@Susan C.: Welcome to the boards. Maybe you would like to register and chat with us. I found it to be extremely helpful.
How does your guy act when not on a trip? Does this bring out the worst in him so to speak? Does he struggle with crowd maybe in the airport or shopping centre or tourist attraction or another place you want to go?
@everybody planing a trip. Maybe some good for thoughts. There are some guys, who are pretty difficult to read. I am with a guy who dislikes crowds. He typically is not one to get loud, but instead he often cancelled something with a flimsy excuse and when I got angry he gave me a stoneface and sometimes some kind of "What is wrong with you? You are angry just because you have been looking forward for this for weeksand spend hours planing and I cancelled it with such a paltry excuse? Clearly it is that time of the month again. Women and their emotions".
Back then I did not know that this stone face sometimes is the expression of deepest sadness, sometimes of anger while other times just his default face. I just realized when we had an argument and then he had a tear running down his face and then some other tears. While he looked bored. Then I realized that it was his keeping it together face, because he does not want to appear sad or scared, he does not want to cry in front of other people, which in this case happened anyway.
Years ago my guy was feeling suicidal. He felt he could not cope with crowds and he could not reach out and talk about how bad it was. At this time I knew he had problems with crowds but I had no idea just how bad it was and I wish I knew I would have acted very different.
Everybody out there who is feeling like this. Please reach out. There is no need to be ashamed. You are not alone. There are many men, many very manly men, going through this. There is the real possibility you might get better, my husband got so much better. Some days his fear of crowds is nearly gone and every day it is so much better than it used to be. Some people even get 100 percent better. I am sure one day my guy will be one of those. His feeling suicidal is competly gone. At least I hope so. He promised to tell me if it came back.
Please share with your spouse, with your loved ones, how you are doing, so they can adapt. You don't have to be very wordsy, my guy is never very wordsy about this and that's mega okay. If you feel you cannot talk just write a letter, does not have to be a very long letter, you are not running for the Pulitzer prices. Just a quick update on how you feel or a letter saying you need to talk but it is difficult to write about what "so please, spouse, just ask" are okay.
@spouses: I realized that it is not good to push my guy to do certain things. So we often visit family members for holidays and sometimes it just means, he stays in his room and plays video games while I do all the "going out" stuff with the family and sometimes he comes... both is okay!
Please keep in mind he may feel a lot worse then he admits or you can see from his face. He is not trying to be mean, at least in most cases. I know that it is. annoying. I tell you what I found helpful. I ask him if it is bad and we got "codenumbers" for how bad it is and when he says 9 or 10 I understand it is very bad and don't ask him and when he says 4 I knowing is not that bad and I can try to push him a bit.
