compared to a basketball game
I was trying to share some feelings with DH tonight. Usually I'm quickly reduced to tears, but I wanted to really share thoughts.... I told him it was hard sometimes to see him being so ok-- not that I want him to be struggling, but...
He told me he just doesn't think about it during the day, like he doesn't think about what basketball game is on when he's at work...............just one of those hopeless moments between parents in this situation. He just put his foot in it in the moment, but it's really true that he doesn't care like I do. Guess I was still hoping my guy was different from all the others.
He told me he just doesn't think about it during the day, like he doesn't think about what basketball game is on when he's at work...............just one of those hopeless moments between parents in this situation. He just put his foot in it in the moment, but it's really true that he doesn't care like I do. Guess I was still hoping my guy was different from all the others.
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I\'m so sorry. I can tell you my DH was always very strong. He never wanted me to know how hard it was on him. Sometimes I wish we could have share the pain together but I also know it was his way to not add to how horrible I was already feeling. I\'m sure it\'s the same with yours.
hugs
Thanks RoxyD. I do know he cares and losing our girl hurts him very deeply. He\'s just one of those solution driven guys. He wants so bad to fix it, to have a plan...but he\'s great with the listening. Maybe it\'s a lesson for me - I thought I wanted to hear from him that he shared my feelings. I thought he must need to express his feelings too. But maybe I just need to accept his quiet listening and hugs.
Men and women speak differently. Men feel that when you come to them with a problem or your feelings you want them to fix it. His answer \"i dont think about it\" is most likely him trying to provide a solution for you, \"dont think about\".
Men are direct, women are discrete. You were approaching him like you would a girlfriend. You expressed yourself and with another woman it would have prompted her to respond with her feelings. However men are oblivious to those kind of conversations.
I have found that the best way to speak to my husband is to be direct \"how does this make you feel\" that normally prompts more answers.
By no way do I think he was comparing you or the situation to a basketball game. I think he was just providing some information on how he has been able to handle it. Which may work for him but does not work for you.
Go back and speak with him. Ask him direct questions and avoid \"why\" questions. Why automatically puts people into defensive mode and that will get you no where. Try frame the questions with \"how\" or \"what\".
Good luck!
I\'m sorry that you didn\'t get the answer you wanted from DH, men in general can be so oblivious to what we are going through. I felt the same way about my DH for a while because I would cry and have mood swings, worrying, and he would just seem to be fine and living life. It frustrated me so much but one day he broke down and at that moment, I wished that he wouldn\'t have. It made me feel worse and not as good as I thought it would be to hear him talk about how he feels about this whole process. I honestly think that men process things differently, we are emotional beings and they are purely logic so it can get so frustrating in this IF journey. Just try and sit down and talk to him about it and let him know how your feeling, hopefully he will understand that he should be more supportive and show something. I swear it\'s so much easier to talk to my mom or girlfriends sometimes!
Everything has been about me for the last month. I really wanted to show him that we/he could talk about it without me falling apart. I thought he needs to know he can get some support too. Maybe I\'ll just tell him that- though he\'ll probably just be a tough guy like he doesn\'t need anything...
I can\'t believe he meant the basketball thing the way it sounded. In the moment, I was just shocked, maybe enraged -\"are you really telling me you can dismiss our daughter\'s death like a basketball game?!\"
It\'s definitely easier talking to women, but I want to come through this with DH.
I\'ve struggled with this, too, I\'m afraid. I will say, though, that in my case it hit DH in waves, he went a long time being okay, but then it would come in waves where he wouldn\'t know why he was sad for two or three days. Even then, he couldn\'t talk about it the way that I could and didn\'t want to as much as I tried to ask questions and DH has not felt the same intensity of emotion that I did. I think the struggle for us women is that we envision going through this journey as best friends, as this is the only person who was there with us as a fellow parent. It\'s a bit of a shock to find out they didn\'t feel as intensely as we did, but then, in my case I had to realize that they didn\'t carry them and have to think and wonder about their wellbeing all the time, like we did. And from what I\'ve heard from parent friends, until a man can see their baby at birth, many of them struggle to connect. The best thing I can say that helped was talking to other women and learning to detach a little from my desire to have DH do more than listen and provide hugs. :(