General Relationship DiscussionAlthough anyone can post anywhere on Talk About Marriage, this section is for people interested in general relationship and marriage advice.
My husband is a wonderful man who won me over very quickly when we first met.
I beleive he'd say the same about me.
But in the two years we've been married I come again and again to a sinking feeling that although he cares about me, and values me as a dear friend, he does not actually love me.
He tells me he loves me, he does nice things from time to time, but its usually mutually beneficial. His other actions seems to indicate that my happiness, my affection, and myself in general are very rarely forefront in his mind and priorities.
For example, the past week i have been sick with a nasty head cold, and pretty much out of it. On Friday, he left work early to go out golfing with friends and stayed out three hours past the time he said he'd be home, even though he promised to pick me up dinner.
he came home without it around nine at night and then offered to run out a get some soup for me after all.
After asking for a specific type of soup and food, he waited another half an hour and went out at nine thirty at night (I hadn't eaten since lunch) to get me dinner. He returned at ten telling me the store was closed so instead of calling, he'd gotten me two items that he liked and prepared them for both of us. I didn't like them at all and instead of being apologetic, he just got mad.
The next night I had a coughing fit in bed and he angrily buried himself in covers because I was waking him up. he kept thrashing about and huffing with exasperation until I finally just moved down to the couch to let him sleep in peace.
And the following day he busied himself all day and avoided talkin to me for more than a few minutes. I had the energy to finally go food shopping but asked for his help and he put me off until my energy level crashed at five. Then he went without me.
He never initiates physical affection anymore. When i do, it feels forced on his part.
he does not like to kiss me, even when we are being intimate, the most I get are little pecks, if i ask for more he is very stiff and uncomfortable.
We spend alot of time in the same place, but it lacks a togetherness factor. He'd much more prone to talking to the dogs or turning on the television than to having a conversation with me, especially when it involves something serious or plans for our future.
I know he's not cheating or even looking outside out marraige. I beleive he thinks he's in love with me, and that he wants to be in love with me because I'm a good person, a devoted wife, fun to be around and fairly easy on the eyes, but liking someone alot doesn't exactly equal love.
when I tell him, "I'm worried you might not be in love with me."
he usually either reacts angrily, or says, "I do love you," and leaves it at that. There is no attempt to assure me.
Do you think I'm being insecure or too demanding, or is my husband with me because he thinks he should be in love with me?
Hey I don't know the whole of your situation - but just a couple of things
1. he's a man - don't expect him to get the being unwell bit - they can get a bit jealous when you are sick....and selfish as well
2. try not to think of it as his responsibility to make you happy....maybe he doesn't have your happiness in the top of his mind all the time -
3. you only mention how you think he feels about you -
how do you feel about him?
I know your right. Most of the time I do understand that he is not responsible for my happiness. I have told him, however, what I need from him (affection, affirmation and support) to feel secure in this relationship and i rarely see any attempt to give it.
I love him with all of my heart. It breaks me up to crawl into bed with him and kiss his cheek only to have him grumble and roll away from me and bury himself with blankets.
I spend alot of time and effort trying to build him up. he was not very secure with himself when we first met (bad family dynamic growing up). I compliment his appearance, I praise his intellegence, I ask for his help and advice. I don't only do this to help him but because it is true. I am still very much in love with him but I do not feel reciprocation.
ok - so I take you have had some discussions with him about this ...but not to your satisfaction....
do you think he really doesn't love you - or he isn't good at showing this love?
I only know that i have this nagging feeling that just won't go away and when i try to look at it objectively, it hurts too much to really get through. He used to want to hold me, kiss me, talk with me, and he used to care about how I felt. Now, not so much.
these are the things he is doing badly in the relationship - what is he doing well?
He tries to be a good husband. he helps with housework, he promises to fix things, he offers to do stuff all the time, but he very rarely follows through, even when it's important. I know he wants to make me happy, it just doesn't seem he wants to put out effort to be part of my happiness.
do you doubts bother him?
When I talk to him about it, he generally gets mad and then blows it off, or tells me I'm wrong and then blows it off. Today, for example, after I confessed some doubts to him last night, he knows I'm upset, but he's doing everything he can to pretend everything is normal and avoid discussing it futher.
is he a talker - does he have any skills at discussing realtionship issues or is he the silent type?
He talks, he changes his mind alot. He's not good at verbalizing feelings, or even understanding them. we have gone to counceling and our therapist said that he has a hard time knowing what he wants. So I think maybe he thought he wanted me and is slowly figuring out that he was wrong.
sounds like your gut is telling you something and I think you are right to explore it
counselling is good - is he happy to go to this
About two months ago, things were very stressful outside of our marriage. Primarily work and home renovations. He has a short fuse and we were fighting alot. He was constantly looking to go out and get away from me even though I was upset that he was working so much and we weren't spending any good time together. He basically got down to saying he couldn't live like that anymore, if I couldn't be happy with him doing whatever he wanted whenever he wanted to do it, he couldn't be happy in our marriage. I suggest counceling and he agreed and it has been going well, but we've yet to touch on this core issue.
what do you mean he changes his mind?
We talked about getting another dog for years. when the time was right i found a dog that matched what we were looking for, tried to talk to him about it length, he gave the go ahead and after we got her, he suddenly told me I forced him into getting her. He wants to take care of the bills, then he doesn't. He wants to start exercising together, then he wants to join a gym alone.
do you challenge him when he avoids things?
I try, but i get so tired of being frozen out and i get so scared of what he might say.
is he happy at work, with friends etc?
Work and friends and his family all walk all over him and he seems more than willing to let them. They've all been a big source of conflict in our marriage because he wants to continue to jump when they say jump with no reguard to any shift in priority now that he has a house and wife. He's gotten very angry with me when i've called him out on it.
He has a hard time with confrontation. I guess because I'm there and i push him to be direct and open up I end up getting the stress from other aspects of his life spewed onto me.
I probably do the same to him from time to time. We're both working on it. it's just hard to take the bad when you're afriad there is no real good. If he felt remorse for hurting me, if he made an effort to make it up to me, I don't know.
I'm confused as to whether he just needs to grow up or if I am truely not the one.
Hi, I feel like we have a certain problem in common. My husband and I have been married for 6 months and in the beginning I tried so hard to show him how much I loved him and that I wanted to make him happy but after a few months of no response to my actions, I began feeling discouraged and backed off from doing those things. Since I have stopped, he hasn't said anything about it (except a sly remark in front of our friends or family that I don't cook dinner or pay any attention to him anymore). We started arguing a lot after that and he still shows no emotion when I try to tell him how I feel and shows no remorse when he does things that hurt me.
I have this gut feeling that he regrets marrying me. He thought it was going to be a breeze but now he realizes that he actually has to work hard to keep things right and return my sentiments.
I don't feel loved by him at all. It's like we are just friends who get along ok until it comes to dealing with our relationship. He says things like, I want to (or need to) do things because you are my wife, not because he loves me or wants to see me happy. I think he is just afraid to look like the bad guy by breaking things off.
I have no idea what to do about my situation so I wouldn't be the best person to advise but I wanted you to know that I sympathize with you and hope that you figure out what to do soon.
My husband actually admitted to me that he thought when he married me that life would be easy after that, and he doesn't understand why we have conflicts or have to work at the marriage.
I wonder if most guys have this opinion...I was shocked to say the least...I always thought marriage was one of the hardest things you could do in life...besides being a parent.
Failure to discuss attitudes about marriage prior to marriage is one of the biggest mistakes a couple can make.
For you folks who are newly married, get into counseling PRONTO. You don't want these first naive months to color the rest of your marriage. The time to work on problems is before they are so massive that you can't see the forest for the trees.
I agree...counseling is a good thing...even to just "air out" issues in a couple that seems to be doing well. It never hurts to talk to someone every once in a while.
I was able to DRAG my husband our second year of marriage to one session...he decided after that it wasn't for him and he would "divorce me if I ever mentioned marriage counseling again." god, I wish I had been mature enough to him clearly then.
Get help now...don't delay and think that you can fix things between the two of you...
That was a pretty clear message from him, Larnie. Glad you're standing up for yourself now. He may just get the message. (But maybe not if he doesn't deal with the addiction.)
You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. :-(
He loves me not?
