I would be willing to bet that most LD men are uncomfortable or unwilling to talk about it. The communication between my LDH and I has truly improved....BUT I still have to initiate the conversations, and still have to sometimes drag information out of him.
The key for us was...
#1 putting my foot down about counseling (for both of us)
#2 Refusing to accept no answer as an answer
#3 Demanding the respect/common courtesy of a response of some sort to a perfectly reasonable question. Even if his answer was "I don't know"...he was no longer allowed to ignore the fact that I asked a question.
#4 I avoided having "tough talks" in the bedroom and began broaching topics little by little when we were having comfortable chats. In other words I stopped lambasting him with EVERYTHING all at once. If he gave me an opening where one of our topics would fit...I'd take it...bring up that topic, talk about it a little....then drop it.
#5 I stopped turning every R talk we had into a huge fact-finding mission. I'd ask questions, try to get a bit of an honest answer...if I didn't get one or I got an "I don't know"...I'd tell him to think about it and I'd ask him again later.
#6 I learned to accept "I don't know" as a truthful answer. Sometimes he simply truly didn't know the answer to what I was asking. So I'd ask him to put some thought into whatever it was.
Things like what I've listed above have been working for me. Maybe some of them would work for you too. I found that not too long ago, because I was working sooooo hard on our issues, that I would tend to turn far too many of our conversations into deep meaningful R talks. This had to have been wearing on my H. I mean...who wants to talk to someone who is constantly going to make you talk about stuff you don't want to?
