Hello - my first post here.


So it's come full circle. As a young boy, I just felt so lonely and ignored - I was just crying all the time. I had parents who worked hard and did what they thought was right. So it seemed all fine.


Now at the age of 37, I'm still lonely and ignored - I just don't cry all the time. I have a partner and we've been together for 20 years - he probably doesn't know better. So it seems all fine.

I'm known as the emotionally distant one, the one who doesn't want or need any affection. I have probably shown emotion once in the 20 years (and even that was mostly for show so that I didn't seem like a monster who had no emotions when my mom passed away).

I've been trying for weeks to express how I'm feeling to my partner (following some counselling), but I'm constantly dismissed or the conversation is turned around to be about him. I've asked him to read some things on CEN and this ended up being completely dismissed (and turned around to be about him because he had an abusive father). I keep saying to him that I'm not trying to compete, I just need him to hear me, I just want to feel like I matter! The conversation has been ended days ago and now he is acting like nothing happened.


How do I get him to just understand? How do I get him to help me to just talk about things...anything to do with me, it doesn't even have to be the CEN!


I can't be the only person who have done this and basically recreated my lonely childhood surrounded by people who are supposed to love me in my adult relationship. Is there a way we are supposed to deal with it? I want to try and fix it (mostly because we're stuck in a house together for a while), but should I just give it up and find someone who actually won't ignore me (I say this after huge amounts of turmoil because I have stuck around for years for fear of hurting him, even though it's to the detriment of my own happiness!!)?