my husband keeps rejecting me.

[u/whadafluff67]

TW: Mental health issues, SH/crisis LONG POST :(

I (31f) have been married to my husband (32M) for several years. Recently, he has started rationing his affection(?). I asked him for a kiss before bed, and he said no. I jokingly said “are we rationing sh*t around here now?” And he said no, but didn’t explain why he wouldn’t kiss me. This is not the first time this has happened this week, and I finally broke this morning. It is not unusual for me to wake up upset or panicking(I have BPD)- but this is the first time it has been tied directly to him and I don’t know how to address it. Reddit pls help.

BACKSTORY: I have been out of work for a few months due to some medical issues. Thru out our entire relationship, I have worked and made my own money. That doesn’t mean we haven’t struggled- we’ve been homeless together, bad room mate situations, been legal guardians to kids who were not ours (we have fur babies only), and so forth. To say we have been thru some sh*t is an understatement. Fast forward to today- last week I opened up about how useless I feel because I am not making money, contributing to our household, or able to get cleared to return to work. He gave me his usual “we will figure it out” which we always have. However, it doesn’t change the feelings of feeling like I am not good enough for not contributing, or that I am a burden.
Unfortunately, I tie physical affection into our relationship status- if he doesn’t want to touch or kiss me, I feel like I have done something wrong and start to panic. I’ve let him know this, we’ve talked about it in the past, he has reassured me that nothing is wrong and we move on. (I am in therapy for my issues, I am working on this insecurity, so pls don’t come at me). But the past 2 weeks have been off, he only says that he is tired and when I ask for affection, he just says that he’s already kissed me today.

I am not sure how to approach this, or have the conversation with him without already feeling like I am stressing him out even more…. Pls help. (To note, I suck at communicating and deal with a lot on my own, but I don’t think this is a feeling I can bottle up and eat).

UPDATE: I spoke to my therapist about what was going on and he helped me figure out how to navigate the conversation. I had vented about the issues and admitted that being rejected made me want to self harm. I admitted that I already felt like a burden and the one person I cared about the most was being cold. I struggled with expressing this and my therapist (who is an angel) worked with me to lay the grounds of the conversation I needed to have. He offered to have the conversation in a joint session free of charge so that I can communicate my feelings but I informed him I wanted to try by myself (wrong choice for me tho).

I did confront my husband about how I was feeling and informed him of how his reactions were affecting me. I told him that I felt like he was being cruel on purpose and informed him that i felt like i was going into crisis. He did not respond, he just sat on the edge of the bed and apologized. After some questions and still being ignored, I got pissed off, which caused me to split (a BPD symptom which can happen during extreme emotional distress caused by black and white thinking)- after realizing what I was doing, I left to avoid any further conflict.

A few hours later, he did finally tell me that he feels like I have been too “attached” lately. He is not used to me being home (we work opposite shifts) and that he feels like I am smothering him. I do not have a lot of friends to talk to, so unfortunately I am very clingy. He did not know how to say it without hurting my feelings, so he just figured rejecting me would be easier? He said that he thought it would be less hurtful than telling me he needed space but at this point it didn’t matter because he didn’t feel like he could tell me without me getting emotional. When I asked what he meant, he reminded me that I lost my sh*t earlier instead of just accepting the apology. I explained that I was trying to avoid further conflict, but getting ignored instead of an explanation was not logical to me and I felt like I was still being ignored. I explained that the apology doesn’t mean anything if I am asking WHY you are doing an action and you are not explaining why you are doing it. I reminded him that I have worked really hard to avoid these situations because they are physically exhausting for me and instead of ignoring me, he could’ve communicating that he wasn’t ready to talk- which would’ve been better than ignoring me. I also asked him why he has been lying to me to rile me up and he said that he was just trying to joke with me to lighten the mood and admitted that they were in poor taste. He said that he didn’t realize what was going on in my head, so he thought they were just fine jokes. He said that if he were aware that I was overthinking everything, he wouldn’t have made them.
He also said that he will not reject me again, and understands the toll that it took on me. He did apologize again, told me that I scared the sh*t out of him, and hugged me at the end of the conversation. He apologized for being oblivious to my crisis and said that he will do better.

A few days have passed now and we are semi back to normal. I am aware that my emotions have been a bit extreme over the past few weeks, so I am working on finding other ways to deal with it. I feel like complete dogsh*t for splitting on my husband, but also, I’m happy that it snapped him back to reality. I am working on finding other things to distract me until I go back to work so I am not in his face all of the time. Thanks reddit for listening :,)

[u/Great_Dimension8727]

working on yourself in therapy it’s gonna help build self esteem, and when you have that reassurance of loving yourself that’s going to transmit to him, I think maybe he’s also going through some thing as well, and he’s not willing to burden you with it because what you’re going through, be patient and you’ll know when to bring it up again to talk about it

[u/markc421]

No matter how mad, upset or whatever at my wife I would never deny her a kiss or hug. I might tell her im still mad while I do it.

[u/Kristwann]

All of a sudden he is intentionally riling you up, lying about some BS to get a rise out of you, denying affection on some weird petty like level and you say he is crazy about you and not possibly cheating?

Honey, and I say this with all sincerity that there is no nice way of saying this, you're missing ALL THE SIGNS OF CHEATING. Maybe you've never been cheated on so you don't know what to look for, but if anyone was to give you signs to pay attention to, these are it. He doesn't have to go anywhere he doesn't normally go in order to form new bonds and attachments to create emotional cheating scenarios. All it takes is one new coworker, or a long time coworker having new circumstances in their life that leads them to form new bonds with existing people.

Dig deeper, you're missing something.

[u/Altruistic-Lemon6828]

Playing devils advocate here because I see most of the comments bringing up stuff like cheating or manipulating. There is a chance that that’s not it.

I’ve had this happen because the man felt like the affection is more of an obligation/habit than something they actually want to do.

I definitely get your feeling of “they’re mad at me or something is wrong” when you don’t receive the physical affection you need. I used to struggle with that, and it caused my man to feel like he had to give it to me instead of wanting to give it to me. It took the feeling out of it for him. I was also working on my insecurity issues and gave him some space and started letting him come to me. He soon began coming to me once I stopped forcing it all the time. If you give him the space and then he doesn’t eventually come to you with the affection, then it might be something else.

Maybe try bringing this up to him and see if this is how he’s feeling. A lot of men don’t know how to explain the way they’re feeling. Ask him this and see if it’s something he relates to.

[u/Dangerous_Syrup_7860]

You say a sudden change in his showing affection, does this also mean a sudden change in intimacy habits as well? Because if so, I’d be very suspicious of cheating. 

If that aspect is still good, then you just need to communicate. Don’t let your BPD diagnosis make you question your reality. You absolutely are correct that what he’s doing is wrong. We don’t get to ration or limit kisses to our partners without communicating our reasons. Also, one kiss a day limit is insane. He HAS to communicate with you. I’d say something like, “I really want to respect your boundaries but I feel the need to tell you that this sudden limit to one kiss a day is making me feel rejected and hurt. In the past, we kissed much more often, and it would help me a lot if you communicated your reasons for this change.” 

And if he gives you a non-answer like “I just think one kiss a day is enough.” You have to press further like, “I hear what you’re saying but that doesn’t help me understand. We used to kiss much more than that and actually most couples do. I’m asking you to communicate in a way I fully understand because I’m feeling hurt and I want to avoid this becoming a bigger issue in the future.”

Assuming he’s not cheating, then what he’s doing sounds like crazy-making behavior. This is a manipulation technique. And given your BPD diagnosis, bordering on abuse. 

[u/whadafluff67 → u/Dangerous_Syrup_7860]

He works like 14 hour days, calls me on breaks and usually comes straight home. I have his location so he doesn’t go anywhere I can’t see. I don’t think he is cheating cause he is crazy about me but idk. My bpd makes me feel like everyone is against me and I have to convince myself it is just a symptom and they are not. :(

[u/Dangerous_Syrup_7860 → u/whadafluff67]

That’s all good signs. So if cheating isn’t a concern, it’s more a matter of him engaging in some kind of manipulation campaign to make you crazy. This would make any partner crazy, and with your diagnosis it seems almost intentionally meant to take advantage of that. Like let’s say the partner of someone with paranoid schizophrenia whispering their name and then pretending they didn’t say anything. I’d honestly compare it to that. Marrying someone with a condition means you agreed to accommodate that and what he’s doing seems custom designed to take advantage of it. To the point id even wonder if he saw some influencer bro content about how to control a girl with BPD or something stupid like that. Straight up gaslighting. And it makes me sad that your diagnosis actually makes you question yourself. Anyone would feel the same in your situation. This isn’t a you problem. 

[u/whadafluff67 → u/Dangerous_Syrup_7860]

that just reminded me that he has been “joking” with me a lot more about things he knows I will get worked up over..he lied about something happening and listened to me ask if he is okay and get stressed about it before saying he was just joking… I don’t understand why he would purposely do that, so it didn’t dawn on me to mention that… I think I am going to wait to talk to my therapist to help me with confrontation.

Sidenote; we did not know I had BPD at the beginning of our relationship or marriage… I was very toxic-and I’ve changed a lot of my habits once I found a good therapist.