personality disorders
Hello everyone,
I have been doing a lot of reading on the web, to try to understand my partner's behaviour...it seems to me that there is a lot of crossover, but I'd like to explain some of his behaviours, to see if there is a general concensus here!
To begin with he has always wanted our relationship to be secret (for a year and a half) to the extent where he will ignore me in the street if he is with someone he knows. If he is alone, he will greet me, sometimes warmly and sometimes fairly coldly. I am supposed to not question this. He is single, 36 years old, lives at home with his sister and parents. He is very shy on one level, in intimate and personal relations...he reveals nothing to anybody about himself, but if something, as he would say, 'high level' comes up he wants to be centre stage..eg; we have a smalltown fashion show every year...he diets to the extreme as 'to be a model, you must be thin'...if I chuckle at him, he doesn't like it at all. If I try to discuss our relationship in even the smallest detail, he 'ends it' as I am 'not satisfied' ... He is extremely secretive about his whole life, with everybody. He will disappear for a weekend and I and friends are supposed to accept that it is 'a secret'. He is described by most people as 'shy, strange, nice, inexperienced, a boy not a man' yet when asked by a male friend why I have to be a secret, he replies seriously 'Because I don't want my reputation as a playboy to be damaged'...People laugh about him behind his back. He has unreasonable responses to criticism...stopped speaking to me because a mutual friend asked him how I was...he took this a me having breached his 'privacy'...the same when a friend invited him to a party. He sometimes says he is 'pyschotic' but if anyone else questions his mental health, he will give the silent treatment. He NEVER asks questions about me or other people and is very uncomfortable if emotional subjects, such as a friends illness is brought up..seems like it embarrasses him. He seems to resent any feelings he has...including sexual ones...he will say things like 'look what you make me do' when he becomes sexually aroused, and after sex is extremely uncomfortable, unrelaxed and anxious and has to leave. One time, I looked up to find his head in a very rigid and contorted position at the top of the bed...when I gave him a pillow, he got up and left.
In a group he is usually silent...very occasionally he will talk endlessly about art or wine or the state of the country. He makes himself very 'important' with a voluntary job at the local museum...no time for 'life'...also works as a supply teacher and adores being adored by 15 and 16 year old girls and hangs out with teenage boys at the bar. He told me 'Your problem is, you want too much affection'.
His sister and parents are little known in this small town...an unusual feat! People tell me his father beat the kids and his mother is crazy...yet they all still live together. He has never had a girlfriend before, most people think only one previous sexual encounter years ago, a one night stand which devestated him when she wanted to leave it at that...His sister also has never had a relationship (at 37) He likes to use humour, irony and sarcasm to belittle me... He seems to 'forget' things he has said only a day before...eg; can I bring you a coffee? ...'No, I don't drink coffee, it discolours my teeth'...next day, 'I need another coffee' ... plays games, not replying to texts etc, then replying 2 days later saying it only just arrived...Currently not talking to me, I have no reason why... I feel like I am living in a crazy world where even a cup of coffee is a precarious and unsteady subject matter...everything changes, all the time...even his voice, depending on who he is speaking with....Help gratefully received, thanks!