Dear M, I encourage you to find a therapist near you. You can check my Find a CEN Therapist List on this website or ask your dr. for a referral. You deserve to feel safe in your marriage and I hope for the best for you. Please share this with a therapist and get some support and guidance.

Anyway, I feel like our marriage of 15 years is having problems because of how he handles things.
He does the silent treatment…he stonewalls and it creates an extremely tense atmosphere.
He finds excuses to not talk, but he will confide in friends and coworkers, giving a one-sided version of events (and it makes me look like the crazy one).

He implied that I’m “psycho” for trying to talk to him about issues that bother me…mainly the fact that he has a porn addiction, and that I suspect him of cheating on me with several women over the years.
He is the type of person who continues to lie and stonewall no matter what.
I’m at my wit’s end with this behavior. As a survivor of CEN and other types of abuse, all I ever wanted was to have a truly happy marriage where I could feel emotionally safe.

This is proving to be otherwise. When I asked him the other day if he had ever had an affair with his closest female friend, he went quiet.
This is what he does and I’ve learned to see how manipulative he can be. He is proud of doing this to other people, too. There is no recognition of how abnormal it is to constantly be so dismissive of others.
I was raised in a toxic way and even I can see how wrong this behavior is. I really wish you could help me, Dr. Webb…I feel lost and afraid for my future.

I have depression, no real support network in my life, no children (because he decided that he didn’t want them), and I am isolated nearly all the time.

Dear Kari, I suggest that you talk with your husband about how his lack of emotional awareness affects you. If you make it about you and what you need to be happy instead of about him and what’s not right for him (which he can’t see), he may be concerned enough about your needs and happiness to look at what’s actually wrong. for more guidance on this see my second book, Running On Empty No More: Transform Your Relationships.

Dear Anne, I can suggest that you ask him for more explanation of why he feels you are self-centered. Then listen carefully. If you cannot come together on this, then you may want to see a CEN therapist from the Find A CEN Therapist List. Also, I am creating a program for CEN couples to go through together and it will become available soon.

Hi Lisa, I recommend you consult my book Running On Empty No More. It has a lot of suggestions for how to reach an emotionally neglected person who shuts down.

Dear A,

I read your response to a post from Anne and wanted to see if you would be open to communicating with someone on the other end of that equation. I am in love with a man who I feel sure is suffering from CEN. He has two daughters and is devoted to them, which I love. And while things are calm in his world he is the most loving and tender partner. But when too much is uncertain, he shuts down completely. Would you be willing to give me any advice you might have on how to reach him and gently encourage him to open up to me even in difficult times?

Sounds like my relationships with my parents. They still don’t know me even though they raise me and I don’t know anything about them when they were kids, young adults all the way up to today.

Dear Teddy, you are on the right path! It’s good to drag your husband to a CEN therapist. It may be hard for him to understand, so another option would be for you to see a CEN therapist on your own.