Emotion

I said, "I am going to grow up.  I am going to stop letting my emotions rule me.  I will feel the emotion.  Stop to think of what and why that emotion is with me.  What I want to do about the emotion.  Then I will let the emotion go.  I permitted the ideas and feelings of romance and love and art and sensitivity be part of who I am too much.  I must stop that now and be mature and be accountable for my own emotional well-being."    He said, "You and I are the exact opposites.  You have too much emotion.  I have none at all.  I try to feel emotion, but I can't"  

This I suspected for a long time but didn't want to accept.  He does not feel shame, guilt, love, joy, regret.   He says things that are an attempt to make him "look" like a person with normal feelings. He distracts any deep conversations and turns to jokes, sarcasm, or argument to hide this.  This is not ADD I don't think.  But this is what I had been battling.  I am learning more about functional psychopaths.  It has been hard to be married to someone who is just acting and reciting words to make him "seem" like he has feelings....sentimental even.  But this is the real reason dh does not come through for us long term.  This is why he is not motivated long term to any promise. There is no feeling of love and care or guilt or shame to keep him motivated longer than his need to seem to the world and to himself like he has normal feelings of love and care and compassion and responsibility.  He says the words, puts on the act for a little while and then he is done with it...mission accomplished as far as his mind is concerned because he only needed to get through the conversation "seeming" like a nice guy.

This is the reason he does not even respect me, much less love me.  He has manipulated me without shame to take care of him. Then looks down on me for being a maleable rube.  I am saying this with sadness.  It is something for me to grieve the truth I had been not wanting to accept.  I have given my children a father unable to share real feelings and it scares me to wonder what effect this will have on their lives.