# How to show I'm fighting for our marriage?



## MrRomantic (Jun 14, 2010)

It has come out that i have been smothering my wife with love, to the point of her nearly wanting out of our marriage. Certainly she should've said something sooner, but that's another issue.

She also says she needs to "find herself" and prove that she can be independent because she feels like I do everything for her.

So, in response, I am attempting operation Love Detox. I'm not giving her any affection or special deeds until I feel them returned. I am being kind and talkative when I am with her, but I am also trying to make arrangements to be gone and do things without her.

What I'm struggling with is knowing if there is a balance I should be keeping. I want her to continue to know that I love her, but really let her feel no "pressure" to love me back. I want to give her independence, but I don't want her to feel neglected and seek the company of another man.

Should I really withhold all my love? To what end? These revelations came at a rocky time in our relationship, so it scares me to give her the impression that I do not love her because it may validate her ideas that she wants out of the relationship, yet what I'm doing is relieving what was the problem in the first place!

I want her to know that I still love her and want to be married, but me giving her what she needs, seems to give the impression that I don't care about it. How can I show I am still fighting for our marriage yet let her detox from over loving and give her free space?


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## MrRomantic (Jun 14, 2010)

I wouldn't say I blame her for the overall problem. She has never been one to communicate very well though. Since the very beginning of our relationship I have always been the romantic type. I fluently spoke all of the language of love before I even read the book. She always seemed to appreciate the things I did and showed me physical affection back (certainly my primary language). We got married one year ago. About 6 months ago, I could feel her disconnecting. I tried to talk to her to see what was the matter or what she was having problems with (it appeared to be stress related to work). She never opened up. In my attempts to help her and make her feel better, I put on the afterburners on my love. I made even more attempts to show her love, do special things for her, and treat her like a princess. I finally got her to talk and had an amazing revelation. From another thread:



> REVELATION!
> 
> Since getting married, we have both noticed the gradual disappearance of that “in love” feeling. I understood that was expected but it appeared my wife did not. We struggled for a while in our relationship trying to learn how to love each other. This was not too difficult for me. All along in our relationship, I had been doing everything I could think of to show my love for her. I was not feeling any love returned to me. We both had read The Five Love Languages because it appeared that no matter what I did, I wasn’t making her happy and it appeared she didn’t know how to show me love either.
> 
> ...


I really dont hold her non-communication against her. I recognize that my over-loving has killed any desire for me, thus cutting of my supply of love. The inital, correct, response would've been to back off, but I misinterpeted and loved harder. This was my mistake and I admit that. But without proper communication, any relationship will struggle. If you don't know how it's broken, you can't fix it either.

Thank you for your suggestions though, I will look into some books.


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## MrRomantic (Jun 14, 2010)

Really? No advice?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## FOM (Jun 23, 2010)

MrRomantic, there is no such thing as over loving, except from your own perspective. There is behavior that will drain the love (feelings) that your wife has for you, just as there is behavior that will increase her love (feelings) for you. Now it is entirely possible that some of the behaviors that she does appreciate (or did appreciate at one time) are done to excess, and thereby become an annoying behavior, but this is not the same as "over loving". For example, my wife likes backrubs, so I try to oblige her with a 20 minute session 3 or 4 times a week. Now if I insisted on giving her 5 or 6 backrubs a day, she might become annoyed with what she normally perceives to be a pleasurable activity. At that point I'm actually depleting her love tank, not over filling it.

Here's what I've learned, both from personal experience and the observation of other couples. You add love to the tank a penny a time (through behaviors that are appreciated), but you take it out a dollar at time (through annoying or unwanted behaviors). You could buy her flowers, a nice dinner, take a walk in the park afterward, then make a not so nice comment on the way home and guess what? She will feel less love for you at the end of day, even though you did 20 things right and only one thing wrong. Multiply that by hundreds of days, and there will be a serious problem.

It's great that you realize what was wrong in your relationship and you're trying to work toward being a better husband, but you'll get no where until you break up her contact with the other man. I know you think this demonstrates controlling behavior that will further kill her love for you, but it must be stopped.


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## MrRomantic (Jun 14, 2010)

FOM said:


> For example, my wife likes backrubs, so I try to oblige her with a 20 minute session 3 or 4 times a week. Now if I insisted on giving her 5 or 6 backrubs a day, she might become annoyed with what she normally perceives to be a pleasurable activity. At that point I'm actually depleting her love tank, not over filling it.


How would that not be considered over-loving?


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## FOM (Jun 23, 2010)

MrRomantic said:


> How would that not be considered over-loving?


Because if she finds the behavior annoying, it drains her love for you, not adds to it. From your perspective, it's "over loving". From her perspective, it's just unwanted behavior.


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