I don’t do well with guys being expressive. What needs to change?
Growing up, I had a lot of trauma around noise/strong emotion. My parents were pretty non expressive unless something was wrong. Loud noises / yelling always meant something very bad.
I’ve found with multiple past partners or romantic prospects that them being loud in normal ways (getting excited and screaming, like at a sports match at home, or just getting animated during a story and getting loud) really makes me shut down. It makes me recoil internally and not want to be around them.
I’ve really tried to work on this. I’ve tried telling past partners about this and asking they not raise their voice too much when they’re right next to me, my most recent ex felt like I was stifling his ability to express emotion how he wanted (which is super fair). I’ve tried just ignoring it and almost doing the dissociate-y thing I would do growing up. I’ve been in therapy and am generally doing much better, but I’ve made very little progress on this.
Does this just mean I need to date someone non-expressive? There’s someone I’m interested in that has voiced interest in me, but he gets very loud when he’s excited and I almost feel that’s a total deal breaker at this point.
Posted Sep 28, 2026, 4:32 AM UTC