Here's a million dollar question for you wives/girlfriends who have had any relationship counseling to try and get your partner to communicate: is there anything that works, or do they have to open up on their own?
Even now, in the middle of our marriage crisis (read my thread "Have I finally had enough?"), my husband acts like nothing is wrong, and has said nothing more than he doesn't want me to leave, and that he "can't do it on his own." What about what drove him to violence in the first place? What about how he's feeling, what he's thinking? The first year of our relationship, he would talk about everything, his feelings included, but when I got pregnant with our first son four and a half years ago, our "friendship" ended. I went through a gambling crisis half way through that pregnancy, partially because he had withdrawn, and I had no one in the state to lean on (it was a bad pregnancy). I know I lost his respect then, and he took me off the "pedestal" he had me on, but nothing like that has happened since. I feel I have more than earned his trust back, and he knows why I turned to the casino in the first place.
Regardless, it's now I need help with. I am tired of one sided conversations. I am tired of getting one word answers to my questions. I am tired of hearing "What do you want me to say?". How do I get him to open up, or is it hopeless?