We've been together for over three years, living together for over two, and married for a year and a half. He can be intelligent, creative, and thoughtful, but I'm realizing that none of it is him. It's just what he thinks he should be doing, and he doesn't actually seem to have any substance to him.
He's very insecure, to the point of mentally shutting down anytime anything he perceives as negative happens or is said to him. If he misses a spot when washing the dishes and I noticed when I was putting them away, I'd just say something like 'Hey there's still a ring of coffee in here, I'm gonna put it back in the sink so whoever does them next can wash it again.' I can no longer do this, because he acts as if I am insulting his very existence… but I just wanted to let him know so he didn't wonder why it was back in the sink. I don't think he was always like this, but I'm beginning to wonder if I just overlooked it before. But stuff like this, I can deal with, I think. It's getting so much worse now, and I'm starting to wonder if there will ever be an improvement.
He doesn't seem to have any morals or beliefs, or even strong interests. When we started dating, he seemed to hold all the same beliefs about the world that I did, same political views, etc. But it turns out he was just agreeing with everything I was saying, throwing in the right buzzwords to convince me he felt the same way before he met me, and he hadn't even heard of half of it before.
He claims he loves disc golf, but he never does it. Occasionally I'll make plans for us to go to a local course, and I'll read a book or whatever, and I love it! I love sitting in nature, walking through the woods, etc, I just don't like throwing discs often. He insists that I am miserable, that I hate it, and that he can't go unless I want to throw discs too because it's just so awful for me to have to sit in the woods, which I literally do for fun anyways? No matter how I try to explain it, he convinces himself that he knows what I really mean.
He doesn't know how to talk about anything important. If I ask for his opinion, an idea, a suggestion, anything, he might give me one. But if I ask him to explain more, or ask for elaboration, he insists that I wouldn't be asking if I didn't think it was a stupid idea. But I don't feel that way at all! I just want to understand more, I want his unique perspective! But, after a very long talk the other day, I learned that he just doesn't have a unique perspective.
Everything he knows, believes, etc, is because someone else told him it and they're smarter than him so he just believed it. He has a lot of strange beliefs about life because of it. If he sees something on a facebook post, he takes it as fact and goes around telling people how much he knows about it. I don't even know how to properly explain it, because it's so severely illogical. And lately, when I try talking to him about something, he just stares at me. I ask him questions, I try to understand his thoughts and stuff, and he gets mad. He insists that it's just unrealistic for me to expect him to have a thought-out answer to simple things like 'what do you think the best way to pay off our credit cards would be?' He says he doesn't know enough about credit cards to have any ideas, and I try to teach him, but he doesn't try to learn on his own. He insists that I should be teaching him everything, and that I just don't care about him and insist he do it on his own. But that's not the case! He reads so much into everything I say, he looks for hidden meanings, if I don't understand something and ask for more information, he decides that what I really mean is that it's a stupid idea and he's stupid for saying that.
I don't know how to interact with him anymore. I can't talk to him without him telling me how much of a monster I am for telling him he's so stupid. But if I ask when I said he was stupid, he brings up 50 things that I just wanted more info on or wanted to understand, and insists that I wouldn't have asked that if I didn't think he was stupid. There's no logic to his thoughts. He just reacts. I make a tiny suggestion and he completely does a 180 on everything. The tiniest outside opinion changes his entire worldview. He is like a piece of Play-Doh, and there doesn't seem to be any actual substance to him. He's just shaped and reshaped by literally everything he's exposed to.
He's in therapy, but he's not being honest with his therapist about stuff, and he doesn't seem to realize just how dysfunctional his thinking is. I can't talk to him about it, because it means that I'm calling him stupid and worthless and a million other things that I don't say, but he somehow hears. He accuses me of saying sentences that never came out of my mouth, and seems to literally believe that he heard them. I just don't know what to do anymore or how to get him help.
I'm sorry if this wasn't well explained, as I'm struggling to wrap my head around it. But I need advice, help, anything. Even if our relationship doesn't last, I care about him and want him to get the help he needs. The lack of logic is starting to scare me, and him believing I'm saying things that I'm not is terrifying sometimes.
submitted by /u/DamienLenore
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