Hi Katherine

I have been married for 8 years to a great man, who also happens to have been emotionally unresponsive for a long time. Things are better now, he has learned to open up and we talk about a lot of things now, and our marriage is stronger than ever. However, there were a LOT of times early in the marriage when I felt that I had made a BIG mistake marrying him.

He was very nice, but didn’t get excited about birthdays or holidays, or even vacations…all things that I get very excited about. We had major problems with his mother who interfered and crossed some serious boundaries on many occasions, but he was unable to get angry at her behavior and as a result was not able to understand that he needed to stand up for me, for us. That put a lot of strain on our relationship. I loved him very much, but his lack of ability to ‘feel’ things was a very real problem. Arguments usually ended up with me yelling (shame on me) just to get a reaction out of him as he would just be unavailable. It got to the point where I was reeady to leave because I felt so disconnected from him emotionally.

I just want to be clear that I’m not playing the blame game here, we were both just different people, and even though I had the same concerns you do now when we fist got engaged, I decided to take a chance, even though things weren’t perfect. As time went on in our relationship, we both got to know and understand each other better…I learned a lot from him (and continue to do so), and he slowly started to express himself. It took a lot of effort, but we have a much happier (not perfect!) relationship. The thing is, I got lucky…he changed and I changed…we made compromises, both of us. In all honesty, if he hadn’t been able to meet me half way then I don’t think I coould have stayed with him. At the end of the day, it is a chance you are taking…and no marriage is perfect, they all have challenges…if you love him enough then it might be worth the risk despite your concerns. I wish you all the best.