I often hear from wives who have sort of checked out of their marriages even though they may still be living with their husbands as part of a family. They are usually sort of going through the motions and not rocking the boat or trying to bring the issues to the forefront. I think that this is partly due to the fact that they suspect that nothing can be done about the love that has been lost. In short, they suspect that they aren’t in love with their husbands anymore. And, although many will tell you that they don’t want to take the drastic step of divorce, they aren’t sure if the feelings can return either.
I often hear questions like: “once the love has gone, is it gone forever? Will I ever learn to love my husband again or is this as good as our marriage is ever going to get?” Or, “once you reach a certain age, does there come a point where you just have to accept that you’re no longer going to feel all weak kneed and silly inside? Is there any way to get the love and the spark to return or is that just the way that it is when you’ve been married for as long as I have?”
I believe that there are many in our society who believe that this is just the way that marriage is after a while. And many will divorce based on this belief without ever knowing if there may have been much better times ahead if they had just hung on. But, from my own experience and from hearing about the experiences of many others, I know that it’s entirely possible to learn or come to love your husband or spouse again. It sometimes takes a trip down a road that you might not have considered and sometimes you will be have to the one to take the initiative or the first course of action. Eventually, you have to take control of your own happiness. But, by no means do you have to settle for just lukewarm feelings when the original ones can be reignited with just a little attention.
Love, Passion, And Chemistry Start In Your Head As Much As In Your Heart. And These Feelings Are Often Directly Related To Actions And Circumstances: Many people suspect that romantic love and passion is a feeling that comes out of no where for random reasons like fate. People seem to think that this chemical or organic reaction is simply because two people were fated or supposed to be together and that you will feel this so long as the relationship between you is “right.”
Along this same line of thinking, many people also suspect that when things go stale or when you don’t feel “in love” anymore, that you can take this to mean that things are no longer “right” between you. Many of us don’t or won’t stop to think about the internal things that are going on with us. We don’t consider how we allocate our time and align our priorities and just how much we are putting into generating these feelings rather than expecting them just to present themselves to us as a gift that keeps on giving without any upkeep on our part.
Sometimes we’ll assume that things have just cooled or that we’ve fallen at of love, when the reality is, we’ve done very little to try to address those underlying things that are slowing taking their toll and haven’t taken repetitive steps to try to help ourselves. I was as guilty of this as anyone and by “repetitive” I mean that we keep going even if we meet with setbacks, resistance, hurt feelings, or a reluctance to allow ourselves to be vulnerable or to be the only one willing to try to something new.
Becoming stagnant is one of the great enemies of marriage, but many of us are so focused on the feelings that we think just magically happen, that we aren’t looking at how our heads and our behaviors factor into the equation. We don’t stop consider that other things which have little to do with our marriage might be weighing on us, or that, we ourselves have let things “slide” a little bit over time. We aren’t connecting the dots, but are most definitely seeing that we’ve ended up where we never meant to go.
Learning To Love Your Husband, And Your Marriage, Again: Generally I hear from wives who are part of a few different scenarios. Sometimes, there are some underlying issues that have sapped the intimacy and bond. Generally, someone is angry, disappointed, or hurt, but they either have not expressed this – or if they have expressed it, then they did not get the response from their spouse that they were hoping for.
Other times, there is nothing that they can put their finger on. They’ve simply “drifted apart” or “fallen out of love” and they don’t really fully consider the role that neglect or apathy has played in this slide and how, if they just refocused their efforts back to the relationship, that the feelings would likely follow.
The bottom line is that the absolute worst thing that you can do is to just sit and lament about how you might not be in love with your husband any longer. The more you just sit and watch, the deeper the divide becomes and your job becomes more and more difficult over time. It may turn out that the feelings really are gone, and even your best efforts won’t return them (although I find that this is rarely the case.) But, you’ll never know that if you don’t give this your best effort. You’ll always wonder if maybe, just maybe, things could have changed.
Often wives will tell me that they just don’t know where to begin. Things have gone so cold that they fear they’ll look totally stupid when they begin to suddenly show more emotion and attention. OK, so there might be some discomfort at first. But, isn’t a little and short lived discomfort better than feeling the constant hurt and disconnect day in and day out?
The truth is that beneath the man that you might well roll your eyes at today, lies the younger man that used to make you laugh, that used to put a twinkle in your eye, and that you feel like the most beautiful woman on earth once upon a time. Do you think that man is really and totally gone for good? Because if you make that assumption, then you must also concede that the laughing and happy go lucky younger woman that you were is also gone. And once you begin to believe that, you really might alter the course of your marriage.
You don’t have to make drastic changes if that makes you uncomfortable. But, you should pay attention each and every day to ways that you can place your focus back on the things that used to make you feel close. Almost always, when people tell me that they don’t love their spouses anymore, it’s also true that they are spending less and less together, have become more and more angry, and have all but given up.
Don’t give up. If you used to love taking walks together, try that again today. If you need help to work past your issues and problems, then get that help. If there are things that you need to say, but are afraid to look “stupid” or “silly,” then let that go and say them. This is your life. Your happiness is at stake. You loved this person enough to marry them, so it doesn’t make sense to walk away or to live your married life numb when you can at least make the attempt to change up your focus, your actions, and your priorities to see where that leads. Either way, you’ll have your answer. And I suspect that you’ll be glad that you took this path when all is said and done.
