Angela, I agree that seeking counseling would be a good idea, since things seem to go downhill in your partnership pretty fast (and they needn´t).
I also agree that you and your husband´s communication can be improved. Personally, I´d recommend Marshall Rosenbergs "Non-violent communication".
Yes, the cooking thing appears to be a symptom rather than the problem - but possibly the problem can be spotted by taking a closer look at the cooking thing. We don´t know much about the things actually said, we don´t know much at all - so anything we can offer here are hypotheses (and they can be dead wrong).
In my observation, problems coming up after moving together aren´t that uncommon, and there´s a certain logic to it. Understanding this logic mightn´t remove the problems, but it might make them less painful:
Even though the persons haven´t changed, the circumstances have changed significantly. I am assuming that a couple typically moves together because they expect an increase in emotional closeness. But suddenly two things have changed:
1. You learn that there a differences between you that you haven´t seen before. Differences in dealing with things, differences in priorities, differences in problem solving - in big and small things.
2. On top, differences that you have acknowledged before (but that didn´t have much significance because they didn´t affect you mutually) suddenly do affect you - simply because you can´t evade them anymore. They happen in your home, they happen in a place that used to be your comfort zone, a place of convenience (and not a place of being challenged)... your place of retreat. You have to factually deal with them (which you didn´t have to do before).
Things each of them was perfectly able to manage on their own effortlessly and in their way, now become an interpersonal thing, part of a relationship. Like, every single person can easily take the garbage out, but now that they´ve moved together, it suddenly is a (possibly controversial) topic. Things you´ve never even paid attention to (say, how the toothpaste-tube has to be handled - you just did it the way you did it), may suddenly be subject to the interaction with the other person.
Result: That which you have done with the intention of creating and embracing more closeness, results in countless experiences of separation.
Does this mean there´s something wrong with one of the persons? No.
Do differences in the way two persons handle things mean that they don´t love the other person anymore? No.
Unless...one or both of the persons have problem differenciating between *appreciating an action or a performance of the other person* and "appreciating the person".
Here: Even if we assume for a moment that your cooking were really terrible and the products uneatable - this wouldn´t take away from your value as a person and from your loveability. "He hates/criicizes my cooking" in no way implies "He hates/criticizes me".
Now, maybe (just maybe) the mental connection "good wife/good woman/loveable person = good cook" is but yours, not his?
Thank you everyone for your words of advice. I have to admit i am insecure when it comes to cooking for him. I believe it is in part to the fact that he always talks about his mom, aunt and exgf cooking like it was the best ting but then doesn't like mine.
Again: He doesn´t like your cooking. So what? I´m sure there´s things he does that you don´t like or you don´t like the way he does them, or you don´t like the results. I´m sure there´s things he isn´t particularly good at.
We don´t love persons for their performances, do we?
I do wish he would appreciate the effort I put in it at least.
I don´t know, Angela. If he´d say "This tastes awful again, but it´s nice you keep trying." - would that really make things better for you?
It seems to me that it´s you who believes that being a bad cook might make you unloved or unloveable.
Rather, you are increasingly unsure about his love because he isn´t expressing his love for you in a way you are used to love being expressed.
he does not show emotions
Be careful what you wish for.
Experiencing a loved one´s uninhibited emotions (particularly the negative ones) can be devastating (and even more so to a person who tends to be insecure and tends to feel responsible for the other person´s emotions).
i would like some appreciation, some nice words, something. I think taht is why it affects me more than it should.That is why we are not intimate, i dont feel appreciated which makes me feel like I am not wanted.
In my experience, there are people who tend to feel that intimacy is a means or a prerequisite for experiencing and creating emotional closeness in a partnership, and there are people who tend feel that intimacy is the result of emotional closeness and can only be had if other needs or requirements have been met.
It´s obvious how a person of type A and a person of type B will mutually and increasingly frustrate each others´ need for closeness, as they will reject each others´ attempts at creating, demonstrating and embracing closeness - unless they find a way of empathically expressing their needs to each other and learning to understand how the other person rolls.
I wish you guys all the best!
