Question: How can we move towards a better future as a couple given the issues below? Thanks in advance.
TL;DR my partner makes me feel unloved and then invalidates those feelings. How can I approach things differently?
I absolutely love my partner, who has been described as a black cat of a person and I am the orange cat, but I find myself really sad ever since we moved in together. We dated for 2 years and moved in together a year ago. After we moved in together, it’s like everything changed on his part. Below are big points of contention.
- He used to try with my family, and was nervous to meet them. Now, My family doesn’t like him because they’ve tried to connect with him and he ignores their texts/attempts.
- In response to me bringing up the importance of my family and him getting along, he says “it goes both ways” and “why would I try to connect with people who hate me”.
- He doesn’t have a close relationship with his family, and talks to his brother maybe once a year.
- I wasn’t invited to his Brother’s wedding, but his parents brought along his new dog he got after we moved in together.
- He doesn’t treat my dog as if it’s his dog. He didn’t allow me to be part of the process of choosing and facilitating bringing a new dog into our house.
- When I was away visiting family for 3 weeks, I paid him $200 to take care of my dog. He brings his dog to work. There was one day my dog was left home alone for 11 hours, and instead of going home to take care of my dog after work, he stopped on the way to walk his dog on a trail. I stressed that he could’ve gone home to take care of my dog first and he got upset with me and sent me the $200 back.
- He picked me up from the airport the other day, after 3 weeks of me being away, and didn’t hug or kiss me. He brought me chips… but no flowers despite me expressing how important this was to me in the past.
- The house was messy when I returned after my 3-week trip, and he didn’t see an issue with me cleaning up after him. He also didn’t thank me or show appreciation for this.
- When I bring up any of these issues, he gets frustrated and mad. Instead of giving me the love and validation that I explicitly ask for and make clear would immediately calm me, down and make me happy, he chooses to shutdown and lock himself in his office.
- When I cry, he often suggests it’s manipulative rather than a true expression of my feelings.
We have talked about how different our attachment styles are. I have an anxious-avoidant style, and his is dismissive, which helped me find comfort and validation in my feelings.
I’m worried that I can’t do anything to help him, to help us get past these issues, but I’m hoping someone here has advice to enlighten me of more ways I can try.