ok, so I will journal first quickly and then read and digest your very long response Yorkie, thank you
So dh got back and I was doing some work but went and greeted him at the door with a hug and a kiss. He looked a bit annoyed. He has this thing about me being in his space sometimes (our house is very narrow but somehow it has got narrower as he has got more angry over the years. A while back he would literally push me out of the way or shout 'move!' at me. But anyway, he has never been much of a touchy feely person other than with sex, it's me who is the touchy feely one despite being a distancer, most of my touchy feely needs were met by the kids till they hit their teens).
I was cooking dinner for later and he asked if I wanted to go to the pub, he had to drive later but said he'd have a soft drink (he drinks a LOT and acknowledges this, btw, one reason he gave for moving out was to try to drink less and do his body less harm, but he drinks the same or maybe more, so this is progress in a way). I said I had to sort the potatoes and could leave in 10 minutes so he left early and I went to meet him. When I went into the pub and he saw me, his eyes lit up. THIS IS HUGE, I have to say! For so long he has either looked anxious when I arrive somewhere, ignores me or actively scowls at me. Yet I know this stuff is important to him, because the other day he said that I always look 'delighted' to see him since he left. So this is stuff he takes notice of and is important to him but I've not really paid attention to, perhaps because I've got so used to him looking grumpy whenever I turn up somewhere. But I saw him look really pleased to see me, it was really nice We had a good chat and I gave him lots of smiley looks and he sort of smiled back a bit (very friendly and demonstrative for him, especially with no alcohol) and then we went home, I continued prepping dinner and he went to watch TV. I went and sat next to him and read my book (one he gave me to read) and chatted to him a bit about it. Then he got up and announced he was leaving (he's going out with a friend, I just realised with great sadness that his friend is having his birthday party he has every year, a couple of years ago we went and had fun, last year we went and en route dh was super critical and horrible to me so I turned round and went home and left him there. I feel sad that dh didn't tell me about the party but I guess I'm not invited in case I made dh feel awkward or get drunk and made a scene. Hmm, he might have a point, but he could have told me) He gave me a one armed hug and I told him I wanted 2 arms but he gave me a proper squeeze which was nice, and then I went downstairs to fix dinner and waved him off at the door with a smile. He's coming back on Wednesday night, I'm speaking at an event I got him a ticket to and although he could have gone back to his flat afterwards easily he volunteered that he would come home and stay the night. So that's good.
I feel worn out, but quite hopeful. I feel like we built our connection a bit more today, and that he's warming up towards me. I have to be warm towards him but not chase, this doesn't feel easy after years of feeling defensive and now desperately wanting him back (because I'm not hiding it, I do really want him back, especially this new improved husband). I can wait a bit longer. Maybe the shouting this morning was good, because the more practice we get repairing, the better we get at it.
It must be so hard - to thaw and make some 180s on some distancing behaviour while at the same time not chasing. I teared up a bit reading about how happy he was to see you. That's the kind of thing I really miss, and the kind of thing I want to ask H for - but it isn't the kind of thing you can request, you just have to, I guess, do your little bit in creating the conditions for it to happen, then waiting to see if it does.
You have been so patient. Do you have a sense that things are moving towards you living together again and starting to piece? Do you have a mental kind of deadline for that, or are you willing to wait as long as it takes, or are you taking it one day as it comes?
In my situation, there is a kind of built in deadline as I know when H's big work project finishes. I suspect he might feel, as that time gets closer, the pressure of finishing the project as well as the pressure of me wanting a decision or movement or R from him immediately afterwards. And I can't help what he is feeling, though I don't want to add to that built-in pressure so I am wondering if the best thing I can do right now is not mention it, but give myself some kind of internal deadline after which I will stop attempting to 'connect' with him and encourage and support him, and just go dark completely.
I will try to fill you in, Dillydaf, but this is just me.
So - I fully get that a lot of my 'bids for attention' towards my distancing husband came across to him as needy, invasive and controlling. He needs more alone time than I do, has less desire for sex, physical affection, what I'd understand as intimate or deep conversations and emotional support. Him being how he is isn't wrong - just a temperamental difference that I think I always took more personally than was healthy for me or the M.
When he's distancing, he'll tend to be quite dishonest. He'll claim he forgot that we'd agreed to spend time together rather than telling me he doesn't want to do it. Or he will pick a fight or blame me for something, then withdraw entirely - sleeping on the couch, not going to bed at the same time as me, taking an hour to go to the shop and get milk, that kind of thing. In conversation, he can be spectacularly unresponsive. I can be emotional, and he can look at me like I am a specimen in a petri dish - only of mild interest and most of the time not even that. I can ask him a direct question about what he wants or what he feels, and he will evade it, or change the subject, or start talking about how I've asked him at a bad time, or in the wrong tone of voice. I believe I make him very anxious and he experiences my bid for closeness as demands which he is terrified of - but on the other hand, he will say very loudly and persistently that his needs aren't met in the relationship. I ask him what his needs are, and he can't or won't say in a way that I can understand. I actually suspect what he needs is to be out of the relationship, and was just unable to say so, and was blaming me for existing in the house and having the cheek to remind him of my existence.
Now and again I would very quietly and calmly raise something in the relationship that I was unhappy with. If I was too emotional, he'd just want to talk about how I was over-reacting. If I asked him when he was doing something, I was interrupting. If I asked him when he wasn't doing anything, I was ruining his leisure time. If I asked him when the kids were around, it wasn't appropriate to talk about it. If I asked him when the kids weren't around, I was ruining the rare time we had child free and not letting him enjoy his life. If - once in a blue moon - I actually managed to pick the right time, the right tone of voice, and the right phrasing - then he would generally dismiss anything I wanted to raise and claim I wasn't upset because he'd called me a name, or cancelled our time together, or hadn't come to sleep in bed with me for a week, or anything else - I was actually upset because I was busy at work, or had a terrible childhood, or tired, or hormonal, etc etc. I never found it possible for him to listen and take me seriously. That left me feeling like I didn't matter, like I was to be ignored. It made me feel worthless and furious. And yes - quite often as a reaction to that I was volatile and emotional. I don't think I was aggressive - but he considers me crying or being persistent or following him as he leaves the room when I am in the middle of a sentence to be abusive and controlling behaviours, all about manipulation.
After years of this, I feel very very angry at him. I don't feel worthless any more. I do wonder why I stayed so long in a relationship with a man who clearly had no interest in my feelings, no interest in his own feelings, and no interest in communicating his needs but was happy to blame me for not meeting them. I wonder why I chased him so long and so hard. I am not doing that any more.
I guess the best practical example I can give you of what I'd call distancing but not abusive behaviour is something that happened toward the end of our marriage therapy. He'd said his needs weren't met. I said I really wanted to be someone that offered him love and support, but I didn't know how to do that. He suggested I could start by bringing him coffee in bed some mornings. The therapist suggested I should go ahead and do that a few times over the next week, no matter what else was happening in our relationship. I agreed to do that, and left the session feeling a lot of hope for change and perhaps thinking that if I could help him feel loved, we could make some progress on the other issues. I did it once, it seemed to go well, then for the rest of the week he started getting up at 5am, before I woke up (his usual wake up time was about 7am) and I'd get downstairs and he'd already had coffee, eaten, washed and dressed. Then at our next session he wanted to start by talking about how I wasn't interested in his needs and hadn't done what he agreed. I pointed out him waking up early and making it pretty much impossible for me to do what he wanted. I said I felt he was being a bit dishonest. I asked him if me caring for him made him feel vulnerable or like he was beholden to me, and if so, could we talk about that in therapy? He said he just woke up early, there was nothing more to it, and as usual I was over-reacting and making it all about me and my feelings, and his needs still weren't being met. I think we only had one or two more sessions after that because it was making me feel crazy and I did not see how it was possible to care for and meet the needs of a man who seemed to need me to disappear.
OK, so I can see some similarities and some differences here to my experience as a distancer. I suspect that your husband is a full-on distancer who seems to have distanced himself out of the back door, I assume he wasn't always like that?? Surely there must have been happier times before and he gradually got more and more distancing? I'm sorry, I haven't read your thread yet.
OK, so 'picking a fight' and then withdrawing. Hmm, I might have been guilty of this in the past. Ugh. Maybe not actually picking a fight, but not behaving my best, things escalated and then perhaps using dh's anger as an excuse to withdraw. My tendency is to avoid confrontation and to run away (as you can tell by my response to the shouting earlier). I felt like when the kids were young and super needy and life was super busy that I didn't have much time or space to myself, so maybe withdrawing from dh was the way to get that space. And the more angry he got about that the more I withdrew. My dh never cried or followed me but that might be gender differences, I can see if you're trying to calm down and your instinct is to withdraw then following someone might make you feel trapped... I know if I follow dh during an argument he completely freaks out but that's since he retreated into distancing mode.
Forgetfulness. I am a very forgetful person (I actually think I have ADHD, no joke, some things I'm laser focused and other things fall out of my head. When I'm stressed I'm unbelievably forgetful). But dh would take my forgetfulness personally. It takes a huge amount of effort for me to focus my attention and to remember stuff but if I forgot anything dh wanted or needed then he would have a tantrum. And make a massive fuss if I wrote myself an email reminding me of stuff he wanted from me. I was trying to be helpful but he couldn't work out why I was so incompetent and really took it as a personal slight. So maybe there's something there about attention? The thing about him not responding to your emotion: this seems really common in distancers. Personally I used to respond by getting defensive, but I wonder if your husband response was because he was flooded and just shut everything off as a protection mode? His defensive walls were very high!
That coffee story is eye-rollingly unbelievable, wow. I'm so sorry that happened to you, what a kick in the teeth I do think though that from everything I've learnt distancers find it incredibly hard to articulate what they need emotionally. And also that they tend to minimise problems in the relationship, and to think everything is fine when it's not. And that all of this is a defence mechanism to avoid feeling vulnerable and showing themselves fully. Which I definitely identify with. But now my heart has been so thoroughly broken that I'm finally prepared to let down my defences and show myself and articulate my needs. I'm not so sure pursuers are much better at articulating their needs either, though they make a lot more noise when they don't do so!
Right, so thank you for your perspective. Your husband sounds like he has built the Fort Knox of emotional defences around him, that must be super frustrating for you. I'll go read your thread now!
Hi Dillydaf - I don't know what was happening with the quoting, but that wasn't Yorkie, it was me!
And yes - he accuses me of having tantrums too! And sometimes I did - I wasn't in charge of myself, or I was turning on the waterworks and wailing because if I couldn't get love, then I was pathetic enough to be willing to make do with pity. That is totally on me.
And sometimes I was just genuinely terribly hurt by his treatment of me, and when I cried it made him angry and he called it a tantrum, and that hurt too.
Thank you for the chat and the pursuer - distancer knowledge and experience exchange
It must be so hard - to thaw and make some 180s on some distancing behaviour while at the same time not chasing. I teared up a bit reading about how happy he was to see you. That's the kind of thing I really miss, and the kind of thing I want to ask H for - but it isn't the kind of thing you can request, you just have to, I guess, do your little bit in creating the conditions for it to happen, then waiting to see if it does.
You have been so patient. Do you have a sense that things are moving towards you living together again and starting to piece? Do you have a mental kind of deadline for that, or are you willing to wait as long as it takes, or are you taking it one day as it comes?
In my situation, there is a kind of built in deadline as I know when H's big work project finishes. I suspect he might feel, as that time gets closer, the pressure of finishing the project as well as the pressure of me wanting a decision or movement or R from him immediately afterwards. And I can't help what he is feeling, though I don't want to add to that built-in pressure so I am wondering if the best thing I can do right now is not mention it, but give myself some kind of internal deadline after which I will stop attempting to 'connect' with him and encourage and support him, and just go dark completely.
Hi Alison, you're right that it's difficult to not distance and not pursue, particularly when my default is to distance but the situation makes me pursue! It's taken 6 months for that happy to see me face to appear, so it has needed a lot of patience (so not my strong point). But I think you're right, you have to create the conditions for it, and I think me insisting on a date night once a week has built the foundation for that (it was very, very, very difficult the first few months, we had some disastrous dates or parts of dates but they have got easier and more fun). And I also think me insisting on getting a 'proper' hug every time we say goodbye has also helped (well, it's helped me, my LL Is physical touch but I don't think anyone is immune to needing the occasional hug).
Hmm, I seesaw completely on the deadline idea. What I haven't mentioned is that dh seems to have seasonal meltdowns, and every year it has got worse. It's partly because this is his busy season at work and always has been, partly that he suffers from SAD I'm pretty sure. But he's been horrible to me for quite a few years now from November till about April. I've mentioned it and he dismissed the idea completely, but my friends will attest to it! Also, transitions seem really hard for him. The number of autumns and springs where I have looked at the amazing beauty outside and just felt too sad about my marriage to appreciate it. So one thing which has come out of this separation is that he has actually managed to be nice to me (and the kids) during the time of year when he is usually most awful. When ds2 first heard that dh was getting a flat he said 'good, that means he won't be angry at home all winter'. And I know as well that when he has been stressed at work that has tended to be when I felt most neglected and maybe told him that in a really unhelpful way, so that then he felt criticised as well as stressed (I feel bad about that, though he didn't always tell me what was stressing him, just that he would behave awfully and then the next day come home and tell me about a big stressful meeting he just had, and then I would connect the dots back to the impending meeting causing him to be awful to me...) I don't know if your husband deals with work stress similarly? But in any case I think maybe you need to back off, not remind him, be supportive of him during this time and not pressure him, including for a little while afterwards while he recovers. By all means have an internal deadline, but if you tell him about it then it might backfire because you'll have to stick to it. I have had a few internal deadlines, but I've got more patient over the months and then realised that this is going to take longer than I initially thought it might. But as long as things are going in the right direction then that is enough for me for now. Maybe I'll change my mind in future, this can't go on forever. What I need to avoid is what I've done a few times so far, which is to get all insecure (usually under the influence of alcohol and/or hormones) and start desperately asking for some sort of reassurance. That has never gone well. So I'm trying to avoid that for now. It has got easier over the months actually, and I've got stronger and more patient, but I think that's mostly because I can see small signs of progress and not that many backward steps by dh. God I would love some sex though
Hi Dillydaf - I don't know what was happening with the quoting, but that wasn't Yorkie, it was me!
And yes - he accuses me of having tantrums too! And sometimes I did - I wasn't in charge of myself, or I was turning on the waterworks and wailing because if I couldn't get love, then I was pathetic enough to be willing to make do with pity. That is totally on me.
And sometimes I was just genuinely terribly hurt by his treatment of me, and when I cried it made him angry and he called it a tantrum, and that hurt too.
Thank you for the chat and the pursuer - distancer knowledge and experience exchange
Gosh, how weird! Not sure what the forum did there Thank you Alison!
Tantrum is a very judgy word isn't it? I'm sure I've been guilty of having tantrums myself and thought it was me being 'upset'. But it comes to the same thing doesn't it? A tantrum is when you're upset and unable to control your emotions and there's a large dollop of anger in there. I used to think my husband was more of a toddler than my kids EVER were when they were younger. A deliberate tantrum is interesting...Maybe he genuinely couldn't tell the difference? I need to think more about my husband's tantrums as expressing a need. Though his tantrums have been so much less since the separation, perhaps because I've changed my response and perhaps because he's controlling his emotions better.
So much food for thought about the different perspectives...
That all makes sense to me. Thank you for sharing and taking the time to answer my question. I know our situations aren't at all the same, but I am trying to learn as much as I can as my usual instinctive way to do it really doesn't work and I don't know any new ways (yet).
I get the asking for reassurance thing. It seems to provoke him to anger, and I suspect it is because he feels like I am some bottomless pit and nothing is ever good enough. What feels like a 180 to me would be to actually tell him when he is making me feel safe or loved or appreciated it, and tell him I am grateful for it.
In terms of deadlines, I am really not ready or in a headspace to think of anything certain for myself just yet. There's no point in me saying, 'right, in June if this hasn't changed and he isn't committed, then I am divorcing him' because the truth is, I don't know if I will be able to do that, and I don't even know if in June I will be committed enough myself and worked enough on myself to do piecing. I am really insecure and angry and hurt and he can't fix that and he can't come and piece with a woman who is alternately wanting him to hold and reassure her then ten minutes later is cold, hurt and angry. So I need to get past that for myself, whether we divorce or not, and he isn't in control or even a factor in me doing that. I also have a lot of childhood stuff to examine in my IC and that is going to take a while because there is a lot of it and it is painful.
I can identify with a lot of what you say about your husband. I know I have taken my work stress and my anxiety about my eldest - who has a lot of challenges that aren't to do with my marriage - out on him at times. I have blamed him, I think, for not being able to make every aspect of my life rosy. That was unfair, and he has a right to be angry about it. And it's no wonder he distanced himself from that. It makes me sad to say so, but it is the reality of the situation.
You said at the start of your thread - I think - that you were considering asking him to stay over regularly one night per week. Have you asked him for that or did you change your mind? Or are you waiting for the right time?
YES! The 180 telling him when he does something positive that makes you feel loved would be huge! I think that's something I should be doing better actually, I've tried a few times but it sure doesn't come naturally. The most I've managed is texting a thank you for a lovely evening after a good date. I need to do more because I think (not sure) that his LL are acts of service and words of affirmation. I've been toying with how to say I appreciate his changed behaviour without it turning into a R talk, not sure where to go with that. I did thank him for cleaning the toilets the other day when I was away because that was big! The reassurance thing with your husband might be because he's not sure, and he feels guilty and also guilty about not being sure, no wonder that makes him angry, no? And yes, it does sound like you have a bunch of stuff to work through and maybe it might even be good for you if he's not around much for that? I don't think you have to have completely got through that stuff in order to be with him though, a loving relationship can help you heal.
The sleeping over: I'm biding my time I think. I've got very upset and insecure pretty much every time we've shared a bed, so I haven't exactly sold the idea to him (doh, though 2 of those occasions have been super hormone induced I think) He has at least agreed to share a bed with me a few times, and last time he said I could cuddle up to him. So I might need to share a bed with him in a more stable state before he'd agree to that, maybe a few occasions actually. I need to make it a pleasant experience for him to want to do it on a regular basis...
It sounds like your husband is protecting himself from something. It might not be you, but something about the dynamic when the two of you get together. That, coupled with his seasonal thing, which means winters are always difficult for him and so for you in your relationship, means that he might not have the capacity to give much right now either. Like you say, it might not be the time to ask for a weekly sleep over if he is still in protective mode and still unable to give much.
Do you have a sense of what he might be protecting himself from?
He's definitely still in protection mode. He's coming out of it but it's taking ages and he has a few steps backwards sometimes. I think it's complicated: he has a huge fear of abandonment which has taken me nearly 30 years to understand properly (it might have got worse I think as ds1 reached the age where dh was abandoned). So rather than face the fear of abandonment he's abandoning us first. The teens getting older is hard for him, he sees how much he's missed of their childhoods and that's hard (it was hard for me too, I felt like a single mum all their lives). I think he suffers from huge anxiety which he never expresses other than in anger towards me. He has some big career decisions to make: he has nearly earnt enough to retire early in a few years if we're careful with money (and if he doesn't get divorced), he's reached as far up the career ladder as he might get but he still wants the very top job but also says he doesn't or couldn't. He suffered a huge blow at work with something which went wrong (not his fault) which he ended up taking the fall for and his ego is still struggling with that, and with me 'not being supportive' (I was the one listening and saying 'the sky is not falling in, you will survive this' but now I see it wasn't really what he needed, I should have been validating instead of correct). So he has this big void in front of him if he stops working and he has no idea how to fill it, his job has been all-consuming and increasingly so as he's got more senior. He knows he drinks far too much but it soaks his entire working culture. His body is starting to let him down, and he's always been quite vain. He's panicking about his life running out but also not sure what to do with the rest of it, he's also not that happy in his job and it doesn't align with his values. And because I'm the one who is inextricably linked to his life, somehow in his head it's all my fault. Maybe he needed this separation to work out that a lot of this isn't my fault and to disentangle this stuff in his head.
Well, that's my take. He probably sees it entirely differently. I have also not been the best or most understanding wife for many, many years. I haven't appreciated him the way he needs, I haven't paid him enough attention or listened to him enough, and I've kept myself busy with other people and other activities and distanced him a lot.
I do think though that from everything I've learnt distancers find it incredibly hard to articulate what they need emotionally. And also that they tend to minimise problems in the relationship, and to think everything is fine when it's not. And that all of this is a defence mechanism to avoid feeling vulnerable and showing themselves fully. Which I definitely identify with. But now my heart has been so thoroughly broken that I'm finally prepared to let down my defences and show myself and articulate my needs. I'm not so sure pursuers are much better at articulating their needs either, though they make a lot more noise when they don't do so!