Your husband just won’t talk about it. That didn’t seem like a problem at first – you just learned to avoid certain topics. Over time, though, the one or two things you couldn’t talk about just kept growing, until now all kinds of things seem scary to bring up with him. So you don’t. I mean, why bother? If all you get is a grunt or an, “I don’t know,” why would you risk him getting mad you brought “it” up? You try to feel all right not talking about it and sometimes legitimately do feel like you don’t need to talk. You know, however, that the conversation needs to happen. The “it” needs to be in the open, ready for you two, well, to open up.
Communicating with your husband in this situation can feel impossible. You want him to listen to you and to listen to him in turn. You want to feel the two of you can come to each other for help and work together, as a team. Instead, it feels like you have to choose whether to avoid anything remotely sensitive or accept having a hostile spouse. He may try to avoid thinking about it, but ultimately this setup isn’t working for him either. As humans, we need opportunities to feel safe and vulnerable with people we love. When he bottles everything up, he may start to numb his feelings instead of facing them, but they still exist. He doesn’t want to feel emotionally shut down.
You both want the same thing. You want a partner you can come to when you feel scared or alone, who you know has your back no matter what. When you try to tell him this, though, he just nods or grunts and things continue as they always have. You both need your partner to accept your primary emotions – how you really feel – not just the secondary emotions – such as anger or frustration – you feel safe to express right now. When you can express primary emotions to each other, your marriage starts to feel more like a team effort where the two of you can work together toward happiness. Instead of feeling like you don’t know the person next to you, you and your husband can learn to talk to each other and truly hear one another.
In marriage counseling, I work with the two of you to express these primary emotions. We start slowly, making sure both of you feel safe and supported by me. As we develop this, you can start to support each other. I know how isolating it feels to bottle up emotions, hoping they just go away. My experiences as a husband and father in Minnesota offer me unique insight into how to connect with these primary emotions, moving past your husband’s defenses and helping him feel like he can express himself openly and honestly. He wants to connect with you as desperately as you want to connect with him, he just doesn’t know how. In marriage counseling, I can help the two of you learn how.