Yes, that describes exactly how I saw my husband's behaviour, either that or I thought he was unhappy about his work or his life and was taking out that stuff on me. If only I had known this stuff 15 years ago!
I think this is really useful to get the perspective of the other side. How did you see your husband's distancing behaviour? It is actually not too difficult to see how my husband's pursuing behaviour was actually not intended to be so aggressive or hurtful, I can finally understand that. But the blind spot is in seeing how my distancing behaviour affected him. And how to change it so I distance less.
I will try to fill you in, Dillydaf, but this is just me.
So - I fully get that a lot of my 'bids for attention' towards my distancing husband came across to him as needy, invasive and controlling. He needs more alone time than I do, has less desire for sex, physical affection, what I'd understand as intimate or deep conversations and emotional support. Him being how he is isn't wrong - just a temperamental difference that I think I always took more personally than was healthy for me or the M.
When he's distancing, he'll tend to be quite dishonest. He'll claim he forgot that we'd agreed to spend time together rather than telling me he doesn't want to do it. Or he will pick a fight or blame me for something, then withdraw entirely - sleeping on the couch, not going to bed at the same time as me, taking an hour to go to the shop and get milk, that kind of thing. In conversation, he can be spectacularly unresponsive. I can be emotional, and he can look at me like I am a specimen in a petri dish - only of mild interest and most of the time not even that. I can ask him a direct question about what he wants or what he feels, and he will evade it, or change the subject, or start talking about how I've asked him at a bad time, or in the wrong tone of voice. I believe I make him very anxious and he experiences my bid for closeness as demands which he is terrified of - but on the other hand, he will say very loudly and persistently that his needs aren't met in the relationship. I ask him what his needs are, and he can't or won't say in a way that I can understand. I actually suspect what he needs is to be out of the relationship, and was just unable to say so, and was blaming me for existing in the house and having the cheek to remind him of my existence.
Now and again I would very quietly and calmly raise something in the relationship that I was unhappy with. If I was too emotional, he'd just want to talk about how I was over-reacting. If I asked him when he was doing something, I was interrupting. If I asked him when he wasn't doing anything, I was ruining his leisure time. If I asked him when the kids were around, it wasn't appropriate to talk about it. If I asked him when the kids weren't around, I was ruining the rare time we had child free and not letting him enjoy his life. If - once in a blue moon - I actually managed to pick the right time, the right tone of voice, and the right phrasing - then he would generally dismiss anything I wanted to raise and claim I wasn't upset because he'd called me a name, or cancelled our time together, or hadn't come to sleep in bed with me for a week, or anything else - I was actually upset because I was busy at work, or had a terrible childhood, or tired, or hormonal, etc etc. I never found it possible for him to listen and take me seriously. That left me feeling like I didn't matter, like I was to be ignored. It made me feel worthless and furious. And yes - quite often as a reaction to that I was volatile and emotional. I don't think I was aggressive - but he considers me crying or being persistent or following him as he leaves the room when I am in the middle of a sentence to be abusive and controlling behaviours, all about manipulation.
After years of this, I feel very very angry at him. I don't feel worthless any more. I do wonder why I stayed so long in a relationship with a man who clearly had no interest in my feelings, no interest in his own feelings, and no interest in communicating his needs but was happy to blame me for not meeting them. I wonder why I chased him so long and so hard. I am not doing that any more.
I guess the best practical example I can give you of what I'd call distancing but not abusive behaviour is something that happened toward the end of our marriage therapy. He'd said his needs weren't met. I said I really wanted to be someone that offered him love and support, but I didn't know how to do that. He suggested I could start by bringing him coffee in bed some mornings. The therapist suggested I should go ahead and do that a few times over the next week, no matter what else was happening in our relationship. I agreed to do that, and left the session feeling a lot of hope for change and perhaps thinking that if I could help him feel loved, we could make some progress on the other issues. I did it once, it seemed to go well, then for the rest of the week he started getting up at 5am, before I woke up (his usual wake up time was about 7am) and I'd get downstairs and he'd already had coffee, eaten, washed and dressed. Then at our next session he wanted to start by talking about how I wasn't interested in his needs and hadn't done what he agreed. I pointed out him waking up early and making it pretty much impossible for me to do what he wanted. I said I felt he was being a bit dishonest. I asked him if me caring for him made him feel vulnerable or like he was beholden to me, and if so, could we talk about that in therapy? He said he just woke up early, there was nothing more to it, and as usual I was over-reacting and making it all about me and my feelings, and his needs still weren't being met. I think we only had one or two more sessions after that because it was making me feel crazy and I did not see how it was possible to care for and meet the needs of a man who seemed to need me to disappear.
