I Believe Life Is a Life Long Lesson

@firefall I'm not like that. I don't think its an either or thing.

Its something where some people seem to have really just given up on real life and they don't even know it but anyone around them DOES.

@Stilltryinghard what do you define as real life?

eta: I'm sorry, I thought you were asking a philosophical question, not one related to your specific situation - if this is your husband/partner and you're feeling excluded or ignored, well, I assume you've tried to talk your feelings over with him repeatedly to no effect.

So, time to go out and live your life without him: find someone else to hang out with, go to movies or on walks with. Not necessarily a lover, just someone who is interested, the way your husband isn't.

And as to what he's hiding away from? too many possibilities, I'm afraid - maybe he has identity issues he wont/cant confront, maybe shouldering the responsibilities of adulthood are too scary for him, maybe this is his expression of deep depression.

@firefall well certainly not buzzed out in front of a dusty TV screen watching people who don't give a rats ass about U and meanwhile not giving a damn if the world ends or the little woman in the house either.

Hope that clarifies things.

@firefall we don't like one another. I am here only because he didn't care if I came here or not when I was in an emergency situation...I knew him decades ago and so he was not really a stranger, and other than that, we are in separate universes.

I can't find how to have a life when I have to come home to this neglect which actually feels abusive.

I am past 70 and have zero money and no job skills to get any kind of comparable living situation so I stay cause the pets are here and the garden etc...instead of dirty sidewalks and a warehouse to eat in and maybe a shopping cart to push and a homeless camp to live in.

Anyone would opt for this nightmare instead.

Yup.

@Stilltryinghard Ahh. That's terrible, to have such bad choices, I am sorry to hear it. If your housemate is of comparable age, he might just feel defeated and pointless without having a job, a purpose for his life?

@firefall He has two jobs and two sources of pension, all being collected by him now. I never said otherwise. Meanwhile I don't have enough skills to buy my way out of here so I am enslaved in a kind of way as an involuntary caretaker when he doesn't care about himself the house or us, let alone me alone.

Its a ghastly situation but if I hadn't been here for the last 15 years I would be dead or in a homeless camp.

And really the ONLY difference between this and a typical bad marriage is that we don't love one another, we don't touch one another and we aren't pretending to care. We are just stuck with each other.