Rachelc has a post in Reconciliation about her H's response to discussing their affairs.
I've posted many times that my XH didn't want to discuss much about my affairs both immediately after D-day and two years later when we got back together. But what I've never gone into much detail about, and have only alluded to, is that he never really wants to talk about anything. At all. Ever.
We don't have deep conversations. We don't really even have superficial conversations. He is a very quiet, reticent person. And he's not an introspective type of quiet---I've asked him if he ever really thinks about anything besides <identifying athletic activity> and the stock market, and he says no. So it's not like he's got all these thoughts swirling around in his head but just wants to keep them to himself. He's a brilliant man; I would expect that he would, but he just says he doesn't. Doesn't have the time or the energy to think. (?!?)
We don't have conversations about the future. We don't have conversations about the past. We don't have conversations about the present. He won't talk about work, because he despises his job and can't deal with discussing it. He won't talk about (or even TO) his family. He represses feelings of anger and irritation. Any negativity in our (my) home is taken as criticism and fight-starting, including my bringing up how he won't talk. It's circular.
I say "he" won't talk because I do talk. A lot. In fact, I have a bad habit of prattling---talking about inconsequential things just to fill the silence, because if I don't, nothing would ever be said! We are absolute oil and water as far as communication goes.
You might ask, didn't I notice this when I first met him? Well, ha, there's the rub. When we first started dating, he wasn't like this. And when we got back together after the divorce, one of the things he promised was to try to be more communicative. Ha again. If anything, it's gotten worse.
I am so jealous when I read posts on this forum about those of you going through R who demand (and achieve!) emotional intimacy, sharing, and closeness with your spouse. I don't have that and I wish I did. If I could point to ONE solitary pre-A issue that I was unhappy with, and it really is the only one, it would be this. But pre-A, post-A, it's all the same on this score.
He won't talk to his family because he feels as though he "has nothing to say." Same with talking to me. "I have nothing to say---all I do is work." Well, so do I---we work at the same place, and we're either traveling to, at, or traveling from work 12 hours out of each M-F on average. Yet I can think of things to say. Too much, if you ask him. I would like to talk about current events, politics, sports, TV shows we both watch, music, our friends' kid, whatever. None of that interests him. I would like to talk about work; he point-blank refuses. I would like to talk about deep stuff---his insides, my insides, our families, our future family unit, our thoughts and feelings. He shuts down because he doesn't have anything to say on those subjects.
Sometimes I can't take it to the point of wanting to scream.
I know things change once the "honeymoon phase" wears off. I get that. But we got married one year after we started dating, and it was already gone (conversation). I had my own issues, and I own them: I was having an affair two years into the marriage. That's a separate issue. I didn't cheat because he talks about as much as a brick wall. My cheating has nothing to do with this, and he swears that his doing this has nothing to do with my cheating. It's just who he is.
But then why, in the first few months we dated, was he so different? He says I already know everything; that he ran out of things to say. But I call bullshit on that, because life keeps going on. New things keep happening all around us, and it's like he has the shutters closed to the world around him; like life exists but he won't take part in it.
So once we were divorced, once we were discussing getting back together, by then I should have known, right? I have pages of emails that we exchanged before we officially started dating again, him telling me that he knows this was an issue in our relationship and he really wants to be different and work on it. Yet that lasted even less long than when we first met.
There are so many great things about him. I am generally content in this relationship. But this one part is killing me. WTF is going to happen when we're in our 70s and 80s (if we live that long) and our kids (if we have them) are grown and gone and we're just sitting there staring into space?
He thinks everything will be different once he gets away from his current job. That will happen in early 2014 if it's going to ever happen at all. So do I take a gamble and see? I'm leaning towards that, obviously, since we're still in a relationship. But I am scared.
I don't want anyone else to "fill the void." I want HIM. But you can't change people; they are who they are, like it or not. But I am who I am too, and what I am NOT is someone who subscribes to the old-school "silence is golden" philosophy. Inevitably, I feel petty for being frustrated with something that is not a huge problem in the grand scheme of life. But, dammit, I think it's important.
Final note: counseling will not help, he won't read books, and as I mentioned above, talking to him about it is pointless. It's either "take it or leave it" at this juncture.