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TimBean9351
232 M Embraced 2
PathStep 2 Compassion hearts16 Forum posts14 Forum upvotes22 Current upvotes22 Age GroupAdult Last activeJanuary, 2020 Member sinceSeptember 29, 2019
Bio
I’m 51 married and have two teenage daughters. I have a demanding job but do find some time to cook and relax at home. I also enjoy canoesport for which I am an active member of a local club.
I’m on the site here because as much as I love my wife and we are good friends, she just has no concept of why a couple would spend time talking about feelings and emotions. This leaves me feeling isolated and lonely and being quite socially shy myself I don’t have other friendships that I feel are close enough to talk about all this.
I can’t change the way my wife is, but what I want to do is make the best of what I have in life and put a stop to the sadness that this loneliness brings on.
Recent forum posts
My partner loves me but shows limited affection
Relationship Stress / by TimBean9351
Last post
 March 14th, 2020
...See more I
Opposites attract, but it can be hard after 30 years!
50 & Over Community / by TimBean9351
Last post
 January 21st, 2020
...See more I'm new to the site so just starting to get a feel for the possibilities here and how to connect. I have a story here about my relationship with my wife, so did wonder whether to post in the relationships community, but I think a certain age may need to be reached to make sense of this one! So I have been together with my wife for over 30 years. Our first child has just left home for university and the second child will be there in another 3 years. I love my wife and family very much so all is good ... right? Well somehow I seem to struggle a lot and have done so all the way through in some ways. It all came to a head about 5 years ago - call it a mid-life crisis - but everything came down on top of me at once and I needed to get help. Some good therapy brought me back out of that, but I have never totally recovered from the experience and still have days with anxiety and worry. Part of my difficulty is that my wife seems to have quite opposite personality traits to me and while this makes us a great team in many ways, dealing with the challenges of family life, it is always a little difficult to get on and support each other in the ways we each need. Here are a few of these differences: - My wife is a talker - she speaks to think whereas I think to speak. She come home from work and unloads her mind of all the twists and turns of the day. Once that is all out, she falls asleep exhausted on the sofa and I am left to my own thoughts. She is frustrated with me of course because I never say much about my day, but the truth is that I don't think about my day in the same way. I wouldn't tell anyone much about what happened in my day, as to be honest, there is rarely anything that interesting, but I would want to talk about how I feel about my day. If I try to talk about my feelings, my wife is lost - treating everything as a problem to be solved or a personal fault that I should correct. - My wife is very thorough, almost a perfectionist. I am less precise - a bit more intuitive (and perhaps messy!) in my approach. - My wife is forceful in character whereas I am more timid and reserved. I don't like to impose my views on others and hesitate to speak my mind for fear of offending. - My wife is quite judgemental and driven, whereas I will go with the flow. I give people the benefit of the doubt and am sympathetic to different views whereas my wife find others frustrating if they do not seem to follow her logical view. My greatest challenge with all of the above is of course the communication between us. When I am finding things difficult internally, I tend to just write my thoughts down on paper to stop it all churning around in my head. Often I wish my wife would read what I write, but sometimes I think my thoughts would be a little to strong for her to cope with. Having said that, I did actually suggest to her just the other week that I could start writing to her. She didn't seem to think it was a bad idea, but I haven't had the courage to talk to her again about this yet. The trouble is that when I talk to her about my feelings she is quick to judge or take offence. If somehow my feelings of sadness relate to her, then what I say is taken as an attack and she will fight back with all guns blazing. One wrong word from me and I can be begging forgiveness from her for days afterwards. Because of this, 'real', to-way conversations between us are quite rare. She speaks a lot and I listen a lot, but my own thoughts and feelings are left locked inside leaving me isolated and lonely. I wonder if I write to her when I have things on my mind she may find it easier to read and then talk about things later. I wonder if anyone else out there experiences similar problems with their partner? I'm sure a few will have had to end relationships for these kind of problems of communication and maybe some others have learned ways to cope better. I would be interested to hear of other experiences of this kind good or bad. For my part I do hope to work through these problems and reconnect properly with my wife. With our children nearly reaching adulthood we have the opportunity of more time together without the stresses of parenthood and I don't want to be one of those parents that has to break the news of their separation/divorce to their children as soon as they have flown the nest.
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