A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:I have an emotionally unavailable partner. We've been together 18 years. What attracted me to him from the start was his kind and gentle nature. He was (seems ironic now) emotionally caring and my best friend. He ENJOYED spending time with ME. Over the years, running a business I have helped with and general stress has changed him. I feel like he hates the sight of me. We can't agree on anything. When I research something thoroughly and make a careful decision, he makes me feel terrible and of course disagrees with what I've chosen. Anything.. just anything I'm passionate about, he has no time for. I'm not a perfect partner. I worry too much over small things and I'm neorotic at times.. but I have given everything I have to this relationship. I get credit for nothing. I cook all our meals, as I love cooking, but the look on his face when he sees what I've served..I am proud of my cooking and I like nurturing those I care about. I just can't put a foot right these days. When I'm alone and reflecting, I think about all I've done with the best of intentions. Then sometimes I'll try to talk to him about how I'm feeling and I ask how he feels. That's when he lists out the silly decisions I've made over the years, which is basically anything I chose to do that he didn't agree with.. then he lists off the things he's had to fix or redo because of my choices. I walk away feeling like I fail at everything.He is so far from the kind hearted person I fell in love with. I have stuck around, putting this down to situational depression.. making excuses.. blaming myself.Has anyone had a relationship that turned this way? How'd you handle it?
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male
reader, Fatherly Advice  +, writes (15 November 2022):
 I suspect that you have misdiagnosed the problem. Generally an emotionally available person does not become emotionally unavailable. I think what you have is an emotional disconnect. He has disconnected from you. Stress or depression could be at the root of this. It is equally possible that an affair could be in the mix.
Yes I am in a relationship that has turned this way. Without as much abuse as you are feeling. I think.
I'm not handling it any better than you are.
Sorry no advice other than to quietly look for another woman in his life.
A
reader, anonymous, writes (14 November 2022): Is he your husband, or a long-term boyfriend?
Eighteen years is a very long time, and almost an anomaly among modern romantic-relationships. Husbands and boyfriends are not one in the same. You can't expect the same devotion and faithfulness from a boyfriend, as you should expect from someone you've exchanged vows with. Try as you may, a faux-marriage is not the same as one recognized under the law. It's a love-connection held together by an unofficial pledge and a promise, under an honor system. It is not officiated by someone given authority to marry people. An unmarried-partner is ever aware that he or she can just up and leave at any given moment. Some stay to avoid drama; or just tolerate the relationship, if it offers certain benefits that are hard to replace. Co-dependency, but not love, is what holds some relationships together. Some are help by force of habit; until they just can't stand it anymore. Intertwined finances, debt, and kids may bind people to a relationship; but that is bondage, or responsibility. Love doesn't have to have anything to do with it.
Unmanaged neurosis, uncontrolled anxiety, poorly treated mental-illness, and insecurity will make people give-up on you. Year after year of this is more than your human limitations can endure.
If he is a boyfriend, and behaving in such a cool and distant manner towards you; maybe it is time to call it quits. Holding onto a person who no longer shows you love is an act of desperation and futility. In a marriage, you have to exhaust all options in a mutual-effort to salvage and save your union. If you've devoted your life to a man who has never asked to marry you, and suddenly he shows you no love or affection, what other option is there but to leave him and find someone who will love you and appreciate you? If you stay, and nothing changes, what you put-up with is by choice. He doesn't have to change, if you can't bring yourself to come to terms that he may no longer be invested in the relationship. He'll just wait you out, until you dry-up and fall-off.
Couples-counseling is where you go when you need a mediator, moderator, and a counselor to get you over the hump and over the obstacles of rocky relationships. Then there comes a time you have to see the reality and use your common sense. You can't force people to love you, and just being together a long-time doesn't mean a relationship is salvageable. You give it all you've got, but he has to do his part. There is no magic remedy to make people care who don't. You are now in the present; no matter who he was, or what he did, in the past.
No matter what his reasons are, if he can't overcome or explain why he no longer treats you like he used to; maybe you need to reassess the relationship and do what's best for you.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie +, writes (14 November 2022):
 I think it can happen to MANY relationships over time.
You have both taken each other for granted to a point where YOU can do nothing right because you apparently can't read his mind on top of everything else.
I would consider suggesting couples counseling. You have been together for 18 years. Yet, you are not married? So if things end and you break up, DO you have any "legal" rights to the business you ALSO put your heart and soul into?
Running a business (especially with all the Covid Shenannaigans) can be stressful.
People react in different ways to stress. You (perhaps) with worrying (pretty typical for women) and him with pulling away emotionally.
You two seem to communicate past each other.
Him, bringing up things HE felt you did wrong in the past is absolutely pointless - YOU do not have a time machine and can not change the past. HE isn't trying to fix anything he is trying to make YOU out to be the "bad guy" here. "Look at all the wrong things YOU did and ALL things you "made ME change".. THAT is what he is saying. How is that helpful? However, DOES he have a point? HAVE you refused to listen to him and made bad choices that ALSO affected him? IF so OWN up to it instead of just "feeling bad". No one is perfect. We ALL make mistakes.
This is where a NEUTRAL 3rd person PERHAPs could help out with some couples counseling as you are both not effectively communicating your needs.
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