Hun, this man sounds just like my own father. He grew up in a military home with NUMEROUS things around him to mold a personality like this. There is no telling where and what all it came from. WE are molded from birth into who we are going to be for the most part.

My mother loved my dad despite his temper, negativity, anger issues. He died at 52. My mom poured her heart out to me, and said she never wanted to date a "mean type" again. She did love my dad, he just put her through so much. She loved him through and despite his flaws.

I am not going to tell you to leave your man. I understand about affairs of the heart.

Of course you can't change him. That leads me to the question. How much of it can YOU emotionally, physically put up with? I am a cuddler. I COULD not be with a man who can't cuddle. I wouldn't be able to deal.

My mom and dad fought profusely. I hated it. I never wanted to deal with that in my life. My SO is laid back, yet still assertive. He will say no to me, but I can change his mind.

My dad was a recovered alcoholic, but active gambler. I can tolerate some alcohol but not gambling. SO does not gamble.

It sounds to me like you are losing on all fronts, one POSITIVE thing. Your man was taught to show love with gifts. There is a book called the The Five Love Languages I read this book, and it really opened my eyes when dealing with relationships. I read ALOT of relationship material while I was a single NON-DATING mom for 8 years. It is a positive thing, because HE is telling you in his own language he loves you. For this to work, he has to show you in your love language he loves you.

The book suggested if two people express love differently, that the other mate responds with the same love language to "fill the other's love tank" and when their's is full, they have the ability to show you their love.

buy him a couple of gifts. send him gifts overseas. They don't have to be expensive. I have a feeling he would respond very positively to it. Then also tell him what you need. Tell him like this, " I really love receiving gifts from you, but I also need you to hug me, that is how I show love, and it means alot to me"

HUGS TO YOU. You are in a difficult position as the SO of a military person that is overseas, and in a tense relationship.

Thanks for all the replies, you guys, it really means a lot that you shared your personal experiences and wisdom.

At the risk of sounding like I'm backpedalling and defending him, I do need to say that I was very upset when I wrote that first post. I had waited days to hear from him, and he was tired and stressed out and it just wasn't the best time to talk. He is certainly not perfect, we have a LOT to work on if we want to stay together, and I can't defend the way that he treats me sometimes. But I figured I'd list a few of the good things about him so it didn't look so one-sided.

Oh, and about his childhood, he didn't have a terrible childhood...he was a military brat but his parents had a happy marriage and he's close with them. He has been cheated on a few times in past relationships, so between that and having to go away for a year at a time, his trust is shakey.

Anyways, here are some nice things about him, haha.

- He is a jealous person, but he knows this and actively tries to control it. The other day he told me that he's so lucky that he can be deployed and not worry about his girlfriend sleeping around and that he's never trusted a girl as much as me. That meant a lot coming from him.

- He's very supportive of me. During this weightloss process, he always tells me I'm beautiful and that he'll love me no matter what size I am. I'm in my last year of college, and he encourages me to do my best. He has offered to pay for my grad school if I choose to go. I ride horses, and he's always participated and supported that.

- He's VERY loving in his own way. Jendiet, I'm glad you brought up the 5 Languages of Love book. I haven't read it, but I do know the concept. He definitely shows his love by giving gifts, and while I appreciate the gifts, I have always felt awkward and bashful about recieving them. I've had to learn to accept them graciously, because this is how he shows his love. And they are very sweet personal gifts that are very thoughtful. If he showed his love by hugging and cuddling as enthusiastically as he gives gifts, we would never get anything done, we'd be cuddling so much, lol.

- He's sweet in his own Sean way. He may not be really overtly sweet, he definitely has his moments. He had flowers delivered exactly two months into the deployment with a really sweet note. If our song comes on the radio, he'll turn it up and sing it to me, haha. We have a scrapbook together, and he'll work on it with me and we'll talk about all the fun stuff we've done.

- And, we do share a lot of the same family values, same religious beliefs (or lack there of, haha), same political belifs, etc etc. I never had to worry about him having a commitment phobia or anything.

Anyways, sorry to ramble. I figured it was only fair to share some of the good things about him also. I was hurt when I wrote the OP, and all of it was true, but it was all the negative stuff from the relationship. We have things to work on, but he's not a bad guy entirely, haha.