Hello, I wanna share with you some of the issues I have with my husband. Both of us are in our early 30s, recently married and we've been together for 3 years.
There is a repeating theme in our relationship, now marriage, where he's the best person I've ever been with when we're alone, but as soon as we hang out with friends or even worse, new people, he gets so excited that he completely forgets I exist and sometimes I can't even find him for hours. For example, once I've asked him to go with me to a reenactment festival, I begged him for a month, he said yes, i even made him some clothes and then he said he doesn't want to go.. but few days later his friend asked him to go and he said "you know what, I'm gonna go actually". When we finally got there, he just disappeared with his friend, i couldn't find him until 11 pm (from 2pm). I've talked to him about it, but he always does the same and says "sorry, I didn't mean to, I got carried away". I kinda got over it eventually..
He's also friendly and likes talking to people, but on some other occasions I've noticed a few ladies subtly flirting with him and he says it always goes under his radar completely. Now I've never made a scene about it, but I've told him about this as well and he promised he'll pay more attention to it. Btw we're both good looking, I don't have an issue with my self image, but his lack of attention plus his "unawareness" of other women flirting with him make me uncomfortable, because he reciprocates that attention when it comes to other people or women, in a seemingly friendly way tho, but still. Plus he's a masseuse and people often ask him to rub their shoulders or neck and ladies love doing that.
In his defense, he's definitely a good person, i don't doubt that, he's not cheating or texting other women, nothing.
Then, as things in our relationship progressed I've noticed that he doesn't know things that most people consider common knowledge, for example how to set boundaries, what are appropriate times for saying or doing things.. I could write a book if I started naming all the things i had to teach him.. it makes me feel like I'm his mother and i can't play this role, i need a partner not a child. Also, he can't comfort me with words, only with hugs and cuddles, but he's working abroad now and i haven't seen him in 4months.. it's definitely draining my emotional batteries. I've tried teaching him how to communicate his feelings etc but it's a sloooow progress. Sometimes when he's careless or tired he jokes quite harshly and it hurts me, but later he doesn't know what to say to make me feel better. I tried teaching him this too. It's so draining. I feel like we don't have real problems but something feels off from time to time, i guess because he doesn't know how to connect with me verbally over the phone...
ANd our most recent issue was that he's coming home for a bit less than 3 weeks total, after 4 months of absence. We'll be traveling abroad for our summer vacation, so it's 10 days, plus 2 days on the road. In those remaining five or six days we're going to visit his parents and old friends in another city for 2-3 days and after we come back home we'll meet up with our friends here. I miss him so much that i literally dream of him almost every night and i wanna spend every moment of those 2+ weeks with him. Today he told me he had planned a second night out with those same friends without me and my heart sank (the same friends from that festival I've mentioned before, it's always something about them). If we weren't separated so much i wouldn't mind, but it felt like he doesn't want to spend time with me, that his priorities are his friends and that he would take even that tiny bit of what I've left away from me. He then apologized and said he didn't mean it and won't do it again. I don't know if I've explained things well enough, but basically our problem started as his lack of attention, me feeling neglected, his lack of self awareness and awareness of things that are happening around him, then it escalated into me constantly feeling drained, often sad, his inability to comfort me and nowadays he just does things and says he's sorry, he didn't mean to and I'm feeling tired and as if I'm left alone to deal with everything, to work on our issues, mend the relationship and help him and i started nagging a lot and i don't like it, but i don't know what else to do.
Any thoughts? 🙏
There is a repeating theme in our relationship, now marriage, where he's the best person I've ever been with when we're alone, but as soon as we hang out with friends or even worse, new people, he gets so excited that he completely forgets I exist and sometimes I can't even find him for hours. For example, once I've asked him to go with me to a reenactment festival, I begged him for a month, he said yes, i even made him some clothes and then he said he doesn't want to go.. but few days later his friend asked him to go and he said "you know what, I'm gonna go actually". When we finally got there, he just disappeared with his friend, i couldn't find him until 11 pm (from 2pm). I've talked to him about it, but he always does the same and says "sorry, I didn't mean to, I got carried away". I kinda got over it eventually..
He's also friendly and likes talking to people, but on some other occasions I've noticed a few ladies subtly flirting with him and he says it always goes under his radar completely. Now I've never made a scene about it, but I've told him about this as well and he promised he'll pay more attention to it. Btw we're both good looking, I don't have an issue with my self image, but his lack of attention plus his "unawareness" of other women flirting with him make me uncomfortable, because he reciprocates that attention when it comes to other people or women, in a seemingly friendly way tho, but still. Plus he's a masseuse and people often ask him to rub their shoulders or neck and ladies love doing that.
In his defense, he's definitely a good person, i don't doubt that, he's not cheating or texting other women, nothing.
Then, as things in our relationship progressed I've noticed that he doesn't know things that most people consider common knowledge, for example how to set boundaries, what are appropriate times for saying or doing things.. I could write a book if I started naming all the things i had to teach him.. it makes me feel like I'm his mother and i can't play this role, i need a partner not a child. Also, he can't comfort me with words, only with hugs and cuddles, but he's working abroad now and i haven't seen him in 4months.. it's definitely draining my emotional batteries. I've tried teaching him how to communicate his feelings etc but it's a sloooow progress. Sometimes when he's careless or tired he jokes quite harshly and it hurts me, but later he doesn't know what to say to make me feel better. I tried teaching him this too. It's so draining. I feel like we don't have real problems but something feels off from time to time, i guess because he doesn't know how to connect with me verbally over the phone...
ANd our most recent issue was that he's coming home for a bit less than 3 weeks total, after 4 months of absence. We'll be traveling abroad for our summer vacation, so it's 10 days, plus 2 days on the road. In those remaining five or six days we're going to visit his parents and old friends in another city for 2-3 days and after we come back home we'll meet up with our friends here. I miss him so much that i literally dream of him almost every night and i wanna spend every moment of those 2+ weeks with him. Today he told me he had planned a second night out with those same friends without me and my heart sank (the same friends from that festival I've mentioned before, it's always something about them). If we weren't separated so much i wouldn't mind, but it felt like he doesn't want to spend time with me, that his priorities are his friends and that he would take even that tiny bit of what I've left away from me. He then apologized and said he didn't mean it and won't do it again. I don't know if I've explained things well enough, but basically our problem started as his lack of attention, me feeling neglected, his lack of self awareness and awareness of things that are happening around him, then it escalated into me constantly feeling drained, often sad, his inability to comfort me and nowadays he just does things and says he's sorry, he didn't mean to and I'm feeling tired and as if I'm left alone to deal with everything, to work on our issues, mend the relationship and help him and i started nagging a lot and i don't like it, but i don't know what else to do.
Any thoughts? 🙏
