My husband had a mother or father who was disconnected and wanted to be divorced but didn’t want my husband to have a “broken” divorced family. Everything was tolerated but no attempts to improve our change in marriage were made. Neither brought up the desire for improvement or more, both were resigned to a poor relationship, but to love their son. My husband’s mom had a stronger truthful and emotional relationship connection with her son.

My husband is avoidant, not mean. He doesn’t share problems. We both seem to have trouble reading each other and we don’t say the right thing to each other. My husband is clueless about not being a team and thinks we are a team when he makes all of the decisions.

For example for our 40th anniversary, he didn’t discuss what we might do. I mentioned it but he never responded. No response is something I am used to and it means to not talk. He, on his own, looked up and researched places and gave me a report on what he was looking into. He didn’t want my input. He wanted to decide, find, plan, and make it the way we would celebrate our 40 anniversary.

This is frequent. If I am quiet, don’t ask, just wait, and take whatever happens then we have no issues. If I ask questions or try to have input he closes down and keeps everything close at hand. He says he doesn’t like confrontation and to him being asked a question is confrontational. It is fine for me to share something that happened or for him to share something he heard, but I should not ask questions or expect to be sharing in decision-making. When he is ready he decides and we do.

I am very frequently alone. If I decide to do something, it will have to be done all by me and I will be given no help. If he decides to do something, he determines whether we will do it together or he will do it by himself.

In 40 years we have never determined or identified anything that he needs to develop and work on, but we find many things that I am guilty of doing wrong, causing marriage/family relationship problems, and areas I should work on and receive counseling for.

I dreamed of sharing life with a person, and meeting the deepest needs of that person, loving and enjoying each other and supporting one another. I thought it would be great if we were both practicing selfless giving knowing the other person cherished the other and wanted to grow in ways to show their life and make the other happy. But my husband does not want to be part of this, he doesn’t want to learn anything about me or to try anything new. He would like me to watch football with him and other sports and to be very involved with different sports and all of the games. This is his strongest behavior and activity in life and he spends most of his free time doing it.

Scene 1: Jeremy: Hey Honey, “Ok, are you ready. Are you sure you really want to go to this thing?” As Jeremy starts to drive and talks about how busy the day was.
Scene 2: Marcy: What took so long? I’ve been here for 45 min? Jeremy: What? I was WORKING! It only takes 10 minutes to get there.
Scene 3: Jeremy: Ok, look you are obviously in a bad mood. I was working. If you had to wait, you had to wait. I’m sorry. I am tired and hungry and in no mood for this. I’ll call an Uber when we get there and go home. Have fun.

Scene over

Dear Leigh, yes, it is real and something for all couples to strive for.

Hi Pat, thanks for your thoughts. I did change paragraph 1 to make it more clear that Jeremy had been made aware beforehand of Marcy’s fears about attending the reunion and why. It was indicated before, but I made it more clearcut. You are absolutely correct that communication is key to expecting emotional attunement from someone. No one can expect to have their mind read!

Firstly, Jeremy is running late presumably due to circumstances beyond his control and thus will already be feeling guilty about Marcy having to wait. Thus they are BOTH feeling pressure and anxiety, not just Marcy.

Secondly, there is nothing wrong with Marcy calmly reiterating her thoughts and anxieties about the function (health assertiveness). The onus of communication lies on both parties involved. Marcy, knowing that she has a loving and caring partner, can initiate this (healthy assertiveness) rather than taking one of the 4 passive-aggressive approaches that is suggested.

The problem with all 4 of Marcy’s reactions (including the 4th option) is that all of the onus of communication is being placed on Jeremy. Marcy is setting Jeremy up for failure if her only form of communication is to hope he reads her correctly. Jeremy is not in an enviable position here.

What’s wrong with Marcy asking how Jeremy is feeling about the reunion and asking if HE has any concerns or anxieties. I bet he does too! That’s also a great way to open a discussion and likely, he will reciprocate the concern. It’s also a good way to disarm his current guilt about being late. Think about it, how many people get uptight when they’re late? Possibly everyone. So diffusing the situation is an EXCELLENT way to start.

Both people in the relationship have power, not just one. If you’re feeling anxiety, try asking how the OTHER person is doing instead of blaming them for not asking you how you’re doing. Accept responsibility in a relationship instead of finding a reason to blame your partner.

If both people subscribe to this philosophy then their ensuring the happiness of their partner and not only will both be happy, but the atmosphere of mutual respect will inherently make each other engage in a positive, respectful environment. Simple.

So back to the article’s theme of ‘neglect vs. abuse’, you could re-read the set up paragraph and find that Marcy is in fact neglecting Jeremy’s emotions. This too would be a trap however. Just more laying blame and finding fault in the other person. Look within to empower yourself Marcy. There’s a reason you’re with Jeremy in the first place, so trust in his good qualities and help him by bringing out those good qualities instead of setting him up for failure by forcing him to read you and expecting he’ll be perfect at this everytime.

I think your work is very, very important.

5 things is a lot to remember and, at this level of detail I would add a sixth, ‘plan for positive outcome’.

Would it help to re-work guidelines, and adhere to 5 plus or minus 2 things??:

1 create safety now,
2 process this moment,
3 integrate what you learn into a plan.

That makes 3 things to remember under pressure. Certainly, I get flustered and need simple guides. On reflection….there are too many words in my suggestion.

Emotional neglect is subtle yet tough, which is why your work deserves attention.