Is it normal for husbands to just not find their own wife interesting?
I rarely talk to my husband about anything outside of our children or other shared experiences (family, neighbors). He has no interest in my work life, trips I've taken without him (Panama for work, mountains with oldest son, volunteer trips to St. Judes and New Orleans) but will spend 30 minutes telling me one story about hunting, fishing or a sporting event.
I rely mostly on my friendships and other family to feed the part of me that needs connection and conversation. I have almost zero expectations of my husband when it comea to this. When I do tell him something, it's usually something really interesting or funny and I get right to the point. But, I'm resentful after years of this double standard.
Examples:
Got home after 2-week work trip to Panama shortly after getting married about 10 years ago. I honed in on telling him we went to the rainforest and had monkeys jumping in our boat and fed them. I left out interesting stories about the people I worked with and saved that for my friends. He didn't act one bit interested, no questions but then proceeded to spend 30 min telling me every detail about things he purchased at the grocery store and what he did while I was gone.
Today, my older son and I returned from a 4-day road trip with some crazy adventures in the mountains. Husband is a wildlife and nature guy so I thought kust maybe he would be interested. He spent 26 min telling every detail of the football game he took our younger son to as well as the bus rode there. He was almost completely inattentive while I showed a handful of beautiful mountain pictures and talked about some drama getting up this 9,000 ft mountain. After less than 5 min, I gave up and just clammed up. He was probably releived.
I would maybe be inclined to think he has some kind of issue (Aspergers, ADHD, etc...) due to his own overly/needlessly detailed tales, except he pays attention to his friends and hangs on their every word.
I should have known what I was getting into because while we were engaged he would use the term "care factor low" which he saw as a polite warning as in,"Before you get too far into telling me about that work story just wanted to give you a heads up that my care factor there is low." Yeh.
Even recently I was on the local news being interviewed alongside my best friend who was battling breast cancer and was laid off while her husband underwent major surgery. It was a beautiful piece anput helping others. He never asked to watch the 2 1/2 min video, never even asked me how it went.
One time I was so desperate for connection, I was reading a hilarious spoof Christmas letter from one of his friends. I thought since it was about one of his friends he would also be interested. Yay, shared interest is good. If it was from one of my friends I wouldn't evwn have bothered. I said,"Wow, your friend is a great writer. Listen to these two paragraphs..." I read the two paragraphs aloud and laughed along the way. Silence. I looked up and he had actually walked away. I sat down to eat my dinner alone and quietly had tears streaming down my cheeks. He came back downstairs and said,"Hey sorry had to get some other things done. You said you were only reading two paragraphs but it seemed lile a lot more. I just cried silently and told him it was hurtful and embarrassing. I felt foolish. He became defensive and told me to not read things to him again then. Believe me, I'd never make that mistake again...silly me.
So those are a lot of examples and are still the tip of the iceburg. I'm so resentful of the double standard of showing interest in the minutiae of his life while having no reciprocation. I'm tired of being made to feel so unworthy of attention and care. We have our children and we have good sex (the only two areas where he's not completely selfish). But, I already have such small expectations on this area. It just seems so wrong that I've been forced to have zero expectations of connecting, conversing and sharing.