- Image by jenny downing via Flickr
Before the flame completely dies out it can pay you to take stock of your relationship and ask yourself: Why Doesn’t My Husband Love Me Anymore? The helpful thoughts which follow may set you thinking about ways you can make a difference and stir those embers. Perhaps you could find another log to put on the fire?
——————————
Why Doesn’t My Husband Love Me Anymore? A List of Possible Reasons
By Leslie Cane
I often get emails from wives who have been either told by their husband that he has fallen out of love with them or he has been exhibiting cold, distant, standoffish behavior that leaves no doubt that the spark is fading. Many of these women have no idea how to proceed. They’ve tried many different tactics. They’ve tried to pour on the attention and affection, but sometimes the husband seems to like this even less.
They’ve tried to give him space or to have patience, but then things just keep right on deteriorating. And, they’ve tried playing hard ball and offering ultimatums or freezing him out as “two can play that game.” But, of course, in this scenario all you have are two people who are ignoring and avoiding each other.
In truth, most of these wives deep down want to save their marriage, but they just don’t know how to do it. How can you save your marriage if your husband no longer loves you? A marriage can’t exist without genuine loving feelings. I always respond by telling these women that it’s quite possible that their husband does still love them, but every day stresses begin to choke these feelings out. And, husbands begin to get caught up in semantics and categories rather than looking what is really going on and how to fix it. So, in the following article, I’ll offer a list of reasons why your husband supposedly may not love you anymore and then will offer tips on how to respond or fix this.
Reason Why Your Husband No Longer Loves You Number One: Neglect: If there is a common thread that I see in the letters that I get, it’s this. We all live such hectic lifestyles today. Many of us work (working at home is work), take care of our children, watch over our aging parents, try to fit in other obligations, and then try to squeeze in some quality time for our marriage.
Something has to give. If we’re trying to do a million different things, than none of these things are going to be done well. That’s OK and understandable.
But, often the thing that we put on the back burner is our marriage. Because we assume that our husband knows that we love him. He lives with us and he sees all of the different things that we are obligated to do. He knows that we would give him more time if we could, right? Well, intellectually he knows this. But, he also knows, from previous experience, how good things can be between you.
He remembers the smiling woman who couldn’t get enough of him in the beginning. He remembers how you used to hang on his every word and make him feel like the most interesting man in the universe. And, frankly, he misses that. He can’t help but contrast the two and feel quite disappointed.
And, men often aren’t very good at seeing solutions, at least in terms of emotions. So, they misinterpret what is happening. They feel the disappointment and the void and they assume that the spark is gone – rather than seeing this for what it really is – the fact that the two of you just need to be better about making the time.
Put the two of you back into the scenario where you spend a lot of fun, light hearted quality time together, and the feelings of love are going to eventually return. The equation is very basic, really. Time in equals quality and closeness out.
Possible Cause Of Your Husband Falling Out Of Love With You Number Two: The Way That He Feels About Himself Has Changed: A man will never have such high self esteem as when he is deeply in love. When someone is looking at him with adoring eyes, laughing at his jokes, and listening intently to everything he says, he’s going to have a high opinion of himself because he’s mirroring the approval that you are putting out there.
However, as your time attention, and affection begin to shift, he begins to wonder where he has gone wrong. He begins to fear that his allure is fading and this does a number on his self esteem.
Alternatively, sometimes a stressor that has nothing really to do with you (his job, his extended family, money or health issues, etc.) will be so disturbing and stressful to him that this sort of starts to invade or cloud other areas of his life. Nothing is going right for him so everything is broken and negative. This is hard to process for you because you’ve done nothing wrong, and yet these external factors are not under your control to fix.
Your best bet here is to hang in there and to remember the things that used to soothe and cheer up your partner when you were first dating. I’d be willing to bet that he used to see you as his light during dark days, as his rock. You must allow him to see you in this way again. Be upbeat, reassuring and as lighthearted as you can. Try to make time for fun things that you can enjoy together to lighten the mood. Shared, pleasurable experiences will almost always make things better and will build on one another.
Red Flag Number Three: He’s Comparing Your Relationship To Someone Else’s': Often times, I see husbands who become friends with younger or newly married (or remarried) guys at work or in sports who seem to have everything in their favor. The young guy has a great job, a hot, attentive wife, and is walking around on air.
More mature and settled husbands will often look at this and think that they have failed in some way, have settled for less, or have let things get off track. This is a depressing thought for anymore. And, like I said before, these depressing thoughts start to bleed into every other area of his life – including you and your marriage.
There are a couple of ways to handle this. First, you can bump up the excitement and the spark in your own relationship. However, you can not do this in a fake or in genuine way. If you just put on a show, your husband will know. Many men write me and tell me that these attempts are just so obvious and frankly insulting. You must get yourself to a place where you can be genuine about this because he will know the difference.
Second, often if you wait this out with dignity and grace, offering support the whole time, the shine will start to wear off as your husband begins to get the whole picture and to see the reality of his friend’s situation. No marriage is perfect, no matter how it looks. Eventually, this will sink in, but it’s important that you keep on exhibiting your best qualities and your attention and affection in the meantime.
I understand how you feel, because a very short time ago, I was exactly where you are. But, I learned that my husband had fallen out of love with the relationship instead of falling out of love with me. I was able to use this knowledge to change course, return my husband’s love and save the marriage (when I was the only one interested in doing so at the time.) You can read my very personal story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com/
