1323]

I understand better now.  That does change some things.  I feel like all relationships and marriages go through these ups and downs and I completely understand how sometimes the effort is not put in because of the comfortability.  I agree with jo, it seems than the only thing you can do is accept him and try to be there for him.  Ask him still about his day and if something is bothering him, if he feels like sharing, than great, if he doesn't than let it be ok.  Maybe without the pressure of him having to share, will make him open up a little bit more.  I don't think he's going to change much, since this is how he is and most likely always will be, but you could change how you react to his inability to express his emotions.  Don't take it personally.  I know it's hard because I had that problem as well.  Whenever my fiance was in a bad mood I always assumed it was something that had to do with me and couldn't understand why he wouldn't just tell me what was wrong.  I never believed his excuse of "nothing, I'm just tired."  So I would get upset and offended and it would annoy him because frankly, it wasn't about me.  I'm just a sensitive person.  So through counseling I had to learn to step back and just give him that space he needed and not to take it personally.  

Not sure if that helps at all.

[Meg330]

Oh forgot to add. I sometimes feel like he just doesn't want to help me with my feelings, but with his friends he's different, he'll help his friends with anything, but if it's me he thinks I can handle it on my own and that i don't need him to help. feel like it's a backhand compliment, because he thinks I'm strong enough to go at it alone, but at the same time he just leaves me to deal with it and it doesn't seem to matter if i want his help, it's just for me to do and not him. but then he'll go help his friends with anything and I don't get it. Yes it's true i can handle it on my own, but I would rather him be there with me and i want him to want to help me.

[Meg330]

I've known him for 9 years, almost 10. We dated for 3 years before getting married. I know who he is as a person, he is a great person, he just doesn't share his emotions as much as I'd like. I've always known he has had a hard time sharing his emotions, but I've never really had a problem with it because he would show me how he felt in his actions, instead of with words. Now that we've been married 3 years and been together for 6 it seems that we are so comfortable with each other, there is no effort to show how we feel because we both already know how we feel. I just miss it and with him not putting in the effort to show me how he feels I have also realize just how closed off he really is. yes i knew about it prior but it wasn't a big deal because he was always showing me with his actions.

I want him to feel free to tell me about his day and i want to hear about his problems and I want to share about mine. i don't want him to think it's a burden for him to tell me he's pi$$ed about something, or angry or hurt or anything. I want to be his confident and I want him to be mine. I just don't feel an emotional connection with him and i want it. I don't know how i can make him comfortable with sharing himself with me, or if he will ever actually be comfortable.

I know I'm not going to leave him, i love him faults and all, and i know i could survive without him but I want him in my life and i want us to have the best relationship we possibly can, and i don't feel we have that right now.

[jo929]

I feel for you I love helping people and have done so most of my life, but when it comes to me opening up i cant i have tried to solve all my problems since i was a child i cant ask for help i feel it does no good, but i beleive that i can help others i had a odd childhood my parents were not happy nor did they demonstrate their love they got divorced, so i can see where that he may get the feeling that he has to solve his own problems i am an older person now and have been through so much i cant change, but maybe with love and kindess he will know that you care, but part of him will always remember that childhood when i fell as a child my mom said get up and try again when i married she said you are making your own bed lay in it i guess you might say i sort of raised myself went to work at 14 quit at 72 have learned a lot about life all of these years and i wish that i would have reached out and asked i never wanted pity i hate pity and do not want it now but i hate to see a young couple go through life like this i know this has not helped but keep on trying maybe he will see your love someday  luck  jo

[mami1323]

I'm not trying to be rude or anything but why did you marry him?  How long did you date him before you took the leap into marriage?  This can't be a new realization on your part, you must have known he was this way before you married him and yet you did.  People don't miraculously change once they receive that marriage certificate.  If he was uncommunicative before marriage, than most likely he will be the same way after marriage.  Plus, I can't understand how you would marry a man who told you nothing about himself or his life.  That's all part of the dating process, to get to know someone.  I am not sure what to tell you if you've already tried talking to him and he won't even consider therapy.  Either you have to just understand that this is how he is and believe me, a lot of men have trouble with communicating or expressing feelings.  They aren't like women.  Or, you leave him and find a man who is much more compatible with you.