Hi, I just joined this sub. I’m a 33 year old woman and my boyfriend/partner a is younger 26 year old man. We have been together about 4 years. I love him so much. We have both overcome a lot of trauma in our lives and neither of us grew up around examples of healthy relationships. I have been to A LOT of therapy to work through my issues, but of course I still have a lot of work to do probably for the rest of my life. Of course I’m older as well so I have had more time to grow/reflect/learn. This is my first relationship with a significant age gap.
My boyfriend has not been to therapy. Where he comes from, it’s not as accessible or socially acceptable to get therapy/any kind of help like that, especially for men. I totally understand this and I am empathetic because I don’t even want to think about how much worse off my life was/would be without therapy-I would probably be dead! But it has helped a lot and here I am still alive and even happy a lot of the time.
Anyway, when something is uncomfortable to discuss, bf shuts down. If he doesn’t shut down, he turns to other defense mechanisms that can be hurtful but are mostly draining and frustrating. He claims he will go to therapy but what point is therapy if he has his wall up and refuses to even try to understand where I am coming from? He is supportive of me in so many ways, but I don’t get to support him because he keeps everything inside behind his wall.
It has started to affect our sex life which I know is a very bad sign. I just can’t get into it when I feel like he knows everything good or bad about me but I can’t get him to even let me know his basic boundaries. For example if I am annoying him I have asked him a million times to let me know instead of holding it all in then having a disrespectful outburst at me over something ridiculous. He says I GET IT ILL DO THAT NEXT TIME but even those words trigger me at this point because I’ve heard it so many times before.
We will discuss solutions such as taking a walk before getting heated in an argument/discussion, but he doesn’t follow through. I’m not perfect but I continue to meet my commitments to promises I make him. If he lets me know something bothers him, I stop.
Has anyone had success helping a partner open up who has been through severe trauma? I know he loves me so much. I love him too. Whether we stay together or not, I want him to be happy and I will love him forever. I don’t know how to help him open up and I understand why he is hesitant. I also understand he needs to decide to do this for himself, not me. I feel rejected and lonely. I don’t believe he wants me to feel this way, but he isn’t doing anything to reassure me. He tries to avoid problems and avoid discussions. He accuses me of nagging, but the reality is he keeps repeating the same behavior so I eventually have to repeat myself. If he listened and/or put effort in the first time (or second, third time, etc) I wouldn’t have to keep bringing up the same stupid stuff. I don’t want to keep talking about the same lame stuff either! I think he understands intellectually how that doesn’t work/makes things worse but emotionally he doesn’t seem willing or able to take action in a productive way without turning conversations into an argument/blame game. It’s like a switch goes off and he shuts down whether I’m asking nicely or yelling at him whatever he just shuts me out no matter which way I’ve tried to approach. I am becoming indifferent to anything mean or kind he says to me, which I know is a bad sign.
I guess what I’m asking is can anyone relate? How did you deal with it? Does anyone have ideas on how I can support him and encourage him/open a line of communication? Does anyone else have a partner with trouble communicating? Has anything helped? ❤️