u/compose1

I was emotionally neglected since I was a young kid. It gave me life long issues including insecurity, people pleasing tendencies (I just realized I was doing this recently..), and a deep emotional numbness. Other important details: I have a successful career, good group of friends, a life. I’ve got it together except for my emotional issues.

I want to state upfront that I feel like this is all my fault. I’m probably asking too much, too fast, and not being understanding enough of my wife’s perspective. It’s like she’s dating a completely different person in the last year so I get where she’s coming from conceptually.

Have been going to therapy for years to fix these things and have made tremendous progress, including stopping my people pleasing, including in my relationship. I am trying so hard to communicate my needs for the first time ever.

And now all my wife and I do is fight. When I express irritation or frustration, ask for something, say I don’t want to do something, etc., it becomes a big big deal. She can’t emotionally regulate very well so everything becomes her sobbing (not just tearing up), say things like “fuck off/you,” she stormed away from a bar yesterday (the argument was my fault, I misunderstood something she said and got angry without clarifying first).

She said recently “all of a sudden it feels like you’re completely disappointed with me.” I’m sure I’m just not communicating right, I’m new to this. I also know I need to give her more assurance that I’m trying to make things better as opposed to just highlighting problems.

How do I be better at expressing my needs or concerns/problems without making my wife feel like I’m attacking everything about our relationship?

**update: I appreciate the wonderful advice from you good people of the world. I’ll note my wife has said she doesn’t want to do couples therapy. She didn’t specify any other than she thought it wouldn’t work. Not sure what to make of it

Been together for 11 years, married for 1. Early 30s. The relationship is good but there’s a lot of issues - I’m going through a big emotional journey, doing a lot of introspection about what I want from my life, and it’s causing me to question certain things, have bigger/important talks with my spouse, etc. I would say we get along well but we are on different planets emotionally (I being the one craving way more emotional depth and her trying to work with me on this). At times, I’ve also been deeply unhappy in our relationship but worked through them.

There’s so much more to unpack but we had a big “talk” recently and she revealed she feels like she’s always waiting for me to catch up with her - she says she was ready to get married years ago but had to wait for me, that she’s ready for kids now but has to wait for me to be ready, and I’m always in the driver’s seat for these big things. She never really revealed how important these things were to her or what her timeline was early on, I will note.

I think she’s right but that’s because it takes two people to agree to these decisions. I never valued marriage but I did it because that’s what she wanted and I waited until I felt comfortable enough with the idea and then we made it happen.

She says she “always gets her way in the end” (actual quote) but her comments made me really sad. I feel like she’s sitting around and waiting for the life she wants to start, meanwhile I love my current life and want to continue growing it, and I just don’t see kids in my immediate future because other goals are more important to me. My social life, my family, cultivating hobbies and a deeper identity/relationship with myself, etc., feel like my life project right now.

I’m also the main income and will probably be for the rest of our relationship - she’s chosen a path that doesn’t have a lot of money and my goal is to get to a very secure place financially in the next 5 years. I feel like that’s a big issue too - she’s willing to wait because she knows I’m the one going to have to support a kid, but it just doesn’t feel fair.

Unrelated (maybe) but we also have different lifestyles - her dream evening is a cozy night in, she goes to bed pretty early, etc. Obviously she goes out and has a lot of friends but it’s a different pace. I like to be out all the time with friends, I have an active social life related to my work, I am passionate about my job and like to give time to it, etc. I am always on the go.

I’m pretty worried about this. I don’t want to be holding someone I care about back from their dreams. The idea that she’s waiting for the most important dream of her life to happen because of me makes me feel a bit sick.

On paper, I have the aesthetics of a good life. House, 6 figure job that is very stimulating, dog, wife, very active social life, and I’m decently healthy. I have been in therapy for many years to try and address the below issues. Progress has been slow but it has helped a bit.

Every single one of these “good” things about my life was achieved because of the mask i wear which portrays a confident, outgoing, and intelligent man.

The reality is that I’m completely empty inside. I am a black hole. I was emotionally neglected and abused as a child, and had to fend for myself from age 7 onward. This lack of emotional support from family really fucked me up. I also had few real friends due to bullying. I was starved of validation for years and years. I realize now my brain wired itself to believe there was something inherently wrong with me and that I deserved this. To this day I catch myself telling myself “I’m a loser” or “nobody cares, shut up” over and over and over and over.

At 12, I realized sex made me feel amazing / validated and as I had no adult supervision I had lots and lots of sex/sexual relationships. I confused it for love and it made me do awful things I am ashamed and guilty of.

I also shrunk myself so much so as never to be an inconvenience to my friends or people I dated. I wanted to be the perfect friend or partner so no one would ever leave me again.

Truth be told, I hate myself for having needs at all. I hate that I need external validation but I’m simply so broken inside I haven’t been able to self-generate it. Every “feel good” moment is from external validation. This has led me to doing dark things just to feel. When I was young, I cheated, hooked up with anyone who would look my way, and did so much worse. At 14, I had a sexual and romantic relationship with a friend’s sister 10 years my senior. I only just recently realized how fucked up that was. But god I loved the attention. I felt so powerful.

I even had sex with men if there wasn’t a woman available. I’m not gay or bi. I felt like human garbage after every encounter. This is the cost of easing my pain, I thought.

In college i started dating a sweet girl because she loved me and that made me feel good. We’ve been together for 10+ years. We got married. She’s wonderful, everyone loves her, I think she’s one of the best people I’ve ever met.

But the man she fell in love with doesn’t exist. On occasion, I have tried to open up and be vulnerable about my issues and I have been shut down. Once I mentioned my severe depression and sobbed and she patted me on the back and never brought it up again. I didn’t cry in front of her for 6 years after that. Earlier this year I brought it up again and she said “I think you should try anti-depressants.” This is probably the worst thing you could say to someone like me.

It’s not her fault, she just doesn’t have capacity for this. I thought this was fine and that I didn’t need every need met in a relationship. I thought as long as I kept giving more it, trying to be the best partner I could be, it would fix the void in me and I’d be happy. She frequently tells me how emotionally mature she finds me and how I’m able to handle our conflicts so well. The reality is I don’t know if I love her. I’ve had doubts for awhile because I’m worried I’m just really good at keeping the peace and acting how I expect a good partner to act - related to my masking.

A year ago I met someone coincidentally who immediately saw the internal parts of me without me having to share anything. This wasn’t an affair - just a deep friendship with a fellow tortured soul. They saw my void. It was the most liberating moment of my life and I felt emotionally safe to discuss my issues with them. I felt free for the first moment in my life. I felt happy and fulfilled. I truly don’t know if I’ve ever felt those things before - now that I’ve felt them, everything else in my life has been contrasted to how happy I felt in those moments. “Is this what everyone else is feeling?” I have asked myself one thousand times over.

That experience has completely broken me. I can’t wear my “mask” anymore because I’ve seen the alternative where I can be my true self. I genuinely don’t think I felt emotions until 7 months ago. I’ve cried 20 years of tears since January. Full sobbing every single night. I’m feeling the full spectrum of human emotions for the first time in my life.

This set me on a journey where I have been trying to be more open with my closest friends and my spouse. They are all very good people but they simply don’t understand what I’m talking about and don’t really try. They just point to the surface level good in my life and move on. I can feel their exhaustion when I try to talk about it.

I once again find myself shrinking to be loved and the lack of understanding or, at minimum, an effort to try and hear me out.

It is making me question my entire life. All my relationships. Not everything needs to be a place where I discuss my issues but I have come to realize that if I am going to feel fulfilled I need to be emotionally connected to the people closest and most important to me.

Last night, I had a conversation with my spouse where I tried to get “deeper.” The things she said reinforced that I just feel so emotionally unsafe with this person and I don’t know how to deal with that. Every time I open up, I don’t like what I hear and it makes me really sad.

TLDR: I’ve worn a mask my whole life to survive. Recently decided to face my trauma and shame and build a real identity. As part of that, I realized I don’t feel emotionally safe with my partner at all and the more I try to open up the more I think I realize this isn’t going to work.

—

On paper, I have the aesthetics of a good life. House, 6 figure job that is very stimulating, dog, wife, very active social life, and I’m decently healthy. I have been in therapy for many years to try and address the below issues. Progress has been slow but it has helped a bit.

Every single one of these “good” things about my life was achieved because of the mask i wear which portrays a confident, outgoing, and intelligent man.

The reality is that I’m completely empty inside. I am a black hole. I was emotionally neglected and abused as a child, and had to fend for myself from age 7 onward. This lack of emotional support from family really fucked me up. I also had few real friends due to bullying. I was starved of validation for years and years. I realize now my brain wired itself to believe there was something inherently wrong with me and that I deserved this. To this day I catch myself telling myself “I’m a loser” or “nobody cares, shut up” over and over and over and over.

At 12, I realized sex made me feel amazing / validated and as I had no adult supervision I had lots and lots of sex/sexual relationships. I confused it for love and it made me do awful things I am ashamed and guilty of.

I also shrunk myself so much so as never to be an inconvenience to my friends or people I dated. I wanted to be the perfect friend or partner so no one would ever leave me again.

Truth be told, I hate myself for having needs at all. I hate that I need external validation but I’m simply so broken inside I haven’t been able to self-generate it. Every “feel good” moment is from external validation. This has led me to doing dark things just to feel. When I was young, I cheated, hooked up with anyone who would look my way, and did so much worse. When I was 14, I was groomed by my friend’s sister 10 years my senior. I even had sex with men if there wasn’t a woman available. I’m not gay or bi. I felt like human garbage after every encounter. This is the cost of easing my pain, I thought.

In college i started dating a sweet girl because she loved me and that made me feel good. We’ve been together for 10+ years. We got married. She’s wonderful, everyone loves her, I think she’s one of the coolest people I’ve ever met.

But the man she fell in love with doesn’t exist. On occasion, I have tried to open up and be vulnerable about my issues and I have been shut down. Once I mentioned my severe depression and sobbed and she patted me on the back and never brought it up again. I didn’t cry in front of her for 6 years after that. Earlier this year I brought it up again and she said “I think you should try anti-depressants.” This is probably the worst thing you could say to someone like me.

It’s not her fault, she just doesn’t have capacity for this. I thought this was fine and that I didn’t need every need met in a relationship. I thought as long as I kept giving more it, trying to be the best partner I could be, it would fix the void in me and I’d be happy. She frequently tells me how emotionally mature she finds me and how I’m able to handle our conflicts so well. The reality is I don’t know if I love her. I’ve had doubts for awhile because I’m worried I’m just really good at keeping the peace and acting how I expect a good partner to act - related to my masking.

A year ago I met someone coincidentally who immediately saw the internal parts of me without me having to share anything. This wasn’t an affair - just a deep friendship with a fellow tortured soul. They saw my void. It was the most liberating moment of my life and I felt emotionally safe to discuss my issues with them. I felt free for the first moment in my life. I felt happy and fulfilled. I truly don’t know if I’ve ever felt those things before - now that I’ve felt them, everything else in my life has been contrasted to how happy I felt in those moments. “Is this what everyone else is feeling?” I have asked myself one thousand times over.

That experience has completely broken me. I can’t wear my “mask” anymore because I’ve seen the alternative where I can be my true self. I genuinely don’t think I felt emotions until 7 months ago. I’ve cried 20 years of tears since January. Full sobbing every single night. I’m feeling the full spectrum of human emotions for the first time in my life.

This set me on a journey where I have been trying to be more open with my closest friends and my spouse. They are all very good people but they simply don’t understand what I’m talking about and don’t really try. They just point to the surface level good in my life and move on. I can feel their exhaustion when I try to talk about it.

I once again find myself shrinking to be loved and the lack of understanding or, at minimum, an effort to try and hear me out.

I’ve been going to intensive therapy to try and figure out my needs and communicate them better. I’ve realized I don’t have any emotional safety with my partner and that has been an insanely difficult truth as part of this journey I am on.

I’ve tried to be more open and honest with my spouse lately but I’m just realizing we’re on completely different emotional wavelengths. We had a conversation last night where I realized that if I dropped my mask and showed who I truly was, my partner would hate a person like me.

On paper, I have the aesthetics of a good life. House, 6 figure job that is very stimulating, dog, wife, very active social life, and I’m decently healthy. I have been in therapy for many years to try and address the below issues. Progress has been slow but it has helped a bit.

Every single one of these “good” things about my life was achieved because of the mask i wear which portrays a confident, outgoing, and intelligent man.

The reality is that I’m completely empty inside. I am a black hole. I was emotionally neglected and abused as a child, and had to fend for myself from age 7 onward. This lack of emotional support from family really fucked me up. I also had few real friends due to bullying. I was starved of validation for years and years. I realize now my brain wired itself to believe there was something inherently wrong with me and that I deserved this. To this day I catch myself telling myself “I’m a loser” or “nobody cares, shut up” over and over and over and over.

At 12, I realized sex made me feel amazing / validated and as I had no adult supervision I had lots and lots of sex/sexual relationships. I confused it for love and it made me do awful things I am ashamed and guilty of.

I also shrunk myself so much so as never to be an inconvenience to my friends or people I dated. I wanted to be the perfect friend or partner so no one would ever leave me again.

Truth be told, I hate myself for having needs at all. I hate that I need external validation but I’m simply so broken inside I haven’t been able to self-generate it. Every “feel good” moment is from external validation. This has led me to doing dark things just to feel. When I was young, I cheated, hooked up with anyone who would look my way, and did so much worse. I even had sex with men if there wasn’t a woman available. I’m not gay or bi. I felt like human garbage after every encounter.

This is the cost of easing my pain, I thought.

In college i started dating a sweet girl because she loved me and that made me feel good. We’ve been together for 10+ years. We got married. She’s wonderful, everyone loves her, I think she’s one of the best people I’ve ever met.

But the man she fell in love with doesn’t exist. On occasion, I have tried to open up and be vulnerable about my issues and I have been shut down. Once I mentioned my severe depression and sobbed and she patted me on the back and never brought it up again. I didn’t cry in front of her for 6 years after that. Earlier this year I brought it up again and she said “I think you should try anti-depressants.” This is probably the worst thing you could say to someone like me.

It’s not her fault, she just doesn’t have capacity for this. I thought this was fine and that I didn’t need every need met in a relationship. I thought as long as I kept giving more it, trying to be the best partner I could be, it would fix the void in me and I’d be happy. She frequently tells me how emotionally mature she finds me and how I’m able to handle our conflicts so well. The reality is I don’t know if I love her. I’ve had doubts for awhile because I’m worried I’m just really good at keeping the peace and acting how I expect a good partner to act - related to my masking.

Everybody loves my partner but I think constantly about being alone or being with someone who “understands” me. I’m so tired of masking all the time and having to pretend to be someone I am not just to make all of my relationships survive.

I am a loser for thinking like this. So much therapy hasn’t changed it. I really wish I was a different person and could just be normal and happy with what I have.

On paper, I have the aesthetics of a good life. House, 6 figure job that is very stimulating, dog, wife, very active social life, and I’m decently healthy. I have been in therapy for many years to try and address the below issues. Progress has been slow but it has helped a bit.

Every single one of these things was achieved because of the mask i wear which portrays a confident, outgoing, and intelligent man.

The reality is that I’m completely empty inside. I am a black hole. I was emotionally neglected and abused as a child, and had to fend for myself from age 7 onward. This lack of emotional support from family really fucked me up. I also had few real friends due to bullying. I was starved of validation for years and years. I realize now my brain wired itself to believe there was something inherently wrong with me and that I deserved this. To this day I catch myself telling myself “I’m a loser” or “nobody cares, shut up” over and over and over and over.

At 12, I realized sex made me feel amazing / validated and as I had no adult supervision I had lots and lots of sex/sexual relationships. I confused it for love and it made me do awful things I am ashamed and guilty of.

I also shrunk myself so much so as never to be an inconvenience to my friends or people I dated. I wanted to be the perfect friend or partner so no one would ever leave me again.

Truth be told, I hate myself for having needs at all. I hate that I need external validation but I’m simply so broken inside I haven’t been able to self-generate it. Every “feel good” moment is from external validation. This has led me to doing dark things just to feel.

In college i started dating a sweet girl because she loved me and that made me feel good. We’ve been together for 10+ years. We got married.

But the man she fell in love with doesn’t exist. On occasion, I have tried to open up and be vulnerable about my issues and I have been shut down. It’s not her fault, she just doesn’t have capacity for this. I thought this was fine and that I didn’t need every need met in a relationship. I thought as long as I kept giving more it, trying to be the best partner I could be, it would fix the void in me and I’d be happy.

A year ago I met someone coincidentally who immediately saw the internal parts of me without me having to share anything. They saw my void. It was the most liberating moment of my life and I felt emotionally safe to discuss my issues with them. I felt free for the first moment in my life. I felt happy and fulfilled. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt those things before.

That experience has completely broken me. I can’t wear my “mask” anymore because I’ve seen the alternative where I can be my true self.

This set me on a journey where I have been trying to be more open with my closest friends and my spouse. They are all very good people but they simply don’t understand what I’m talking about and don’t really try. They just point to the surface level good in my life and move on. I can feel their exhaustion when I try to talk about it.

I once again find myself shrinking to be loved and the lack of understanding or, at minimum, an effort to try and hear me out.

It is making me question my entire life. All my relationships. Not everything needs to be a place where I discuss my issues but I have come to realize that if I am going to feel fulfilled I need to be emotionally connected to the people closest and most important to me.

If not, I am going to fall back into the same pattern and nothing will change. In reality, I simply realize I cannot go back to living my life the old way now that I’ve seen that it’s possible for someone to understand and care and listen.

Alternatively, I bury this all deep down like I have everything else so as not to be inconvenience or a burden. I can do this because I have been doing it since I was 7. But now I can see it and I fear I’m not strong enough to do it again.

This is a terrifying realization. It is killing me.

This is a lot and I’m sorry.

I had a hard childhood to the point that I developed problematic attachment issues but also an extreme self preservation ethic.

In my teens I thought sex was love and let myself be consumed by sexual connections - I became a serial cheater, was molested (she was 24 and I was 14), and many other terrible things. I stopped when I was about 23 and have been in therapy since 2020 dealing with that, and I’m mostly over it.

Of note, I’ve always had a good amount of sadness and depression, like life wasn’t quite right.

Throughout the last 10 years I’ve been in a very steady relationship. I had no fall back plan and so from 20-30 put my head down and built a stable life. I had fun and have an exciting career (more than most, very high octane), which led me to buying a house, getting a dog, saving money, and making enough to travel whenever I want and buy nearly whatever I want.

I’m now 30 and feel like I “woke up” in December 2025 and my entire life feels wrong. It doesn’t feel like it’s mine and I feel like I don’t know who I am.

To make matters worse, I met someone and we had a brief but incredibly intense attachment (it was emotional cheating, not physical. Still horrible, I know, please don’t judge me right now). I felt like this person was everything I had ever been looking for. Colours suddenly became brighter, music sounded good, and food tasted better because of her. It didn’t last because we are both in relationships and frankly we were “too real.” This person was my mirror - same philosophy on life, same goals, same fears, same tastes, same sadness but yearning for joy.

I don’t know what to do from here. Status quo feels like death and the wrong path. I don’t know how to move forward and that’s the first time that’s ever happened in my life.