Are you eager to be linked in a loving relationship with a man who cares about you deeply, but it’s just not happening?
Are you willing to encourage him on the deepest emotional levels, but you can’t chip through the ice?
Do you feel that despite your relatively lax expectations (i.e. making few demands), you are being taken advantage of? In other words, does a void exist for you?
In my counseling practice I specialize in treating common emotional stresses that, if left unattended, can turn into major debilitating problems. The hurting people who come to see me are trying to cope with anger, depression, anxiety, and the like stemming from their marriage. Since these issues are usually played out in the home, I often face the task of helping people understand how their emotions relate to their unsolved marriage problems.
Over twenty-five thousand counseling sessions have shown me that the single most common marital problem I encounter is the case of an emotionally eager wife whose husband will not engage with her on a deep, meaningful, and personal level. These phrases are indicators of the problem:
- “Just when I think we’ve really connected, he does something to prove he never understood a thing I said.”
- “I think the guy is oblivious to my feelings.”
- “What does it take to get through to him?”
- “He cares more about his work [or sports or hobbies] than he does about me.”
As the relationship progresses, or rather, fails to progress, feelings of disillusionment and futility become entrenched, and faulty patterns of communication yield increasing frustration. Failure to progress is not for lack of trying.
As I consult in case after case, I see that many emotionally eager women have good reason to feel disappointed. Most women need strong, growing relationships that are openly expressed, and their husbands fail to supply that need. These wives are living with men who have unconsciously committed themselves to an evasive way of life.
The wives aren’t the only ones hurt by this evasiveness. These men, unwilling to seriously explore the depths of their own emotional needs, perch securely atop their own little time bombs. As frustration and confusion mount, something will eventually blow.
If at all possible, I include husbands in my counseling sessions. You’d be surprised how often these undemonstrative men are looking, deep inside, for a way to jump-start their marriages. At least at an unexpected level, they are begging for someone to show them a better way to relate to their wives. In these cases, the potential for counseling success is very strong. I can show spouses the best method to address their unique relational needs, and the lessons will probably “take.”
When the husband, however, is unwilling to participate in counseling, the wife still has some excellent options. Her spouse may cling to stubborn, evasive patterns of relating, but she can make improvements in two general areas:
1. Have you noticed that in our culture, the burden of a relationship often falls on the woman? The woman is expected to “make it work.” If a man remains faithful, he gets the credit; if he strays, it’s somehow her fault, at least in part. When a relationship unravels, the greater share of the blame ends on her doorstep.
Counseling, however, can help a woman learn what lies behind the scenes of her husband’s personality, what makes him do what he does. With that knowledge in hand, she can come to realize that her husband’s behavior is not her fault after all.
2. The woman can examine the ways in which she reacts to her husband. From there she can figure out better ways of relating that will cause her less stress and personal frustration. Then, even if he never improves his behavior, she can still enjoy improved personal stability. She can be happier.
Identifying Pattern
The first step toward improving one’s relationship is to understand what constitutes patterns in marriages that can, frankly, be emotionally abusive.
It sounds so far as if I’ve been painting the husbands as villains. That’s not true in the least. Most of these men have perfectly honorable intentions and would never try to hurt their wives. But even though they usually do not set out to harm, it happens all the same.
The problem lies in the way most (not all by any means!) men approach life. As a general rule, men are less naturally inclined than women to address personal or sensitive subjects. This isn’t simply fear of pain. They really aren’t as interested. They have a natural tendency to bypass the lengthy processing that is so necessary to intimate personal interchanges and skip straight to the solution.
When the wife seeks greater depth than simply problem-options-solution and presses to explore the emotional side of an issue or its ramifications, the man’s frustration kicks in. “We’ve already handled the problem; therefore, it doesn’t exist anymore; so what is it with this woman?” To him, detailed processing is useless, perhaps even inane.
He then—and this is a key—begins looking for ways to end his participation in his wife’s processing. He may withdraw or try to put her back onto a path of logic or perhaps even explode. The explosion, you see, is a diversion, a distraction—in essence, a change of subject. Changing the subject is another often-used way out of processing. He is guided by the dread of having to spend any more time than is necessary to dwell on her emotional needs, for he almost never sees them as needs.
Women generally experience feelings and emotions more intensely than do men, mostly because they allow themselves to. A wife lets emotions run their course even as the husband is trying to stuff them, to get rid of them, for he sees them as anti-productive. Let me emphasize that there is no right-and-wrong about having strong emotions or even, to some extent, downplaying them. But because she recognizes and even nurtures her emotional side, the wife can enjoy life in its richest, fullest dimension.
Relationship and family connections are the most important ingredients in most wives’ lives. By their very nature, close relationships generate strong emotions. The wife can inadvertently create problems when she so craves emotional connections that she loses the ability to respond with reason or calm. She may become anxious; she certainly becomes angry. Not to put too fine a point on it, but hers is an insistent anger whereas his is a resistant anger.
The woman locked into these patterns can cry and complain that she feels unloved. She has such a powerful need to feel understood and cherished at an emotional level that she becomes greatly disillusioned when external signs of that understanding are nonexistent.
Evasive husbands invent a broad range of behaviors for avoiding the in-depth discussions they see as useless and potentially harmful: the silent treatment, pretended agreement, constant forgetfulness, procrastination, laziness, temper outbursts, work-a-holism, undue attention to a hobby or sport, and in general merely being unavailable. The evasive man may tune out. He might say whatever he thinks his wife wants to hear at that moment, to prevent the boat from rocking, you see, and harbors no intention of actually following through.
To counter evasiveness, the emotionally eager wife will be prone toward responses such as crying, persuading, calling friends for support, acting moody, repeating the same requests, accusing, and giving up. Once the cycle gets going it can be difficult to break.
Factors Behind the Pattern
In my practice, I see seven factors that are very common in marriages affected by the evasive and the emotionally eager relationship patterns. As we examine them, you will see that this tug-of-war is not confined to a few households. It is widespread. I find this tension in the homes of driven, success-oriented people and in laid-back, take-it-easy relationships. Some of the participants have a history of poor relations with others, while some can point to great popularity with others.
If your husband will join you in the awareness process, that’s great! Use the information provided as a springboard for healthy, honest discussion. If he will not, and many won’t, choose to make yourself aware of what’s happening and grow anyway. One person working toward a healthy style of relating is better than no one at all taking steps.
Let’s look at the seven indicators:
1. Communication is reduced to power plays. If nothing else, evasive behavior creates a feeling of power. This concept of control and power-wielding can take some strange twists, and the people involved usually do not see it for what it is.
If the emotionally eager wife responds with her own overbearing style instead of understanding his fear of being controlled, she does the very thing that makes matters worse. She speaks coercively.
Perversely, even a caring husband derives a certain subconscious satisfaction when he witnesses his wife in great emotional distress. The underlying thought: You see? I do have power! I can control her emotions, and that’s not an easy thing to do. My tactics worked.
The more the wife registers anger or futility, the more likely the evasive husband will continue to respond with power tactics. His urgent, compelling need to keep the upper hand is satisfied. And I repeat, this is not necessarily deliberate. Usually, it is all going on in the darkest caverns of the mind.
2. He avoids commitment and personal accountability. A common complaint I hear from emotionally eager wives is that they cannot get a solid commitment to anything. Their man is hard to pin down.
Remember that evasive husbands unconsciously lust for power. They must maintain control. So it isn’t hard to see why they don’t want to be held accountable to specific plans. They have confused commitment with enslavement or coercion and wrongly assume the words mean much the same thing. They see simple requests, then, as attempts at coercion, and they circumvent them by remaining vague.
These men realize that accountability requires a certain amount of vulnerability, and that scares them. Clear communication, self-revelation, and openness: These qualities could boomerang on them, they fear. The evasive person also fears that his good nature will be taken advantage of, so he plays it safe by revealing the least amount that he can about his plans, his preferences, his feelings.
Although these men would never admit it even to themselves, they have made a commitment to dishonesty. Sometimes blatant lying is involved, as when a man says he will do something, knowing full well that he will not. But usually this dishonesty is more subtle. Without openly lying, these men try to create an illusion of cooperation when in fact they inwardly hope to blaze their own trails independently of their mates’ plans.
With this fear of accountability, these men fuel the wives’ worst fears of marital isolation. The men do whatever they must to keep a safe distance—exactly the opposite of what the emotionally eager wives are seeking. The men keep their feelings well hidden; the wives want feelings brought into view. The men think they dare not expose their preferences lest they be denied (in other words, the woman controls the situation through the power of choice). The women want more than anything else to know what their men want.
Needless to say, this factor of poor accountability works against the success of any relationship, for a thriving marriage needs sharing and openness in order to be truly fused into a unit.
3. Leadership roles are confused. With all this control jockeying and poor accountability, the third factor in these conflicted marriages isn’t hard to see: badly defined leadership roles. The evasive husband prefers to hold back and sidestep situations that will bring his wife’s criticism to bear, and that includes certain situations where his leadership would be expected. He may even coyly set her up to take the heat. That, you see, is real control!
Have either of these scenarios happened in your home?
• A child makes a request that Dad knows should be turned down, so he says, “Why don’t you ask your mother?” Let her be the ogre who denies the child’s wants.
• The husband hears someone reprimand his wife. This might be a stranger in public or his own mother in private. Instead of standing up for his wife, he remains silent even though he knows his wife feels abandoned.
These husbands know that the more leadership they exert, the more controversy they may encounter. It works that way in politics; it must work that way in marriage. Notice that the power plays are still going on.
But here we’re talking about open, visible leadership. Being chronic conflict avoiders, these men prefer to lie low and stay out of the fray. In the battle of the sexes, it’s a good way to keep your head from being shot off. They falsely assume that openness invites problems.
It’s that don’t-rock-the-boat thing again. Unfortunately, by backing away from the leadership role, these men are sacrificing the family’s long-term needs—a stable leader—for the short-term goal of peace-for-the-moment.
Interestingly, in many cases, men who back out of the leadership role in personal and family matters are anything but weak in business pursuits or civic projects.
1. Relationship is secondary to performance. Human beings err, make occasional wrong choices, and are occasionally selfish. In healthy marriages, the partners recognize this fact and allow plenty of room for open conflict resolution. Emotionally eager wives would welcome the chance to discuss problems. But because the evasive husband prefers to minimize his own emotional vulnerability, he customarily runs from the threat of having to struggle with emotions. Logic tells us that if a man is running away from something, he is also running toward something else. What is it that men run toward to avoid personal interactions? Performance.
Now, as a very general rule, men are performance-oriented anyway. Whereas women enjoy the process of doing something, men want to reach the goal as quickly and efficiently as possible and go on to something else. (Again, I remind you, there are plenty of exceptions to this.)
Commonly, evasive men will not mind giving time to an activity such as yard work, fishing, a project at the church. It’s familiar turf. They already know how to do those things. They’ll see a nice, neat, trimmed-up yard, the new church fence, perhaps a fish or two.something. But relationships require being not doing, an unsettling concept for many men.
2. Sexual relating is out of sync. Happy, growing marriages are typified by reasonable sexual communication. Although frequency is not the chief concern (some couples are satisfied with twice monthly sex, some enjoy it several times a week), union occurs frequently enough to remind the spouses of their love and commitment to each other. Sex is a means of maintaining secure bonding.
For evasive men, however, sex is intended not for bonding but for physical satisfaction and—here it is again—control. Who’s in the driver’s seat?
At one extreme, the evasive man abstains for long periods of time, showing virtually no interest at all in his wife sexually. He knows sex can bring out tender sharing, something he prefers to avoid. He determines that it is easier to deny the pleasures of sexual relating in order to avoid emotional intimacy. I have heard numerous accounts from women who are eager to be sexually involved with their husbands but are rebuffed for six months at a time, a year, or longer.
The more common extreme has the evasive man showing little tenderness during waking hours. When bedtime comes, his engine turns on, and he gets his satisfaction from his wife. Then he slips back into his comfortable shell. He may even turn on at two o’clock in the morning, make his move, then go back to sleep. This approach to sex neatly minimizes emotional intimacy without minimizing the feel-good experience. The wife’s emotions are hardly considered.
The emotionally eager wife, then, develops conflicting feelings about marital sex. Part of her wants it and sees it as a wonderful communication time, but she is afraid of the hurt that comes as she senses her husband is merely after physical relief.
Often, if this conflict goes on long enough, one spouse or the other may opt for an outside form of sexual satisfaction: an affair, pornography, or flirtations outside marriage. Either spouse can feel such strong disappointment as to be abnormally vulnerable to temptation.
3. Personal insights are unequal. Healthy people not only admit the need for improvement, they welcome the challenge. Growing people are willing to absorb insights and information. They actively seek out truth.
Evasive people are not inclined toward insight and awareness. Apart from the fact that it’s too much trouble for what you get out of it, the evasive husband really isn’t interested in being challenged on the personal, philosophical level. That makes him too vulnerable. He wants the comfortable routine, the level keel, putting little or no thought into the whys of life.
The emotionally eager wives are usually the type who devour self-help books, enjoy stimulating philosophical discussions, flock to seminars. They invite growth. They like being challenged about what can be done to create a fuller life and why they need to make the needed adjustments. Result: They grow and expand intellectually as their husbands tune in still another football game.
This eagerness does not always translate into significant change. Because of the wife’s tendency to play off her husband’s behavior—reacting instead of pro-acting—this woman eventually loses heart as she realizes that her efforts are not being matched by his. She begins to perceive that she’s outgrowing him. I’ve see many of these wives become increasingly agitated or collapse in despair or depression. Either way, the woman ought to press forward, gaining insight, regardless of her mate’s lack of interest.
4. Both sides feel victimized. Evasive husbands subconsciously live with a philosophy of “You leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone, and we’ll get along just fine.” The fewer challenges they encounter, the less conflict they experience, and the better they feel. The problem is that their spouses by nature yearn for a far more intimate pattern of relating.
The wife launches her various attempts to get the intimacy and depth she craves, protesting or cajoling or simply acting unhappy. The husband, turned off by his wife’s prodding, sulks and wonders, “Why do I have to live with this kind of stuff? She’s crabby for no good reason.”
Either unwilling or unable to grasp that he is contributing to the problem, he sees himself as a victim of unreasonableness. Victims are not cheerful people. The feel, if you will —of the household nose-dives as anger and sadness feed on each other.
The emotionally eager wife feels just as victimized. “When is all this misery going to end? Look what he’s doing to my life. It’s sterile! Going nowhere. Emotionally zip. When will he ever wake up, or is it always going to be this miserable?”
In a sense, there is truth to each mate’s feeling of victimization. Both spouses can point to evidence that this marriage has become something of a raw deal. Both can show legitimate ways in which the other spouse is contributing to the problem. Neither sees the whole picture. When either of them places all blame on the other partner, the “I’m a victim” attitude has gone too far.
Once this evasive pattern has become entrenched in a marriage, it is tempting to place full blame onto the shoulders of the husband who resists deep relating. Let’s say that, in certain instances, it’s true. He does need to change his ways of relating to his wife. His evasiveness damages and even destroys his position of influence in his own home. After all, God did not place us here on earth to avoid each other. We were made to relate first to God, then with family and friends.
Evasive behaviors are damaging not just to the wife but to the husband as well, preventing him from knowing the satisfaction God intended for him.
Beginning the Journey Toward Improvement
If you are the mate of someone who is non-communicative, realize that to some degree, the relational problems you’ve encountered are predictable. They show up in a lot of marriages. Also, there are some things of a general nature that you can do to ease them. For starters:
- Quit assuming responsibility for your spouse’s imperfections. He may well say, “You make me this way with your constant [nagging, whining, whatever].” That’s not true, even though he may think it is. He would be acting the same way if he were married to someone else.
- Ease up on your persuasive efforts to convince your mate to fit your mold. Coercion will only make the problem worse. This is hard to do when you desperately want change.
Down deep, you probably realize that no person is going to change, at least not effectively, based on someone else’s forceful persuasion. An evasive husband will amend his ways only if given the room to do so in his own will. That leaves the ugly prospect that he will choose not to. For now, it is wise to back off.
That does not mean that you quit doing anything. If you believe that your husband is ducking away from topics you are sure must be discussed, that he is becoming evasive in the midst of emotional exchanges, can you tell him about the frustration this creates without overworking the point or becoming confrontational? Everything will be working against you.
The heat of the moment makes a person say things she would not say at a less emotional time. And most of all, old habits die hard. You are accustomed to addressing an issue in a particular way now. It is exceptionally hard to change your approach. But it will pay dividends if you can do it. Personal soul-searching will help you turn things around and give positive traits to your marriage.
To get a good idea about how ready you are to do the soul-searching necessary for real growth, be aware of your use of one simple word. You. How often is that word spoken as you are trying to make sense of the tensions with your mate? I’m not suggesting that you should never be spoken. I am saying, though, that its overuse indicates that you are not looking inward.
In short, to improve your own satisfaction and happiness, a major step is to put your own house in order. You may find that the improvement in your life is just the catalyst your spouse needs. And even if you do not experience the adjustments in your mate that you have hoped for, you will still be a more stable and content individual. Are you willing to start with your own hard, inward search?
The emotionally eager wife will say, “Yes! Of course.” But then she amends that with a but. “I’m willing to adjust, but my husband needs to change.” Whether or not you are correct to say this, you are basing your happiness and responses on someone else’s behavior.
Your willingness to work on your own issues will be the key for finding personal peace, then potentially, success in that most important relationship, your marriage.
The above edited article came from the great book, Distant Partner Preview or purchase this book now.
We believe that obtaining this book would be an inexpensive way to start on a road to better understanding and working through issues that could greatly improve your relationship. Also, if you want to read this book along with your spouse (if he desires to do so) Dr Carter explains in the preface of the book the best way to do this.
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(UNITED KINGDOM, LONDON) Hi Carol, I just read your post and i really feel for you and your situation. It must be very difficult to have a husband whose like a roller coaster, one minute up and the next down.
I think that the passage you quoted is quite true, if only one partner is willingly to have a God filled marriage, NOT if both husband and wife are willing to give 100% towards the marriage and want God to be the centre of that marriage. There is healing this side of heaven but sometimes that healing may not be for your marriage, it may just be for yourself.
I think the mistake a lot of us make is to focus on the other partners problems because we feel that we are the ones who have be wronged, and we find it very difficult to see where we ourselves have gone wrong. If you give your problems to Jesus then he will heal your broken heart.
We must remember that whatever we go through, Jesus suffered a million times worse, yet he had nothing to suffer for, but he willingly took on that suffering for us. So imagine how broken hearted he is when we turn around and say "how can Jesus heal my broken heart" etc knowing what he has done for us already?
It does seem that your husband is being very selfish in the way his acting and his not even considering your feelings through this. My only advice is that you really need to sit him down and brutally tell him the truth, without raised voices or anger, but in a way which he knows how serious you are and how hurt you are by his actions.
Marriage is NOT about figuring out your man, it’s about finding mutual ground where both partner feel loved and appreciated, and finding ways to deal with your problems as a threesome, you, your husband and most of all GOD.
I know how hard it must be living with an emotionally unavailable husband, but I really think that if you stop focusing your energy on the things his not doing, and start putting it into your relationship with God then you’ll definitely see a change, maybe not in your husband but within yourself.
You may think I sound a bit full of myself but trust me I’m only telling you the advice, I myself, am trying to take even though it is so so hard.
For me, I’m living with a husband who’s a sex addict and has been involved with some terrible things. On our 2nd wedding anniversary he confessed that he was addicted to porn, but worse still he’d been receiving oral sex from strange men in public toilets. The pain I felt that night and am still feeling is so deep that I honestly didn’t think that there was any way through this.
It’s been 4 months now, my husband has been so brave, and he’s definitely fighting a wining battle.
He’s done so well, he’s got himself a great counselor from our church, and enrolled on a 33 week living waters course. We’ve been on the Alpha course together twice and we are going to start marriage counselling together once I have done my own personal counselling with my counselor from church.
The pain doesn’t go away, but as time passes it slowly becomes less until you can no longer feel it.
What I’m saying is that my husband and I have a long long way to, I’ve gone through so many emotions over the last 4 months and on so many occasions I’ve been ready to take my girls and run, without stopping.
But then I remember my wedding vows, and the promise I made before God. Times are tough right now, but we’ve had some amazing times as well and I can’t forget that. I praised God in those amazing times so how can I turn my back on God through this tough time? My husband is 110% committed to restoring our marriage and I’m 110% committed as well because we love each other so much. We treasure our family and the life we had.
My husband chose to do the wrong thing. He’s being accountable for his actions, to me and to his personal mentor/counselor. My husband is ready to put in the hard work. He’s got a lot of making up to do because we’ve now got so many issues we’re now faced with, but we are ready to confront them together because we both have God as our back bone.
It may all come back to slap me in the face but in my heart I know the truth. I know that God will heal me as he has done in the past, but most of all he is healing my husband in so many amazing ways because he’s opened up his heart to him. That hole we all have in our hearts is a God shaped hole; it can only be filled by his spirit when we allow it. My husband has allowed it and I’m so proud of him for that.
When a partner betrays you, their words mean nothing, only their actions can be prove of the change within them, once you see it, you can believe it.
I will have you in my prayers. Please don’t give up on your marriage just yet. Once you feel you have given it your all and can look back with no regrets, then you will know what to do, but give him a chance and if it’s God’s will, your marriage will be healed. There is a light at the end of that tunnel.
That light is our Lord Jesus Christ. Let him be your guide through this terrible time. Love and prayers, Caroline
(USA) I read this article with great interest, but from a completely REVERSE situation. Being married for the last 3.5 years to a woman who is completely uncomfortable showing love unless first approached with love, I have grown resentful, angry, hurt, annoyed, you name it.
To make matters worse she has spent these same 3.5 years in medical school. The predictable result? A relationship with school and none with her husband (me). When I confront her about this, I hear anger, subject changing, blame and prolonged silence (all of the behaviors mentioned in this article). And yep, I have become the pushy spouse who demands change or else.
My personal opinion is that anyone in such a relationship should try counselling and patience, but after the issue begins to affect your own sanity and well being it may well be time to move on. People rarely change and compromising your own mental well being and living a life without love is a life you will regret in your later years. I’m giving it a few more months to see if she puts a tenth of the attention into this as she has into her studies (which I am supporting). Call me a quitter, but I don’t want to wake up ten years from now in the same place. In most ways she is the woman of my dreams, but this emotional "distance" easily overshadows a million other attractive personal traits.
(AUSTRALIA) Hi there all you suffering friends, I wish to say that when I was reading all the stories and knowing first hand the hurt that we all feel, that I think in relation to scripture that although "the word" never changes, the Bible was written 2000 years ago. The truth is the same but we live in an age of "virtual reality" so as photographs and internet were non existent in the time of Jesus we live in the world as it is now.
So if your husband is "having sex with himself", to put it politely, via pornography, then where do you draw the line between adultery re sexual intercourse? If the image that he is sharing himself with was actually able to be flesh and bones in front of him would he be still "at it".
I am 55 years old with three adult children to my husband and we have been together for 35 years. As we now speak I am separating from him. I know the emotional damage that has been wrought upon me and I have done my best to be a good wife and mother. I see the scriptures this way,
Sin separates us from God and of course Our Lord paid the ransom.
We were created with mind, body and spirit.
The spirit of evil (sin) is in all of us.
When we are united with our husband in the eyes of God we are to be faithful to his commands. When the sin of our husband’s cannot be addressed and they will not repent then I see that it is ok to "separate". Let the divorce issue come up later.
If they choose to dishonor the vows of marriage then they need to go their own way,whether The Lord corrects them is His business. Eventually the unrepentant husband will commit adultery as he cannot live without "his needs",whether that is a wife who cooks and cleans or a sexual playmate. Jesus doesn’t expect us to suffer in the presence of unrepentant sin but rather to overcome.
So I would like to suggest to you all that when you have tried and tried until it becomes obvious that the old pattern is still there (re emotional abandonment) that you let the sinner take the consequences and hope that The Lord can get some sense into him. He will always be there for us who are his own but he gave us free will and intelligence to use for His Glory.
How does it glorify The Lord when we walk our lives in defeat? Bondage seems to come to mind. Satan has your husband so keep praying but don’t lose your happiness to your husband’s sin of neglect and torture your poor intellect by hoping. God is of course there for us but you must do something with his guidance. To whine and think it is honorable to be a victim is self defeating.
May my words help us all. With love, Ros
(AUSTRALIA) After searching online for so long for some anonymous but GENUINE help and information on this issue, I was so pleased to finally find some REAL information I practically wept. I am not coming from a religious approach at all, but still got so much out of the above article. I feel so alone, and I hope with all my heart that this place can be the beginning towards finally making the necessary changes to save my marriage. I know it begins with me, and hopefully, hopefully, the changes in me will affect my husband and marriage positively and repair it once and for all. I hope he matures and wakes up once he sees the changes in my approach.
(USA) I’m glad I found this site, because it described so clearly a lot of the things that are happening in my marriage right now. I have only been married two years, but I am seeing these patterns of evasiveness (from him) and pursuit (by me) and worry that they are going to become permanent fixtures of our relationship.
My husband has always had a tough time being open emotionally, and there have been several times during our relationship where it has become a very big issue. He finds it so easy to dedicate time and energy to his hobbies, but very difficult to do the same with me or his son. (We have a two-month old baby boy.) It seems like we have this pattern now: I am in charge of everything to do with the baby, house, meals, cleaning, etc., even though I work full-time; he is in charge of doing his own thing and seeing me/spending time with me or our child on his own terms. It’s not that he doesn’t like or love us; I do believe that he cares about us, in his way. It’s just that I also feel like sometimes, he could take it or leave it. If we left, I think he’d be upset about it for a little bit– a couple of days, maybe– then move on, without a problem.
He tells me he loves me and gives me a peck on the cheek every day, but that’s about it in terms of physical or emotional closeness. I used to have to ask for physical intimacy, but then I would feel so trampy– and he would usually resist, anyway, or kill the mood deliberately to avoid doing anything with me. I was getting so frustrated, and no matter how many different ways I try to deal with it or discuss it with him, nothing seems to change.
I recently started to shut down a little bit, and pull away from him. I just can’t take feeling hurt and lonely and abandoned all the time, so I decided to close down my emotional side instead. I have shut myself off so that I can be "good company" instead of upset, hurt, crying, etc., because I recognized that was only making things worse (he would retreat, I would get upset, he would retreat more, I would get more upset, etc.). Unfortunately, becoming more emotionally distant myself hasn’t necessarily helped in that it seems to have made me stop caring as much. I can’t even seem to care enough to cry any more, let alone feel joy or passion or all of those things I normally feel/want in a relationship.
And here’s the kicker– he has hardly even noticed! He thinks everything is just fine, and in fact seems much happier that we are basically living as roommates. Yes, roommates who get along and can chat about things and do the basic surface things, but just roommates. Every so often, he’ll kind of notice that things are different, somehow, and he’ll give me a little extra attention– say "I love you" and put his arms around me for a minute while I do dishes, wink and make a suggestive comment… but the sad thing is, I’m just not that interested anymore. I look at it almost clinically, like something that is happening in a movie, not to me in real life. I think it’s sweet, from a distance, but I can’t really *feel* the same things anymore. I’m worry that I won’t be able to re-connect with him even if he ever decides that he wants to repair our relationship… although that’s a very big "if" because he just doesn’t seem to recognize that there is a problem to be fixed.
For now, I’ve been able to focus on my son, my own projects, my friends, my career, etc., but none of that makes me feel cherished by my husband. I am determined that I will not end up being one of those women who depends on her children for emotional support and satisfaction, or a workaholic, or anything like that, but I’m also reluctant to consider divorce. It would seem so trivial to leave for this reason alone; I mean, I know he loves me, I know he likes me as a friend, we can hang out and enjoy each other’s company… but is that all I can expect from this man, this marriage? To be friends? Where is my partner, my lover, the man who makes my heart race? I hope there is a solution, because I am not willing to live the rest of my life like this.
(USA) I have been married for 25 years. Have an emotionally absent husband who, at one time, went to church with me. Why is it when they are dating you, you are the most important person in their book, but after you get married, they slack off and "change?"
Why do they suddenly become immature and selfish? Is it because they put up a big front and after marriage the true colors come out from hiding? How fair is that? Anyway, my husband and I have had no sex for 20 years, no communication. We sleep in different bedrooms, live separate lives… it is so un-Christlike, but I feel helpless to make any changes, as I have tried and tried, but to no avail.
He humiliates me, criticizes me, constantly looks at other women, has made lewd
comments to me about other "beautiful women", has torn me down emotionally, and then acts like nothing happened at all! I feel so resentful towards him, almost hateful!
I sit at church alone. I am alone all of the time. I am beginning to like being alone. It isn’t as painful as being around him. One time, he told me to "go jump in a lake."
He takes no responsibility for his cruel words but if I say something out of line, I
am criticized. I tell him, "what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander."
Please help me. I can’t stand my husband. I am trapped and want out, but I can’t
leave. I am depressed because I can’t talk to him, or resolve our issues. Thanks!
(USA) I am becoming this emotionally distant spouse. My wife is so much better at arguing and remembering wrongs, I could never win an argument or voice what’s inside of me… I feel like she demands me to change. I know she’s unhappy and wants a close, open relationship. I just feel like she wants that relationship with the ME that she imagines I could or should be.
The problem is …I’m not that guy, I feel I would be willing to open up and relate if I was accepted by her, with all of my inadequacies and bad character traits. When I’m just being myself, I hurt her too much and it makes me mad at the same time because I don’t like those things I do to hurt her either. And when she’s hurt and upset, I get mad because it’s something that’s part of me that’s hurting her, something hard to change.
I just want to feel accepted, forgiven, understood, respected and given space to just be me. Who knows? maybe I’ll even start to love her then.
My wife also tends to think she never does anything wrong. I wish she would look deep down inside of herself and try to understand herself and me. Until things get better, emotionally distant for my protection.
(US) Hi Dave – well this could be something my husband could write about me and in fact, it’s probably very typical of most marriages that are still growing. The problem is that neither of you are getting validated – that’s why she’s hurt by you and is voicing that, hoping to get validated for it, and that’s also why you feel disrespected by her.
You can try to get to a place where both of you can talk about things without getting too emotional and it also requires both parties to listen. That’s the starting place to validation. It has to be win/win for both.
One book that is helpful is the 5 Love Languages – it gives ideas on how to show love to the other person in the way that they receive it best. There’s also a website and you can take the quiz about yourself and your wife.
Hope this helps. LT
(PHILIPPINES) Hi everyone! I’m reading all your comments and LT’s advice. I’m now suffering from my emotional depression. I’ve been married for 3 years and my husband has not become supportive to me emotionally or financially. He cares more about his friends and family than he does about me. He don’t even want to discuss problems. He told me that he loves me but it doesn’t show in his actions. His words are different from what he’s doing. Please help me!
(USA) I have the very same problem Mary. I don’t know what to do either. I need help.