I've been lurking on this forum for a while now. Great stuff here. I guess my question deals with emotional needs and how to manage conflict. Of course this is my take on things and I realize my perception is not necessarily the true reality but just the way I see it.

My husband has been promising to repair the ceiling in our kitchen for many many months. The last three or four days he has left home going to Home Depot to get a tool, a part, something. He leaves, stays gone for hours, returns with no part or tool. So, tonight he leaves going to Home Depot to get a part, he calls me back a while later to say that a friend of ours called him to say he is giving a Cabaret party on Friday and asked if I would like to go. I say yes. He says okay, I am going by his house to pick up the ticktes. Then he calls back a while later and asks me if I have anywhere to go (he is in my car, his truck is out of commission this weekend), because he wants to sit and chat with his friend for a little while. I say to him, here lately whenever you leave to go get a part you stay gone for hours. He got instantly peeved and said this is why I don't call home. [color:"red"] [/color] [color:"black"] [/color] [color:"black"] [/color] He says bye and hangs up the phone. He comes on home shortly after that and says here are the keys to your car, you know I try to do the right thing by calling home, I can't even sit and talk to my friend for a minute. He throws the keys on the table and walks back out of the door.

Does anybody see any dynamics going on here that I might be missing?

I would do some spying to see what he is up to. It is odd that he comes home with no part or tool. When my WH was cheating, he had the sense to at least come home with a screwdriver, after being gone all day.

LOL. Yeah, tonight when I made the comment about picking up a part and staying gone for hours, he said that the part was in the trunk of the car. Before I replied to this post, I checked for the part, he did have it.

My husband and I have big communication issues. I've read here about love languages and I think that ours are radically different. I've taken a few personality tests, but right now I couldn't tell you what the results were. However, I do know that my husband is way more social than I. He is very extroverted, while I am more introverted. I need down time, time alone. He on the other hand needs people around. This is just one example of our innate differences. Another one is I love to read, my husband rarely picks up a book. He'd rather watch a movie or listen to music and entertain friends. I love my husband, but not being able to communicate well is very hard on a relationship. I am a relationship person (well, of course, I'm a girl). Conversation is one of my emotional needs. I crave good conversation, I rarely get it from him. As I mentioned before, he is an extrovert, so of course he talks, but the things he and his friends talk about are of no value to me (is that mean?)

Read the emotional needs questionnaire here and try to figure out if you are meeting his top ones. Then see if he is meeting yours.

Do the two of you spend 15 hours a week doing fun things together?

We do not spend 15 hours a week doing fun things together.

Actually some weeks we do and you're right, the weeks that we do, the communication between us is so much better.

I tried a few years ago to get him to take the emotional needs questionnaire with me. I will attempt to do it again.

Question: For how long has your husband been doing these questionable Home Depot runs?

Just this last week.

The Harley's suggest 15 hours a week, having fun together.

Most men's top EN's are sex, and admiration. Sounds like your husband needs a bigger social life too.

If I were you, I would work on that. I'll tell you why. My WH is like yours - thrives on a social life. We were together 15 years, and had 8 kids between us. I love to stay home, and enjoyed caring for the kids, with all that involves - shopping, cooking, laundry, doctor appts., school and sports stuff.

Meanwhile, he went out a lot to see friends. Just as the kids starting getting on their own, he ran off with one of these "friends". She is 20 years younger than me, and left her daughter and husband to live with my husband.

Here's an idea, why don't you hop into the truck when he leaves to Home Depot. You both can shop for whatever is needed for the home improvements and spend some of that required 15 hrs together.

Make it an adventure and fun. Go out to lunch while out, someplace exotic and new. A new experience together. Meet some of his needs by praising him on his purchase choices to complete the home improvement work.

I think you both are right on the money. I will admire him more. He does thrive on admiration and attention. And I'll start to go along when he goes to Home Depot. I think he feels sometimes that I don't want to spend time with him. It's not that, but sometimes I am just bored with it. For example, the movies he likes to watch, I don't. I am a romantic, I like romance, comedy, some suspense and action. He likes horror and bloody action. He calls the movies I like, sissy movies (lol). And again the things we talk about are not deep, I want to go deep. He gets defensive whenever I try to take our communication to a more profound level.

We've been together for over 30 years. So needless to say there have been mountains to climb. Infidelity, money problems, probably the whole gamut. I wish we could do Radical Honesty, but it might destroy us.

I do understand what you're saying about RH may destroy your marriage, but I disagree.

I think the lack of RH has placed you where you are, and could very well contribute to further marriage damage.

Different tastes - the difference between men and women. I'm like you - WH and I never agreed on movies.

But there has to be some things that you can do together. Can you invite folks over to the house for football, poker, etc? You can just do the snacks, and won't have to socialize that much.