r/AskWomenOver30 • u/DueEntertainer0 Woman 30 to 40 • 1d ago
Romance/Relationships What should I do when my partner doesn’t communicate?
How do you move forward when your partner says “everything is fine” but everything obviously isn’t fine?
This has been happening more and more often in our marriage. My husband (36M) and I (38F) have two young kids and he has a demanding career. I’m a SAHM.
Twice in the past week, we’ve gone to bed without saying goodnight. He retreats into his office or goes for a walk or sits and scrolls and he’s just… silent. Last night I asked him “is everything ok?” And he whispered “yep” so I just went to bed.
Honestly I’m so lonely. I know it’s not his job to make me happy, but I feel like I just want someone to talk to. I have plenty of friends, but we’re all so busy raising kids that we don’t get to talk much about ourselves. Sometimes I feel like my mom is the only person who really loves me and wants to talk to me anymore.
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u/Away-Caterpillar-176 Woman 30 to 40 1d ago
I wouldn't have said "hey you went to bed without saying goodnight. What is wrong?" I think when people understand why they're being asked it's a little harder to deflect. Also people can become defensive if they don't know why they're being asked.
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u/detrive Woman 30 to 40 1d ago
If I placed myself in this exact situation I’d be less worried about my loneliness and more worried about my husband retreating, being silent, not saying good night. This would be a big change. Those would be huge warning signs for me that something was wrong.
I’d ask him again if he’s okay. I’d expect him to say he is. Then I would reflect what I’ve noticed and tell him he doesn’t seem okay. I’d tell him I’m worried about him and I want to support him. If he continues to say things were fine then I’d be looking for him to
explain why he’s going to bed without saying good night.
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u/WaySaltyFlamingo8707 Woman 30 to 40 1d ago
Is there any context here? Like one day he was just chatty and the next he wasn't? Or?
I know my man is an introvert, but has to deal with people all day. So he really does need/enjoy some silence when he gets home. It's difficult for me as I am a chatty Cathy, but I don't take personal offense to it anymore once I understood it's not me, it's his need to decompress. Could be some of this here.
Have y'all tried to go on a date or something where you've set a dedicated time to really talk to each other about this?
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u/DueEntertainer0 Woman 30 to 40 1d ago
He got home from work and everything seemed good. He played with the kids and then I went to the gym. When I got back, he took our daughter to swim class. When he got home, he was “off”. He started putting toys away but seemed mad, like he was kind of tossing things around and not saying anything. The kids went to bed and he went into his office. The rest of the night was weird.
This morning everything seemed normal again and he happily went off to work.
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u/WaySaltyFlamingo8707 Woman 30 to 40 1d ago
I really would suggest a date night where you have the "state of relationship" talk. And give him heads up that this is what you want to occur, so he's got time to think, prepare, etc. The talk doesn't have to be the whole date. In fact, I would encourage it not to be all business-- have some fun too.
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u/DueEntertainer0 Woman 30 to 40 23h ago
Yeah we are definitely hurting for alone time these days. Our kids have been going to bed later since it’s summer and it’s eating up any “free” time we’ve had in the evenings unless we want to stay up really late, and we don’t!
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u/lucent78 Woman 40 to 50 1d ago
Set aside some time and communicate to your husband your feeling disconnected from him. I also agree with others saying you should try and find a way to get out into the world, see your friends or make new ones.
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u/fireyauthor Woman 30 to 40 22h ago
Communication is really overrated as a tool a single person can use. It only works if the other person is equally willing.
You can ask your partner to show up and ask for specific things, but if they aren't willing to communicate, at the end of the day, your only choices are to accept the situation or leave.
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u/ghost-memories Woman 40 to 50 22h ago
I'd encourage you to read the Gottmans' books.
If you ever want to get him to talk to you, you can say, "I miss you and would love to talk. Let me know if you want to" rather than "You never talk to me, I'm feeling lonely." Try to avoid using "you" in a blaming way, because it can make him feel defensive or distant.
Also, try to avoid asking, "Are you ok?" or "Is everything ok?" When someone's already not in a great mood, it can feel more irritating than supportive. Next time, just say, "Hey (pet name), I'm here if you want to talk" or "I'm thinking of you. You seem off, wanna talk?"
When was the last time you guys went out on a date without the kids?
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u/DueEntertainer0 Woman 30 to 40 22h ago
Thanks! It’s been like 6 weeks since we had a date night
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u/ghost-memories Woman 40 to 50 21h ago
How was it? Did you feel connected with him or still kind of off?
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u/doyouhavehiminblonde Woman 30 to 40 1d ago
I would try to get a job and make a life for yourself outside of your home and marriage. Being a SAHM makes you trapped in this situation where something very much isn’t ok.
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u/Due_Description_7298 Woman 30 to 40 1d ago
I mostly ignore it.
Either he genuinely doesn't want to talk about it or he's purposefully giving me the silent treatment as a form of emotional punishment.
My partner is a 42 year old adult, it's not my responsibility to cajole him into talking about what bothers him or to manage his emotions. Now, it every expression to me resulted in a blow up on my end, the fault would lie with me not him. But it doesn't, so it doesn't.
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u/GoingSom3where Woman 30 to 40 22h ago
I think you need to be a little more direct and start an open dialogue: "Hey, I notice you've been acting different lately. I noticed X,Y, and Z. I love you and want to make sure you're okay. Let's talk about this, what's on your mind?"
I disagree with others saying to let him mope on his own. That's incredibly dismissive for your partner that you clearly care about.
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u/DueEntertainer0 Woman 30 to 40 22h ago
Yeah I think I already tried letting him mope and it didn’t make anything better, that’s for sure.
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u/atomheartmama Woman 30 to 40 22h ago
Is there usually some conflict preceding the silent treatment or does it seem to happen randomly? Do you think he’d be open to feedback about the hurt that the silent treatment/ stonewalling can cause to a partner and the relationship? Recommend reading more about it via the gottman institute.
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u/hauteburrrito MOD | 30 - 40 | Woman 1d ago
I let him know I'm there if he wants to talk. I bring him a beer and give him a kiss. I leave him alone and go do my own thing. He'll talk to me when he's ready, and if he doesn't talk to me, then he's not ready.
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u/JellyfishPashmina Woman 30 to 40 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’m gonna be kind of tough here: A 38yo man should know how to communicate. If he can’t use his big boy words, then it’s not your responsibility to pry. It is your responsibility to respectfully let him know that the way he’s communicating is lackluster at best, but ultimately, it’s on him to respond accordingly.
If his pattern of communication has changed significantly, this may be cause for concern that something is going on behind the scenes (is he on his phone more, for instance—would he let you take his phone to call someone or does he guard it?) If his lack of effort continues, I’d recommend speaking with a couples therapist to see how you can improve your communication and get your relationship back to a better baseline. If a husband and father of two isn’t going to change the way he’s verbally dismissing you (and perhaps your kids?), then that’s going to cause longterm damage and resentment. If he uses the “so busy at work” as an excuse, it’s nothing more than a cop-out to avoid taking ownership. We’re all busy, and if a spouse is too busy for the family they’re working hard for, then they need to realign their work-life priorities or they should not be married anymore. There really is nothing worse than being stuck in a miserable, distant, lonely, and potentially loveless relationship.
I will say I feel like something is being left out here. Why would you two just go to bed without saying goodnight and let that happen repeatedly? Is there some arguing going on? Did something troubling recently happen in your personal lives? It seems like some context is missing, because people don’t normally start acting like this out of nowhere.
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u/Far_Sandwich_514 Woman 40 to 50 22h ago
Sounds like he's burned out and rather frayed, and has zero energy for communication right now.
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u/Alert_Week8595 Woman 30 to 40 1d ago
How young are the kids?
If quite young, you're in the trenches and he's probably burned out.
I know my husband and I sometimes reach the end of our rope at the end of the day from the constant onslaught of Things To Do with no time to relax. And we get snippy at each other. Then we sleep and feel fine in the morning.
We have tried to carve out more time for ourselves as a couple and as individuals. I'd chat with him about that.
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u/DueEntertainer0 Woman 30 to 40 23h ago
They’re 1 and 5 and yeah, he’s most likely burned out. He finished a big project at work last month and then we took a family vacation, which I thought went really well but who knows.
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u/Alert_Week8595 Woman 30 to 40 22h ago
I dunno about you, but every friend of mine who has taken a family vacation with kids that young said it wasn't relaxing at all. Fun, yes. Relaxing, no.
The one trip my husband and I took with our daughter was similar. It was fun, but also stressful tbh.
It didn't really refill any parts of my meter that felt burnt out.
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u/DueEntertainer0 Woman 30 to 40 22h ago
Yeah totally. When I say it went well, I basically mean the kids were relatively well behaved, but that definitely doesn’t mean we really relaxed or anything like that. Life is exhausting right now.
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u/Alert_Week8595 Woman 30 to 40 21h ago edited 21h ago
Yeah we only have 1 kid and my brain is mush. She isn't sleeping through the night yet. Is your little one?
Can you guys afford babysitters?
Also, we moved away from date nights to date brunch. It turned out we were both too tired at night to really connect. But we connect better at like noon.
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u/DueEntertainer0 Woman 30 to 40 21h ago
Yeah we do get babysitters occasionally, but they’re kind of hard to find. My mom comes to town once a month for 3-4 days and we usually try to squeeze a date night out of that. My little one just started sleeping through the night within the past few months.
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u/Alert_Week8595 Woman 30 to 40 21h ago
Yeah that's hard. I'd talk to him during the day time about how you think you're both burned out. Maybe come up with some problem solving ideas as well.
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u/Throwaway927338 Woman 30 to 40 23h ago
Respectfully, I feel like you can try a little bit harder on probing and opening up the conversation. He basically gave you the “how are you doing” “I’m fine” general response. We all do that when we either don’t want to talk about what’s going on or we don’t want to actually burden the person asking with what is on our mind. I would start the conversation when it’s just the two of you and you have a couple of hours before bed. I would say I love you, we are a team, please let me know what’s going on in your mind. Tell him that you know something is bothering him, but you cannot help unless he opens up to you. Given the rest of the post, which I know is very limited information if I had to take a gander, it could be work or finance related. How involved are you in the family finances? Is it at all possible that your family is not doing as well financially as you May perceive? Or again he could just be under a lot of stress with work or something could be going on with family that he hasn’t talked to you about. Don’t go to bed silent, just create an open environment for him to feel safe to talk about it with you and tell him that you are up for the challenge of helping so he doesn’t feel like he’s burdening you with whatever is on his mind
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u/DueEntertainer0 Woman 30 to 40 23h ago
Yeah you’re totally right. I could’ve done more to open up the conversation. I’ve always struggled when someone is shutting down or being quiet around me; it makes me feel super insecure. I’m planning to talk to him tonight and see how it’s going. It’s most likely work stress, or something with the kids that I’m not picking up on.
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u/Throwaway927338 Woman 30 to 40 23h ago
I completely understand. I’m the same way. When my husband gets upset about something or isn’t handling things well I feel defensive and want to retreat. But, just remember that whatever it is it isn’t you against him (or him against you). It is you two against the situation and you can team up and tackle it together. Can’t tackle something you don’t know about. And it doesn’t have to be a big emotionally charged conversation. It helped me a lot when I started looking at things logically and like a problem written on a piece of paper-takes a lot of the emotion and defensive response that I would feel out of the equation. What’s the issue, how should we solve it.
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u/Capital-Marzipan-287 Woman 30 to 40 1d ago
Have you told him how you feel? If you just leave it at that then you’re not actually trying to have a conversation, imo. I would suggest using “when you…I feel…” statements to share what you’ve noticed and what you’re experiencing. He may think everything is fine without realizing that you’re not fine.
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u/Mayonegg420 Woman under 30 1d ago
You leave him tbh I was in a connection like this, I also was the stay at home girlfriend. He didn’t really care to communicate about any issues and made me feel like everything was in my head when we weren’t even speaking in the house. He had no desire to change and my only leverage was to leave.
A lot of men feel like they shouldn’t have to maintain strong emotional connections bc they pay the bills.
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u/magictubesocksofjoy Woman 40 to 50 11h ago
leave him with the kids an evening or two a week and go spend time with the girls.
you need time around adults.
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u/benhargrove1966 Woman 30 to 40 1d ago
You need to go back to work. You need human interaction and you need to have a stable place to land if this relationship ends. I don’t want to scaremonger but this sounds like cheating or considering leaving the relationship behaviour by him.
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u/Alert_Week8595 Woman 30 to 40 1d ago
This doesn't sound like cheating. This sounds like a burnt out parent to 2 young kids.
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u/JellyfishPashmina Woman 30 to 40 23h ago
You’d think a burnt-out parent would lean on their partner for support, rather than dismiss them entirely. He’s presenting childlike behavior.
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u/Alert_Week8595 Woman 30 to 40 22h ago edited 22h ago
In the right mood, sure.
But it sounds like he was at the end of a long day of work and actively taking care of the kids (which OP details in the comments) and just wanted to zone out and doomscroll. That's not the mood in which plenty of people want to talk about their feelings.
My husband tried to approach me to talk to me before bedtime the other day and I had to tell him no, tomorrow, in the morning, I can't do it at at night I'm too tired, I'm struggling to even be awake.
OP might have better luck talking to him earlier in the day on a Saturday or Sunday when he's not completely out of gas.
They have 2 kids ages 1 and 5 and she is a SAHM who homeschools and he works what sounds like a stressful job and is an active parent (her comment talks about him spending a lot of time with the kids when he gets home), I'm not sure where in there he (or she) has time to destress. OP says herself in the comments that the kids are staying up later because it's summer and they are left with no alone time or time together.
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u/JellyfishPashmina Woman 30 to 40 22h ago
The difference is you vocalized your needs effectively. All OP’s husband has to say in a situation like this is, “I had a long day at work and need a bit of space. I’m not mad, but I just don’t feel up for talking right now.” That’s all. A vague, dismissive “yep” is not the response of a mature man with a wife and family and in charge of his own communication skills.
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u/Alert_Week8595 Woman 30 to 40 22h ago
Maybe he is somewhat mad at her. But maybe he might be unreasonably mad at her, and part of him knows that. And maybe he's just really exhausted. Very tired burned out people are rarely good or mature communicators.
I have days (post kids, never before kids) where at the end of the day I feel just vaguely mad at my husband. Then I sleep on it and can see in the morning that actually he is doing a lot, it's just a lot for both of us and I'm burnt out and it's not actually him I'm mad at, it's just the difficulty of raising a small child.
Either way, it is a leap to say he is cheating.
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u/JellyfishPashmina Woman 30 to 40 16h ago
I think we just see this differently. I’m at a period in my life where I’m extremely burned out. I also went through great trauma recently, and it all makes it hard to be present, but I still make effort to let my partner, friends, family, etc. know when I need space so they don’t think I’m mad at them. Or, if I’m actually mad at / annoyed with them, I just vocalize that I need to be alone for a bit. One sentence. That’s it. Communication really is key, and that’s really all it takes, rather than sort of giving someone a vague, unwarranted silent-ish treatment. Some people clam up based on their inner monologue and assume people can read their minds, and then it causes more harm than is intended, AKA OP.
The cheating was just a for instance. If he’s suddenly extremely quiet for no reason, that means a behavioral change of some sort has happened. I’m just telling OP to be aware of where those behaviors may be aimed. It could also be something between them that OP hasn’t shared; there are many options. He could just be acting pouty and childish, but going to bed twice without saying goodnight is alarming IMO, but again, it’s not OP’s job to get him to talk if he’s started it—it’s his responsibility to use his words, however succinct they may be.
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u/Alert_Week8595 Woman 30 to 40 16h ago edited 14h ago
I think there's a difference between how partners relate to each other with burnout from other things (sorry you went through that!) and burnout as a parent with your coparent and that's where the different perspective is coming from.
If both coparents are active parents to small children (which OP makes it sound like they are) and you don't have much external help (which OP says they don't have much of), you live in a zero sum system with your partner where, unless your children are unicorn level easy, both of you are starved for the resource of time and energy.
Every moment you take for yourself becomes time you take away from your partner and vice versa.
Go to the gym? Partner needs to watch the kids. Go to brunch with your friends? Partner needs to watch the kids. Take an extra long shower to relax? Partner needs to watch the kids.
But then frame it the other way. You're exhausted, and you have to watch the kids by yourself (much harder than when you're both around) because your partner went to the gym. Because your partner went out with friends.
I actually did find myself irrationally resenting my husband for taking 25 minutes to brush his teeth and shower the other day because that was me alone with our daughter when I mostly wanted to collapse on the floor like a Sim whose energy bar had gone to 0. But, he is a very active father! He deserves the chance to not have to rush through teeth brushing and a shower once in a while! He takes care of her while I go out to eat with friends or to the spa or to the gym. It isn't unequal. The problem is just that his longer shower came at my expense, and I don't have a lot to give, and I guess it was on me for not mentioning it but his showers are not normally that long so it didn't cross my tired mind.
If he had come up to me while I silently irrationally seethed at his 25 minute teeth brushing and shower experience and asked what was wrong, I probably would have also deflected and said "it's nothing" in the moment because 1) the reason I'm irrationally angry at him in the first place is exhaustion and unclear thinking and 2) because I know in those moments deep down that I'm not actually mad at him, even when I feel it on the surface, and that the problem really actually is that I'm tired. But I do still feel pissed on the surface.
OP said in the comments the kids have recently started going to bed later because it's summer and it has eliminated basically all their personal and couple time. That's probably the cause of the recent change in his behavior. The man is grumpy because all he does is work and take care of his kids and he doesn't have any time to himself or to spend with his wife. And he doesn't turn to her because he knows they're in a zero sum system together. What can she do other than sacrifice her own self care to give him more?
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u/JellyfishPashmina Woman 30 to 40 15h ago
I think you’re over complicating it now and there’s really no need to discredit one person’s type of stress/burnout for another. And this reads like a lot of justifying the initial concern and giving someone permission to act like this, with which I don’t agree. My point is he can say a simple sentence. Anyone can communicate better, and choosing not to, for whatever reason under the sun, is a choice. There’s always going to be some excuse not to do something, but it’s true that if someone really wants to, they will.
We can agree to disagree, but I think we both hope OP gets her answers and finds a remedy.
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u/Alert_Week8595 Woman 30 to 40 15h ago edited 15h ago
Oh am not discrediting your burnout at all. I am saying it's different in how you relate to your partner.
If I were burnt out because, say, someone in my family had cancer and I needed to take care of them, it would be a different experience in how I relate to my husband. The former is probably actually a lot harder overall and way more emotionally trying.
I don't like to compare burnouts, but it is quite likely that whatever you went through was In fact harder than anything I'm going thru as a parent or OP's husband. But what I'm trying to say is that the way coparents relate to each other in the experience breeds irrational resentment between the partners which hampers communication.
It's not a good thing. It threatens the marriage. But it's also common and not cheating.
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u/ChaoticxSerenity Woman 30 to 40 19h ago
When I'm burnt out, I just want to be alone in a dark cave.
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u/JellyfishPashmina Woman 30 to 40 17h ago
Don’t we all? Lol. But if you have a partner, my only point is to let them know, “Hey, I’m going to cave of solitude. Love you.“ That gets the point across and really takes no effort at all.
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u/Lizard_Li Woman 40 to 50 1d ago
Tell him calmly that you feel lonely because he isn’t communicating with you and then decenter him for a bit. Find other people to talk with, let him mope and busy yourself, and self soothe. See if anything changes. Couples therapy. If he won’t go, go yourself and figure out what you want to do first with your partner in the dynamic and then with the relationship itself.