J. Peirano: My husband is making me emotionally thirsty – I need maximum tenderness

Dear Dr. Peirano,

I am writing to you in great mental distress. There is one problem that keeps coming back and throws me massively off track at least three times a year.

I am 43 years old, my husband is 46, we have been together for over 20 years and have two children.

I am self-employed, my partner and I have always given each other maximum support. That’s also what’s special about our relationship: I get everything I want and need, just not one thing.

We have a special relationship. We have never let ourselves be taken away from being lovers, we often go out without the children or go on vacation without children. Have three intense hobbies in common, still have great sex, can still talk and laugh with each other for hours.

I love this man with skin and hair, I could always pet and hug him. It’s the same with my children, I’m maximally tender, sensitive and empathetic. He, on the other hand, not at all – at least in phases.

We are fundamentally different in this respect. He could live on a desert island and be happy. I, on the other hand, need my large circle of friends, telephone calls, I am constantly in contact and on the move. He doesn’t have any friends of his own. When he’s been drinking or smoking pot, he gets sentimental and raves about our great love, the purity of it, how much he loves me…

But only then. I don’t know when he’ll tell me that without those drugs. I get no compliments, no gifts outside of the parties, no tender touches, NOTHING.

There are always phases. Sometimes things go well for a few months, then he kisses me and hugs me. But there are always phases where ZERO really comes up.

I pet him, he doesn’t pet him back. I can endure that for weeks, then a big crisis comes in which I feel like a huge inner emptiness and darkness. I lose my happiness, I cry, I cry a lot, I get bitchy and I can’t sleep at night.

I’m increasingly helpless. I can give so much love but apparently my husband doesn’t want it.

I’ve been having these conversations with him for many years, but there are still phases when he completely withdraws his affection. He says he shows me his love in other ways, but I don’t get any of that.

We have a dog that he pets all the time, and he is also always affectionate with the children. Why not to me?

I’m mentally drained and don’t know what to do anymore.

I can hardly bear to meet other couples when they are affectionate towards each other.

Do you have any advice for me?

Best regards

Lena H

Dear Lena H,

I can empathize with your desperation. It sounds like you’re dying of thirst inside. And while you’re in that inner desert, you get the impression that your husband has plenty of water and shares it with the kids and the dog, but doesn’t give it to you.

At the same time, I would like to reflect on the impression that your letter left on me. We therapists are trained to precisely perceive the feelings that our counterpart (especially our patient) triggers in us and to use these feelings therapeutically. If, for example, a patient often dismisses and criticizes me in a patronizing manner and I feel like a schoolgirl who is summoned to be the principal of the school, then I initially assume that an issue of power and devaluation is being brought to my attention and address it. The patient in question will probably also treat other people (especially women) in his environment in a similar way, and this gives you a clue as to why, for example, his wife, daughter, girlfriend or colleague is extending her claws or withdrawing.

Your letter reached me in the mail, handwritten, in my private practice, which is also in my house. This is a very unusual way of contacting me. I have an email inbox for this blog, and some people write to me at my practice email address, which is also public on the web.

Your handwritten, thick letter in my mailbox initially triggered very intense and mixed feelings in me.

On the one hand, while reading your 8 pages, I saw that you are in great emotional distress and hope that I will help you. Your letter was worded very urgently and that touched me.

On the other hand, I found the way you made contact to be challenging. A handwritten, bold letter to my private practice is “bigger” than an email in my inbox for this blog, and also comes closer, which, frankly, was a bit too close for me.

In addition, a handwritten letter means that I first have to type it up in order to digitize it. So I felt this was a bit ill-considered in relation to my situation and my effort to process your subject.

I was initially torn between two impulses. One impulse was to give in to my feeling that I found your way of making contact a bit intrusive and therefore simply disposed of the letter. That in turn would have created a bad conscience because you’ve put so much effort into it.

And on the other hand, I felt sympathy for your desperation and your suffering and had the impulse to answer you.
Only when I decided to share with you the feelings you aroused in me did it all come together. Otherwise I would have felt a little cornered.

I am writing this to you in such detail because I wonder if your husband sometimes feels pressured by you. He knows you want more affection and tenderness than you get, and that will stress him out.

He knows exactly how much you are suffering and he will not be indifferent to it because he loves you. He also knows that you see him as the cause of your suffering, and that probably makes it worse for him. Could it be that he’s blocked just like I was for a few hours after receiving your letter? That on the one hand he wants to be close to you, but on the other hand he has the feeling that, figuratively, the desert is so dry that his little bit of water wouldn’t be enough? And that something in him is reluctant to give more than is fitting for him?

It is the case that partners in a partnership react to each other and thus (can) drive themselves into certain extreme behaviors. For example, when my ex-spouse barely lifted a finger around the house, I learned to resign, scold, and do things quickly myself because I found there was no point in asking him for help.

If my new partner is extremely hands-on and helpful, planning the vacation before I even think about it, making the grocery shopping and gardening a snap, and pampering me, then I might get a little lazy and just let myself go. Because he’ll do it. So two different partners trigger a completely different behavior pattern in me.

In a partnership, the issue of “closeness and distance” in particular is very dependent on the behavior of the partner. When one of you – in this case your husband – claims the pole of distance, the other partner – in this case you – fights more for closeness.
And unfortunately it is like this: the more one tries to be close, the more distance the other seeks.

There is a video of a South American and a North European therapist having an hour-long conversation while standing on a stage. The South American is looking for more and more proximity and (unconsciously) approaches his Northern European colleague, who in turn (unconsciously) retreats more and more. To the amusement of the therapists watching, the two unconsciously move through the whole room while maintaining their roles: one seeks closeness, the other ensures distance.

That’s how the couple dynamics in your relationship seem to me too. Your husband probably feels that what he’s doing isn’t enough because you need so much closeness that it feels like a drop in the hot desert. He shows his love in many ways, in partnership, with shared hobbies, with support in everyday life and work, with sex, but he refuses to be tender because he may have the impression that he cannot do you justice. Could it be that your allegations offend him more deeply than he openly addresses? After all, he comes across as unloving and hard-hearted because that’s what you’re implying. And you see yourself as being maximally tender and sensitive. But can you also empathize with his need for distance?

My suggestion would be that you first accept this problem as it is.

I have the impression that your relationship has many good sides and is in many ways an exceptional and stable relationship. Therefore, I would advise you to work on letting go of your desire (or need?) for closeness, or even better, on taking care of it yourself.

That will make it much easier for your husband to approach you.

It’s a bit like cats. My cat prefers to come to me when I’m sitting happily at the computer or the piano and don’t want anything from her. When I try to lure her in because I want to cuddle, she gives me the cold shoulder and ignores me. Typical cat, but the principle also applies to partnerships.

Can you imagine taking care of yourself to take care of your inner child, who needs closeness and is thirsty for affection? Do you know why your inner child has this high need for closeness? How was tenderness in your childhood?
How about attending seminars on “Self Care and Dialogue with Your Inner Child” and trying to “water” (read closeness and affection) yourself?

I hope that you learn to take better care of your inner child and then wish you a more relaxed and satisfying relationship!

Best regards

Juliet Peirano