How do you get a man to open up??

birkee

You don't want a boyfriend, you want a girlfriend.
Why do women always want to change men? If you don't like his character, don't be with him.
He's just like many other men.

How does the old holiday postcard go?
"Get him down the AISLE and up to the ALTER, marry, and sing a HYMN".

euronorris

scooby088 wrote: »

Well we agreed on something then the next minute she does exactly what she wants with no discussion. And past experience was a now ex wanted to have children i didn't and she said she respected that and was for months sticking pins in my supply of condoms.

I am happy now as i am in a relationship whereby we both love and respect each other and can speak freely when the need arises. And we discuss things when we need to.

OMG! I can't believe your ex did that! Well, sadly I can as I have seen some terrible behaviour from women in the past, but it still shocks me!

Maybe you should have another chat about the thing you agreed on, and explain that you felt it was pointless discussing it if she was going to do that? (unless I've misunderstood and that was also with an ex)

Not all women are like that though, and I'm glad you are now happy in your relationship.

scooby088

euronorris wrote: »

OMG! I can't believe your ex did that! Well, sadly I can as I have seen some terrible behaviour from women in the past, but it still shocks me!

Maybe you should have another chat about the thing you agreed on, and explain that you felt it was pointless discussing it if she was going to do that? (unless I've misunderstood and that was also with an ex)

Not all women are like that though, and I'm glad you are now happy in your relationship.

She was an ex and i ended it not long after, but my current partner is great we talk when it's needed.

brians_daughter

scooby088 wrote: »

She was an ex and i ended it not long after, but my current partner is great we talk when it's needed.

My oh always tells me off for saying current partner.... he says it sounds like i am planning to trade him in soon lol :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

sharnad

yeah you try and help them they dont talk and then they take it all out on you. I would just leave

FunnySaving

I think often people who want to discuss a big, important matter brew it over in their heads and come up with all the pros and cons etc, so when you actually bring it up you have so much to say that it feels a little like a test that they haven't done their revision for. It can feel like you're being railroaded when someone already seems to have an answer to everything you might come up with, and it's not fair to expect someone to make a decision about something important on the basis of one conversation or without any preparation.

Could you try letting him come to you? e.g you say 'I would really like to talk about xyz, but I don't want to ambush you with it until you've had a chance to get your thoughts in order. Maybe you could think about it and let me know when you're ready.' That way you aren't forcing a discussion when it might not be a good time, or demanding a response without giving the other person a chance to really sort out how they feel about things, and once the fight has got in the way of the original issue, it taints the whole subject with bad feeling.

I do agree with others that communication isn't necessarily the be all and end all of a relationship unless there are serious issues to discuss - I am much more likely to venture an opinion or feeling about something than my OH, but so long as it's not a matter of life or death, or something which I feel particularly strongly about, then it doesn't really matter.

BugglyB

FunnySaving wrote: »

I think often people who want to discuss a big, important matter brew it over in their heads and come up with all the pros and cons etc, so when you actually bring it up you have so much to say that it feels a little like a test that they haven't done their revision for. It can feel like you're being railroaded when someone already seems to have an answer to everything you might come up with, and it's not fair to expect someone to make a decision about something important on the basis of one conversation or without any preparation.

Could you try letting him come to you? e.g you say 'I would really like to talk about xyz, but I don't want to ambush you with it until you've had a chance to get your thoughts in order. Maybe you could think about it and let me know when you're ready.' That way you aren't forcing a discussion when it might not be a good time, or demanding a response without giving the other person a chance to really sort out how they feel about things, and once the fight has got in the way of the original issue, it taints the whole subject with bad feeling.

I do agree with others that communication isn't necessarily the be all and end all of a relationship unless there are serious issues to discuss - I am much more likely to venture an opinion or feeling about something than my OH, but so long as it's not a matter of life or death, or something which I feel particularly strongly about, then it doesn't really matter.

Wow that is a very insightful post. I particularly agree with the first paragraph.

I dont think that the op is asking her partner to change, I think shes asking him to compromise by doing something he doesn't necessarily want to do (discuss how he feels) for the sake of the relationship. Maybe she will also have to compromise by leaving it for the really big things (why are you always nasty to my mother, do you want to have kids with me) instead of the little things (why do you never sit next to me at parties, why can't you leave the toilet seat down).

DVardysShadow

FBaby wrote: »

I didn't expect so many responses in so little time! Thanks. There seem to be a concensus for accepting him as he is, which is interesting and one to ponder on, although not something I haven't tried before! Not sure too how much this is coming from men and how much from women!

Ok, what I am talking about is things like priorities in life, financial decisions, intimate life, family choices etc... We do share similar aspirations, but at the moment, we don't seem to have the same priorities and I feel that in the past two years, I have gone with his and been patient. However, this is not happening and I am starting to get a bit itsy that it is not just a question of time. This is what I would like to talk about. I do let him know how I feel, but it is not coming back, so I don't really know where I stand really.

I don't really like this take it or leave it option. I believe that relationships are about balancing being accepted for who we are with trying to make efforts to make the other one happy. I feel that if you are not prepared to make some changes, than you can't love that person that much, but maybe I am wrong in thinking like that. I don't want to change my man, he comes with his good points and bad and I love him for who he is, but not being able to feel comfortable talking about things that I think are important is an issue for me.

I could leave, but I love him with all my hearts and I don't give up easily! I just don't want to, more a question of accepting to live with it, or as my first post, trying to find a way to make him feel more comfortable talking about his feelings. Is it really so bad to want this of a partner?

I would say that a lot of where this is going wrong is that you are asking him what he feels. If you didn't ask him that, you wouldn't put him in that zone where he has nothing to say.

I would say that he will have things to say about the topics you want to discuss. So if you say "What shall we do about X?" he will have far more to say about it, because men are probably more into doing than feeling. "What do you feels about X?" is theoretically a good question because it is 'open' [cannot be answered 'yes' or 'no'], but as you are discovering, it is a waste of time if it puts him in the 'zone'

FBaby

Argggg, hate having been moved to an open office and not being able to login to the forum Thank you very much everyone for your input. To be honest, the moment I had sent my post I started regretting it thinking I would at best get no interesting replies at worse get slaughtered, but all (ok, most!) of the responses are really insightful and helpful. I realise that I was a big vague when I wrote 'talking about his feelings'. Ok, what I really meant is...talking about things that upset me, or leave me confused, when I need an answer, know where we stand etc... To put things into context, we are both in our early 40s, both had long term relationships before, mine resulting in children, his in a 7 years marriage that failed. Some were not too far off with me wanting a child and him not, however, it goes a lot deeper than that. I don't want to share the details because it would take pages to explain it all, but in a nutshell, we agreed together to try for a child, i fell pregnant right away, I miscarried, we tried again, it didn't work, we were told that it wouldn't happen naturally, we decided to give IVF one go, the day before the appointment, he told me he wasn't totally sure any longer. We delayed by 3 more months but too much was going on in our life at the time and we agreed to delay again. We then had a long conversation, one of those rare moments he did open up, and he said that he was starting to have doubts, however, he trusted me that it was the way to go and promised me (this was insisted on) that we would go for it when he received his bonus. The time came, nothing was mentioned from him, until I realised that the money was being used for something else. I confronted him about it, and his response was that he had been agonising over it for weeks and didn't want to tell me that he had changed his mind because he knew I would go ballistic.

Of course I was massively hurt by his breaking his promise, but what hurt most was that he didn't find it in him to tell me about how he was really feeling and let me hanging on patiently deceitfully. I don't blow off when I am upset but I do want to talk things through. I explained to him that of course I was madly disappointed by his decision, but him not telling me made it ten times worse. He does listen and I can tell he feels bad for me about the whole thing, he shows me affection, but though the whole thing, he has never once brought up the subject.

I think it is a mix between not wanting to disappoint me , but more importantly it is that as he says 'he wants a quiet life, doesn't like arguments and hates conflict'. Unfortunately, it is not the only promise he has broken, for good reason (well at least to him!) and the frustration come from the fact that he won't really talk about it, it's a case of 'that's how it is'. I accept that you sometimes have to accept that things don't always go your way. Sometimes it hurts, most of the time it takes efforts to accept and time to get over it but that is made much easier if you can talk about things, understand the reasons, try to come up with compromises, or other choices.

FBaby

puddy wrote: »

i totally agree with the above. thats my experience. its not always the stereotypical situation where everything is ok, but the woman wants to talk about stuff for no reason and the bloke just wants to watch footie.

a lack of communication is damaging. remember people that dont communicate, dont just exclude their partner from their feelings, they exclude themselves, they dont deal with their own emotions, difficulties, anger, joy etc etc, everything gets swept away, minimised, dismissed and this is quite dangerous for the person themselves, not just in the context of a relationship. problems arent dealt with which then exacerbate, causing more problems. its a terrible cycle.

This speaks to my heart, this is how I feel too. I told my partner that there is nothing he could tell me that would hurt me more than all the answers, often worse case scenarios, that I come up for him because he won't tell me himself.