Communication issues

Lifestyle Relationships
1

Hey would appreciate any input into this. Been married for 8 months now. We knew each for 6 months before the wedding.

Before the wedding my fiance would call me for few minutes at lunch and then again during tea break in the afternoon, then on his way home from work.

Nowadays I often dont hear from him all day until he calls me after work at 7 to collect me from station. If he is meeting friends after work, he will just txt to say he will be home late and wont bother asking me how I am or how my day was. In the beginning he didnt even ask if I made it home ok from office.

I told him nicely and with anger a number of times my concerns and these are some of the responses I got.

I will see you in evening anyway so no point checking in during day.
I am too busy in office.
I dont need to ask your permission before seeing friends etc.
You are making a big deal about this etc
I am against txting etc if I am with friends

Sometimes I have gone to work sick etc and he wouldnt bother checking in with me all day to see how I am getting on.

His communication is so poor, never shares his feelings (claims he doesnt have any) doesnt ask me anything related to my life or interests, we only chat about mundane topics such as current affairs, work etc.

Apart from that everything is fine MA but even thought I have an excellent network of family and friends I just dont feel we can connect on a daily basis until he improves his comm skills.

My questions are 1. do you think I am over reacting? 2. How often do you think is reasonable to communicate IF you live with your partner. 3. What type of communication makes you feel connected with your partner? and 4. how can I get my husband to understand my concerns.

I feel so hurt by his responses and attitude. The worse thing is if he knows I am upset about something he will continue his normal social life without any effect whilst I suffer alone.

2

Re: Communication issues

Communication, as you may know already, can make or break a relationship. I cannot even begin to express the importance of open communication between couples. I do not feel you are over-reacting at all. Your feelings about his lack of interest and concern are VERY justified. For God’s sake, this is your life partner, not your room-mate. :smack: (and in his case, it seems he might show more concern for a room-mate) I see that he put in some effort to show concern when you guys were getting to know each other in the first 6 months, but the curtains have dropped post marriage and now you’re with someone that seems to care more about his social life than his wife. This is as wrong as it gets in my book and I would be very hurt also.
I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but i see more of a marriage arrangement between the two of you and not LOVE. When one loves another, the care and concern comes naturally/organically. You shouldn’t have to ask for it.

I’ve been married about the same time period as you, but i didn’t take the arranged route. I married my soul-mate and the love of my life (and believe me - it was no walk in the park with my family). Being a gemini, I value communication VERY highly and it was important for me to find someone that matches my personality in that respect.

Hubby and I talk very frequently…when i am at work, we exchange a lot of texts throughout the day…for example, asking how our morning/afternoon is going, sharing events from work, making plans for what we’ll be doing in the evening, telling each other how much we love one another or even sharing some spicy texts for that matter. :jano:

Granted that some days we don’t have as much to share. So, the frequency may not be as high, but we will still exchange a few messages just to let the other know that we’re thinking about em. When my day is finally over, I can’t wait to rush home to hubby and start chilling with him. I love that man!! We do have our differences, but we argue VERY little and i would attribute that to our open communication.

This isn’t something that can be brushed under the rug as it will not just go away on it’s own. Find the right time and moment to have a true heart-to-heart with your husband, where both of you can put ALL your cards on the table. Be very clear about your feelings. Have him understand that the two of you need to start becoming more involved in each other’s lives and it starts with the desire to include your partner and to share everything with em. Your husband perhaps needs to grow up and realize that he’s married now. Life changes after that you know?

He needs to begin including you in his social circle and if he can’t do that (in case he’s conservative), then his circle needs to change and both of you should associate with other married couples. And ummmm, show some love to your wife dude!! Geez, no woman should ever be feeling that she isn’t loved or cared for. He NEEDS to start showing you he cares and that doesn’t take A LOT. A simple text during the day can do that.

Changes need to start happening, girl. It’s your life. Unless you make the effort and bring hubby on board to change things, you may be living with this emptiness forever.

Best of luck to you. :biggthumb: Keep us posted.

3

Re: Communication issues

Simplywicked

Thank you for your amazing reply. Yes I agree with you about everything. We actually had a love marriage and with full family support and MA everything else is perfect but as you agreed a lack of communication can lead to real issues in a marriage.

I just feel so down right now and dont see how things will change but guess I just have to leave in the hands of Allah now. I think any more discussions about this topic now will just become a source of resentment and nagging. And I dont want forced communication. Thats even worse - but yes I feel so hurt as I think it should have come naturally. Especially first year you have so much to say right! Like you communication has been top of my list but I guess I am learning that you cant always have what u want in life. I am running out of ideas now…:frowning:

4

Re: Communication issues

The poor guy must have been living like this all his life so it will take time and effort on your part to get him more open and expressive with you. It seems both of you are busy in your routine lives, for him getting married didn’t bring anything new. One potential solution is to spend some time together away from routine. Here are some tips

1 - Plan some holiday or weekend together, where both of you just relax.
2 - Find out about his favorite activity and starting mastering it, then become his partner in that activity.
3 - Once a week (or month) have dinner somewhere out OR on weekends visit some park for picnic OR some days after dinner go out together for a walk. Through in a movie once-in-a-while, either at home or in cinema.

There is a fine line between helping your husband and getting on his nerves, have some patience and give it sometime.

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Re: Communication issues

Trust me we socialise a lot and try to do things together at weekends and plenty of traveling. However, he seems to operate on a out of sight out of mind policy in terms of communication whereas I am in believer that distance is how you create it.

But appreciate your suggestions :slight_smile:

6

Re: Communication issues

You wrote you had a love marriage. Did he share his feelings with you BEFORE the wedding? I say this b/c generally, men aren’t different in this aspect. If he’s not the type to talk about feelings right now…then I’m guessing he was like that before marriage too. Meaning you knew the type of guy you were marrying.

I had a love marriage but we dated for several years before the wedding. My husband is like yours…not the emotional/talk about feelings type. I knew who I was marrying. It’s not my ideal scenario but obviously, other things about him made me realize that this was a compromise I was willing to make. While we were dating and now that we’ve been married for several years, I have no doubt in my mind (based on his ACTIONS) that he loves me and deeply cares about me…even though he’s not saying it daily. His actions speak louder than any words when it comes to how he feels about me and our marriage.

As for contact during the day while at work…we communicated more while dating b/c obviously, we did not see each other every day/night. But since living together, these days he will call or text ONLY IF there is something specific we need to discuss. For example, if he’s going to cover a co-worker’s shift, work late b/c of an emergency, he’s planning a vacation and needs to run something by me etc. And same with me…I don’t usually contact him unless it’s something I actually need to tell or ask him right then. Now I will add that there are times when he texts me simply to say “good morning” or if I have not heard from him all day, I will send a text asking how his day is going. But there are plenty of days when we go entire day without communicating. Note that my husband is a physician so when he’s in surgery or dealing with a patient in pre-op or post-op, he obviously does not talk on his cell or answer personal texts. So I don’t really worry if he doesn’t text me all day or does not answer my text/call for hours b/c I know he could be busy with a patient. I see him at night (unless he’s on call) so I honestly am not bothered by this. If we don’t communicate at all during the day, we just catch up/talk in the evening.

I wanted to add that when my husband is with his friends, he does not text me to “check in”. If he’s going straight from work, then he’ll send me a text letting me know who he’s going to hang out with…and depending on the time I may ask if he’ll come home for dinner or eat out…but otherwise, he doesn’t text me while hanging out with friends UNLESS there’s something he needs to tell me or show me (through pics) right then. I also do not text him while hanging out with my friends.

You need to take control of the situation if this is bothering you. Do YOU text him during the day? Do YOU bring up topics related to your life/interests if there is something you want to share? Unfortunately his personality is not going to change. If you want to talk about a specific topic, bring it up. If it helps any, I will say that my husband has gotten better about this over the years. He’s no where near where I’d want him to be…but compared to when we were dating, he has gotten better about asking me how my day or how I’m doing.

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Re: Communication issues

It’s understandable that you may want to wait it out a bit before bringing it up again, but don’t let too much time pass where things become life-long habits. Feel it out and make the move! :bib:

My thing is, if he loves you, he can work on showing you more affection. Doesn’t take much, and there will be baby steps to take, but your route to better communication has to start somewhere. Communicate communicate communicate! Perhaps the first few days may feel like the communication is forced, but so what? If your husband needs a reminder set up on his phone to check in with his wife and see how she’s doing, then so be it. Once it becomes habit, it will no longer feel forced.

Don’t forget hun, God helps those who help themselves. You don’t have to stay hurting and hiding your feelings. Hubby and you should be interested in one another more than anything/anyone else. If this is a love marriage, where’s the love? Love actually shows itself through small gestures.

Life is just starting out for you guys, so start it off right. You already see where some of the issues will be for you. Don’t be afraid to communicate it. Because your husband doesn’t naturally pick up on these things, he may never see it from your point of view and it’s on you to make him see it.

8

Re: Communication issues

I agree with everyone else - It’s important to have an open communication with your partner. However, you can’t change his personality. If he is the type, who doesn’t show much emotions or talks much about those things, then it’s not something he is going to do just like that.

So my suggestion would definitely be that lead by example - talk about your day, tell him the little stuff you want him to ask you about on your own, text him during the day and ask about his day and hopefully he will pick it up too. Don’t start nagging him about his lacking communication skills - that is just going to drive him away and turn your relationship into a headache.

9

Re: Communication issues

mmm-hmmm…just train that monkey to communicate well…:bailan:

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Re: Communication issues

A lot of men are like that. Quite communicative before marriage and then things go mundane afterwards. As everyone said, try to communicate first without nagging and see if that works.

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Re: Communication issues

LOL, can ya blame a woman for wanting some love? If that’s the training some of our men need…all hands on deck. :jj: hehe

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Re: Communication issues

thanks for your all your comments

Paheli - the fact that your hubby is a doctor means that I agree with you he is unlikely to be able to communicate that often as he is genuinely busy seeing patients.My hubby is based in an office with a PC and a mobile so no excuses. Also its seems that you guys have that mutual understanding which is the main thing.

Just to answer your question, no it was not always like that. Initially it was fairly good and I naively thought it would go the next level after marriage rather than take a dive. Also yes I have tried to initiate conversation about deeper topics but at the end of the day I can only do my 50% and cant be sharing stuff like an idiot to be honest if someone does not reciprocate.

Wicked - I really appreciated your posts, it was just good to share with someone who understands. Your relationship with hubby sounds amazing and I guess that is the kind of connection I always imagined. Anyways just going to focus on my own goals for now and Inshallah it will work out for best x

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Re: Communication issues

:smack:

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Re: Communication issues

Agree with Paheli. I can understand that OP is frustrated but I don’t think it’s wise to question if there’s a lack of love in the marriage or to imply that a love marriage would have had a different outcome than an arranged one…as both marriages evolve over time and especially when kids enter the picture. I would think it’s rude if I am out with a friend and they are often fiddling with their cell phone. So, it’s not such a big deal if he isn’t texting you when he’s with his friends. It’s fine and well if you both socialize with other married couples, but there’s nothing wrong with him wanting to socialize with his guy pals…whom he was probably good friends with way before you became his girlfriend and then fiance and then wife. Women also want and need time to socialize with their female friends and without any guys around. So, there’s nothing wrong with that if it’s done within moderation.

Asking how your day was or texting you sweet nothings are not the only ways if showing affection. I can totally understand that it’s nice to have someone ask you how your day is…but often times…we don’t even do that with our own siblings (and parents) when we spend so many years of our lives living under the same roof with them. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s an absence of love. My dad doesn’t text or call my mom to ask how she’s doing. He is overall a reserved personality, but he shows his affection in many other ways. My mom can depend on him for many things and that’s a form of love too. Does your husband show affection in other ways? Maybe he provides emotional support in other areas…or is consistently dependable/reliable in other situations. Try not to define love or by one or two specific actions.

Also, do you ask him how his day went? How was work, etc? Try initiating these questions on your own.

Also, when you say that he does not share his feelings…do not expect him express his feelings with the same language and manner as a woman. People differ in how they express their feelings. Ask him his opinions on various things…it could be on a movie or a current event or something else…and his “opinion” would be like his feelings toward that subject. Word your questions in a way so that they are like seeking his opinion or view…as opposed to Oprah trying to get him to pour his heart out. Sometimes the more you bug someone to open up…which reads more like a complaint…the more that person retreats into their shell. Consider changing your approach.

15

Re: Communication issues

apnay pati ko roz apnay hath say meethay paan ki glory bana kar khilaya karo bahoo. jis main chupkay say thora sa bhang mila dia karo. phir dekho kesa tumharay isharon par chalnay lagay ga.

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Re: Communication issues

^As the song goes…khai ke paan bana ras-wala, khul jaaye band aqal ka taala.

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Re: Communication issues

I’ll be honest I’m more like your husband in personality so texting everyday would seem like a chore. If I’m meeting someone at the end of the day I wouldn’t call them at lunch (like why?). I feel claustrophobic just thinking about having a communication routine. But it’s still unfair to you that while the mundane convo is shunned you are still not getting the deep, meaningful or fun conversations. If you guys can’t have a good conversation of shared interests then something needs to be done. Definitely need to see what clicks with him, maybe you could observe him on a meeting with his friends and their wives.

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Re: Communication issues

egjactly… lekin ye banaras (or varanasi) k tukray tukray kion kardiay aap nay?

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Re: Communication issues

Kkf, is that be you?

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Re: Communication issues

:bummer: Why everyone here is mistaking me for someone else. Who is kkf btw and what made you think I could be him or her? tellain tellain please :phil: