He Doesn't Share His Feelings Anymore
Here is a frequent question we get asked when doing seminars: "Why is it so hard for my husband to share his feelings? We used to talk more."
Well, it's very likely that your husband is the Head partner in your relationship. That means that you’re the Heart-led partner.
Quick aside, if you’re new to our work:
If you’ve been to one of our seminars, taken our online course or read The Couples Rulebook, you’ll remember that every relationship has a Heart (feeling-based) partner and a Head (thought based) partner. In older generations, about 75 percent of men are Head-led, while most women tended to be Heart-led. This dynamic is what lead to so many misconceptions about relationships and gender roles in relationships over the past century. People assumed that men did certain things because they were men. In reality, it was more an indicator of decision-making style (thought or feeling - or “Head” or “Heart”) than just a gender trait. Basically, men were trained to stuff emotion down. They were raised to believe that showing emotion was a weakness. This - at a human level - was a handy survival tool during the Great Depression and a lot of wars but it was not the best mental health management tool in day-to-day life. Our work with couples has shown that these old gender-based relationship beliefs can be harmful to relationships in the long run. Additionally, younger generations - Millennials and younger - aren’t falling into the old gender roles. In fact, about 45 percent of younger men are Heart-led these days, which means the old “men are from Mars” approaches just don’t work any more. Generally, opposites attract in decision-making styles in relationships so there’s one Heart and one Head in every relationship (though the roles can and do change).
Heads tend to process all of their feelings internally. As the Head-led partner, your husband probably has already had an internal conversation to decide if he can or should share what he’s feeling. By the time the internal processing is done, Heads have generally arrived at an answer for how they should address the feeling. At that point, most heads see no need to share the feeling because it’s already figured out. For the Head-led partner, talking about emotions would mean that there is a ‘problem’ with having the emotion. For this reason, Heads don’t typically talk about their feelings. Meanwhile, Hearts tend to process their emotions out loud. Discussing emotions for a Heart is a way to create bonding and connection with others. Basically, Hearts talk about their feelings because it helps resolve the feeling for them and it helps build a connection with the other person. This tends to be why Hearts talk more and Heads tend to be less communicative. Remember, NEITHER PARTNER IS WRONG - they’re just doing it differently.
Early on in relationships (the attraction phase), the brain is flooded with dopamine and other positive chemicals. In these moments, everybody is more Heart-like. If you and your husband used to spend time talking but he doesn’t do that anymore, it may just be that his brain is adapting to having less dopamine than when you were dating. If that sounds like it fits, you might find that more frequent sex can help - it triggers all that dopamine and puts Head-led thinkers back in touch with their positive feelings (making them more likely to open up about the other feelings too). Other ways to increase dopamine in the Head partner's brain are to increase compliments or provide public praise of them (like saying something nice about him to your friends when you know he'll overhear it).
Keep at it. Communication leads to deeper connection for Hearts and greater appreciation for Heads. It's a learning process and it requires constant adjustment but learning basic relationship communication skills will change everything.
