being married to an adoptee

@cfiedler, if you are still following this thread...I might be able to offer some perspective on your husband. I'm a 39 yo man, adopted at birth, and married/divorced twice. In recent years I've come to realize that I definitely have issues stemming from my adoption, which have influenced all my relationships, be it family, friendships or romantic. I have always kept people at a distance to varying degrees, never really opening myself up completely to anyone. I've always sort of stood alone, even when I wasn't. I have a great adoptive family, have and have had great friends, and have had great romantic partners in my life, BUT I still stand alone. The only exception being my daughter.While both women I was married to had some issues of their own, which contributed to our problems as a couple, if I'm honest with myself, my emotional detachment from them is what ultimately lead to our divorcing, or at the very least, started the ball rolling in that direction.Like you mentioned about your husband and you, in the beginning of both relationships/marriages I was different. I will just focus on my second marriage, as it was the most prominent, and most life changing... In the beginning we were best friends, talked about everything, I was completely open and comfortable, deeply in love with her, and felt like I had finally found the person that would "complete" me (in retrospect no one should need another person to complete them, IMO).Within a couple of years, probably less, I started to pull away, was often unhappy, depressed or worried, self medicated with alcohol and was very isolated emotionally. The more I pulled away, the more she tried to "fix" it, with sex, elaborate meals, kindness, compliments... whatever she could think of to get through to me. And I know now, that it made her feel like I didn't love her anymore, or that I wasn't attracted to her etc. None of which was the case, none of it had anything to do with her, or what she was/wasn't doing for me. I didn't love her any less than I had before, and until it became apparent to me that she had given up and was pulling away herself (I'm sure it started long before I realized it), I never for a second even considered that we wouldn't spend the rest of our lives together.So why did things change? The bottom line is that I have always struggled with self worth issues, self doubt, fears of not being good enough, and fears of losing everything. In the beginning of a new relationship you can't help but be happy... You're in love, this amazing person wants to be with you and loves you. Those feelings temporarily masked all those fears and doubts, and propped me up emotionally, but they were still there. And once the excitement and newness of the relationship started to fade, and we settled into our life together, they slowly made their way back to the forefronts of my thoughts. I cant offer any logical explanation for why I pulled away and cocooned myself emotionally, as it only served to make my fears come true, but I guess subconsciously I thought I was protecting myself. I wanted to be a good husband, and in some ways I was, but I could never really bring myself to be who she needed me to be, or who I wanted to be for her.We had a very loooong, drawn out breakup, filled with short lived reconciliations, and once it was finally over for good, I had a complete emotional breakdown, with extreme feelings of abandonment. I literally felt like a little boy who couldnҒt find his mom. I was lost and scared, and felt more alone than I ever had. And I can remember thinking to myself, this isnt normal, this isnҒt how you are supposed to feel when a relationship ends. I certainly had reason to be sad, hurt and lonely, but what I was feeling went way beyond any feelings I had in the past when a relationship ended. I dont know how else to describe it other than I felt like an abandoned child. It wasnҒt until then that I ever acknowledged the negative feelings about being adopted that I had been dragging behind me my whole life. And I realized that I had in fact let her inӔ, more than I had ever let anyone in, which I think is why it was so devastating I just never showed her, or rather I showed her too late.You mentioned that your husband seems to lack on the emotional side of things and never wants to talk about issuesŅ I cant speak for him, but me personally҅ I would consider myself very emotional, and feel things deeply, maybe more so that the average man. Youd be hard pressed to find anyone who agrees with that statement about me, but itҒs true none the less, I just typically have an inexplicable mental block when I comes to showing it. So just because he doesnt show it, it doesnҒt necessarily mean he isnt feeling it.You also mentioned that it is like he is comfortable where he is at, in regards to you trying to find help for him. Being comfortable = safe, or a perceived notion of safe, but it does not necessarily mean happy. Confronting your issues and dealing with them is scary, itҒs easier to ignore them and pretend like they dont exist. When you do confront them, you might not feel ғsafe so to speak, but it is empowering and very much worth it. Taking that leap from denial to confrontation can be extremely difficult to do.I donԒt know what ways, if any, my feelings and experiences mirror your husbands, but hopefully some of it resonates with you and helps put some things into perspective. The best advice I could offer is to do whatever you can to get him to start dealing with his issues, the start of which is acknowledging that they exist. Talking to a psychologist can be very liberating, if you can get him to go. I would caution you though, that trying to force or pressure someone to confront their issues, can drive them away further, BUT most people will not confront them until they have no choice.I would also google ғpsychological effects of adoption, or something similar, if you havenԒt already. Once I started reading clinical papers written on the subject, and heard what other adoptees had to say, I was really able to start identifying all the different things Ive felt throughout my life, and it has helped me understand my own behavior. If you can get him to read some of it, it may help him to acknowledge his own feelings, which is easier to do when you know youҒre not the only one who feels that way.Most people have some issues in one form or another, and to varying degrees As husbands and wives, I think itŒs important to be supportive, patient and understanding of our spouses issues, and it sounds like you are, but no one should be expected to bear the brunt of those issues permanently, IMO. Your husband needs to acknowledge that they exist, and want to work on putting them to rest, so that you both can have a happy and fulfilling life together.This post got away from me, but I wanted to be as thorough as I could be. If you have any specific questions, or want to talk to me, feel free to message me.