I often write about how I was able to save my own marriage when it was on its last legacy, so I am sometimes approached by wives in a similar situation. Recently, I have been asked for advice or suggestions on topics such as “how can I make my husband love me again”, or “my husband separates from me”, or “my husband does not show me any affection”. The basic theme of all of these is that the wife no longer feels the bond, intimacy, and closeness with her husband and insists that the husband’s actions (and lack of affection from her) prevent her from restoring these feelings. So, in this article, I will discuss ways she can encourage loving actions, gestures, and feelings within her marriage.
First, look at your own actions in your marriage: I know from personal experience and from my research that when affection starts to wane and distance starts to set in, people tend to react in one of two ways. The first thing a wife can do is try to overcompensate for the coldness and detachment that begins to manifest itself in the marriage. She may start to get clingy (men often see this as “high maintenance”). She may hover or become overwhelming, or she may shower her spouse with affection or gestures that seem “fake” or insincere. This is what you need to understand if she is tempted to take this tactic. All men want to feel loved, understood and appreciated, but they also want a confident wife who is on an equal footing. Your husband cannot respect you if you demean yourself or try to “make” him love you through insincere or desperate actions.
The other thing that wives often do when they feel that their husbands no longer love them is to walk away themselves. They closed. They back off. Whether consciously or subconsciously, they are thinking “well, two can play this game. If he’s going to act like that, then I won’t go out of my way for him.” No one wants to leave themselves vulnerable when they feel love will not be reciprocated or may be rejected. But, here is the problem with this tactic. To have the close, intimate, and strong marriage that you want, to get that “feeling in love” back into your marriage, you absolutely have to break down the walls you think are protecting you. True intimacy cannot occur if neither person has allowed themselves to be a full and willing participant.
To encourage your husband to “love you back,” show him how to: Think for a second about what you really want from your husband. If she wants you to show her more affection, ask yourself how much GENUINE affection (not faking or overcompensating) you are showing her. If you want more appreciation, show him and tell him why you are grateful for him. Turn the tables, if you want. Now, a lot of people will say, “Well, that’s not right. I’m doing all the work and he’s getting all the rewards.”
Understand that over time, you are going to get back exactly what you are giving up. By your actions, you are teaching your husband how to treat you. And, as you promote positive feelings in his way, he will be that much more enjoyable to live with, and it will only give him more of what he wants.
Take an honest look at the personality of your marriage and your place in it: When I tell people to look at their marriage personality, they give me a strange, questioning look. What I’m getting at when I ask this is this. If you had to describe your marriage in a couple of words, how would you describe it? Be honest here. Because if you really want to know “how to make my husband love me again”, then it would be reasonable for me to think that “loving” or “caring” are not going to be the hallmarks of marriage right now. Chances are, you will honestly describe your marriage as “cold,” “distant,” or “detached.”
But what about when you two met? How would you have described it then? Probably “fun”, “loving”, “caring”, etc. And, at that moment, did she feel loved by her husband? I bet you did. So her goal must be to get back to a point where she can use some of the same words to describe her marriage today as she did when he was in love.
This may mean that you need to recapture some of the qualities your husband first fell in love with. She’d be willing to bet that the woman she had fun with and felt loved by is still in front of him, but her day-to-day stress has left her in the background. But how happy is she today? And how happy was she then? So isn’t it worth the effort to bring her (and her feelings of love in her marriage) back from her? Because her husband was once very much in love with her. And she can be again, but first, you’ve got a little work to do.
