19.11.2014 by Prsma
Hi guys,
I made an account a while ago but didn't really pursue this as I thought I was over reacting.
I am a 24 year old male with a 30 year old fiancée (she looks younger than me), a 18 month old child and another on the way. I am an ex Semi-Pro gamer and huge gaming/esports enthusiast. I scored a worrying 170 on the questionnaire despite thinking I was being slightly lenient with it.
During the course of my 3 year relationship with my partner we have encountered a few struggles all because of myself. Before I explain why let my tell you that my partner was bought up in a rough household and is not a very affectionate person, whereas my family have always been very loving.
Being bought up around it, I've always been affectionate when greeting family and some close friends, just hugging them to say hi. But for my partner it is the complete opposite. At the start of our relationship we were both affectionate but as time progressed and we got comfortable she went back to her ways and I thought I had kept it up. This is when I started making trouble for myself, I started looking at other girls pictures which led to the first big argument. After she confronted me about it all I could do was sit there and do nothing, I couldn't move, I couldn't talk, I just did nothing. This naturally made the whole situation much worse and dragged it out. After a while I finally was about to talk but not much and put my wandering eyes down to my being a man and finding the female form very attractive. This happened a second time with the same ending not being able to find anything to say and when I do I can't find the right words to say.
Then most recently my partner found I had a couple of dating site accounts that were not from before our relationship start. These were rarely used, I made these in what I believe was an effort to gain some attention for not receiving much affection from my partner. This caused the worst argument we've had as obviously it looked like I was trying to cheat. That is not the case, not only could I not bring myself to do that I have no general desire to do so.
This led to to think about myself and my life more closely which led me back here. After reading about Alexi more and more I began to see things that made so much sense and further reading some peoples posts I found one that sounded exactly like me to a tee. ChadP - http://www.alexithymia.us/forum_Tell+someone%3A+.html?topicid=301&pageid=
I am so laid back that I don't give a fuck about much and I have huge difficulty reading/understanding what people are feeling. Most of the time when my partner is mad at me for anything I don't know why and I don't feel any emotion towards her and I actually don't care what's happening. I'd just move myself away from the issue put my headphones on and either detach myself into a game or put music on so I can't hear anything.
This part of his post really connected with me:
"difficulty identifying feelings and distinguishing between feelings and the bodily sensations of emotional arousal"
Thats the sinking feeling I get in my stomach when I know I should feel emotion but instead I "swallow" it.
The bodily sensations of emotional arousal.
Sex between me and my partner for me just feels like sex, I do my best to 'make love' and be passionate but I just can't do it. For me it always feels so pointless and I just try and get to the 'point'
Through my late teens, early 20's I was never interested or bothered about sex, I lost my virginity when I was 18 in a 1 night stand which furthered my lack of interest in it. Since then my relationships have never been very sexual and affectionate.
Basically what I don't want to happen is for things to get much worse. After everything that has happened with me my partner is trying to completely forgive me and forget about what has happened but also now is trying to be understanding of the Alexithymia. Ultimately I don't want this to start affected things between my son and my on the way daughter, also for things to deteriorate between myself and my partner. I know I'm on my last chance now and as much as I know what I shouldn't be doing I don't know if it's something I can control.
Anyway it's been good writing this out proved slightly easier to write out then it would have to talk about it, but it still took me over an hour to think how to word things.
Would love to hear from people with experiences similar to mine if any, and also any advice if people have any.