I was in a long distance relationship for 3 years, and he moved here to live with me. We are employed in a job that requires us to be a couple, so I have a financial and living security investment in this relationship. The problem is, I can’t seem to get close to him. I did feel close when we used to talk for hours on the phone every day, but living with him, it’s completely different. Our job is to be on-call evenings only, so we have a lot of spare time. I”m on disability and he needs to be working when we’re not on-call, but he’s not making any effort to find a job. He seems addicted to his laptop, the tv, and playing a mindless game on his cell phone, over and over. He seldom initiates conversation, and any plan to go out or do anything together always comes from me. I’m losing respect for this couch potato! Also, he never shares his feelings and doesn’t seem to be at all in touch with his feelings. So I’ve been blowing up at him over small things. I went to a counsellor and she said the rage comes from the disconnect – I desperately want connection, and he’s behind a wall.

He drove my mother and I to the cemetery twice to visit my father’s grave. He refused to get out of the car, and later explained that he was “petrified”. His mother died when he was 12 and he didn’t even see her for 2 years because ‘she was in the hospital” and children weren’t allowed. Recently he found out from a cousin that his mother was getting out-patient treatment and she visited them often. Also, during that time his father sent him to live with neighbours and an “aunt and uncle” (who he was pretty sure were not relatives at all). He has no idea where his father was living.

Then, when he was a teenager, his father got very sick and he became his father’s caregiver. He had to drive at the age of 14 because his father couldn’t. One time he witnessed a sex act between his father and a strange women (possibly a prostitute) and he ran away for a few days. When he returned, his father didn’t mention the incident and neither did he. Then his father died, when R was 17, on Christmas Eve. R ended up dropping out of school and went to the psych ward for treatment. His extended family didn’t even know because his father had cut all ties. After his hospitalization, he seemed to get a handle on his life. He married at 39, had 2 children and said he never loved his wife. They are separated now. Before he got married, he lived with 2 women, who he said he never loved. He lived with a girl when he was in college and said she saved him – that one he did love, but they parted. He told me the first year we met online that he was scared of attachment, because he’d lost everyone he ever loved. But he said he was telling me things he’d never told anyone, and that flattered me.

His story seems tragic to me, but he insists that his parents were perfect and he was a very happy child for the first 10 years of his life. He idolises his dead father.
When I heard his horrific life story, my heart went out to him, and I wanted to heal him. I have so much love to give. I’m a very affectionate person but he can only be sexual, not affectionate.

I do see the good in him – he’s a good person, and when we are getting along, he makes me laugh and he can be quite considerate, but his inability to be truly attentive to me and open up is creating a terrible loneliness in me.

I think he might be depressed because of his lethargy and lack of zest for life, but any attempt to explore that with him is met with anger and denial.

I’d like some feedback about this. I’m reaching out because I don’t know where to turn and sometimes I actually feel desperate and trapped.