Dear Anita and Dawn, thank you both for your response.

The examples of uncomfortable conversations can range greatly, from me simply expressing that maybe he should try to do something a different way, like dusting or tidying from the way he normally does it, to more serious things like I feel he is distant or bad at staying in touch with me when I’m away with work or if I think he has inappropriate behavior with other women and try to express my insecurities. I have realized the past few days that he has been 100% emotionally unavailable to me and neglected my emotions also. I have had these outbursts of my feelings eventually when things have built up so much and I am tired or if I have been drinking I seem to get more courage to say to him how I feel.

Dawn you are right about the wall that has been created between the two of us and it definitely has made it difficult for me to feel close to him or to ever really know how he is feeling. I also agree that it is only him that can work on that part of himself and there’s not much more I can do now … I feel scared to ever bring anything up, or even ask him how he is feeling because I know he will start to feel uncomfortable and become distant with me.

I don’t feel I have much choice other than to leave the situation as that seems to be what he wants anyway, I no longer am ok with not talking about how I feel and emotionally neglecting myself too.

The worst part that I have realized through all of this is that his family seem to encourage this type of behavior. Instead of him showing emotion or being angry/sad they seem to do it for him. They also seem to validate any of his dramatizations and encourage him to think more dramatically about things. They seem to be absolutely horrified that we have had an argument and that I have been angry and had an outburst. I tried to explain to him that I am human and I can’t always be perfect and sometimes I will handle situations wrongly but he doesn’t seem willing to accept that.