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, you are being taken advantage of? In other words, does a void exist for you because you have an emotionally distant husband?
In my counseling practice I specialize in treating common emotional stresses. if left unattended, They can turn into major debilitating problems. The hurting people who come to see me are trying to cope with anger, depression, anxiety in their marriage. 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.
The Emotionally Eager Wife VS Emotionally Distant Husband Who Will Not Engage
Over twenty-five thousand counseling sessions have shown me that the 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 of being emotionally distant and disconnected:
- “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 fails to progress, feelings of disillusionment become entrenched. And then faulty patterns of communication yield increasing frustration. Failure to progress is not for lack of trying.
Good Reason to Be Disappointed
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. Unfortunately, their husbands fail to supply that need. They are emotionally distant. 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 are unwilling to seriously explore the depths of their own emotional needs. As a result, they 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 emotionally distant, undemonstrative men are looking, deep inside, for a way to jump-start their marriages. I can show spouses the best method to address their unique relational needs, and the lessons will probably “take.”
Options are Available in Dealing with the Emotionally Distant Spouse.
When the husband, however, is unwilling to participate in counseling, the wife still has some excellent options. Her emotionally distant 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.
The Emotionally Distant Identifying Pattern
The first step toward improving one’s relationship is to understand what constitutes patterns in marriages that can 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. They 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 doesn’t see himself as being emotionally distant.
Ways He Evades Processing
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. It’s 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, and to get rid of them. That is because he sees them as anti-productive. Let me emphasize that there is no right-and-wrong about having strong emotions. It is not wrong to even, to some extent, downplay them. But because she recognizes and even nurtures her emotional side, the wife can enjoy life in its richest, fullest dimension.
Insistent Anger and Resistant Anger
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. This happens 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. So she becomes greatly disillusioned when external signs of that understanding are nonexistent.
Evasive Behavior
Evasive husbands invent a broad range of behaviors for avoiding the in-depth discussions they see as useless and potentially harmful. There is the silent treatment, pretended agreement, and constant forgetfulness. There is also procrastination, laziness, and temper outbursts. Plus, there is work-a-holism, undue attention to a hobby or sport, and in general merely being unavailable. The emotionally distant, evasive man may tune out. He might say whatever he thinks his wife wants to hear at that moment. He does this to prevent the boat from rocking, and harbors no intention of actually following through.
To counter evasiveness, the emotionally eager wife will be prone toward responses such as crying. They try to be 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 this emotionally distant interplay.
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 emotionally distant 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 to her emotionally distant husband.
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 emotionally distant, 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. The emotionally distant husband 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 emotionally distant 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 emotionally distant 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.
The Emotionally Distant Fear of Accountability
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. This is exactly the opposite of what the emotionally eager wives are seeking. The men keep their feelings well hidden. But their 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. 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.
Has Emotionally Distant Preference to Lie Low
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 as 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. That is 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 they are rebuffed for six months at a time, a year, or longer.
Slipping into an Emotionally Distant Comfortable Shell
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. This is in the way of 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. They enjoy stimulating philosophical discussions, flock to seminars, and invite growth. They like being challenged about what can be done to create a fuller life. 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. 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 then, 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. She does this by protesting, 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 by her emotionally distant husband.
“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.
Don’t Quit
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.
Work on Your Happiness
In short, a major step is to put your own house in order to improve your own satisfaction and happiness. You may find that the improvement in your life is just the catalyst your spouse needs. You will still be a more stable and content individual, even if you do not experience adjustment you have hoped for in your mate. 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.
This edited article came from the great book, Distant Partner. It is written by Dr Les Carter, and is published by Thomas Nelson Publishers. The subtitle for the book is: “How to tear down emotional walls and communicate with your husband.” As Dr Carter says in the beginning of the book, “I have written this book primarily for answer-seeking wives. I want you to understand why some husbands act evasively and maintain a certain distance from you. Most particularly, I want to show you what you can do to improve your emotional reactions to your husband.”
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 read this book along with your spouse Dr Carter explains in the preface of the book the best way to do this.
— ALSO —
For additional insight, here are two additional articles to read to help you deal with this issue:
• HOW TO RELATE TO AN EMOTIONALLY DISTANT MAN
• WHY DOESN’T MY HUSBAND ADDRESS PROBLEMS DIRECTLY
And then lastly, Dr Greg Smalley gives the following insight:
• FIGHT FOR YOUR MARRIAGE WHEN YOUR SPOUSE IS EMOTIONALLY DISTANT
Filed under: Communication and Conflict
(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.
(U) I have been married over 20 years. My mistakes have been huge. I have tried too hard, I have gotten angry, depressed, disregarding, disrespectful… at varying times. The dynamics with my husband and I have affected one of our kids horribly. I kept thinking in the earlier days that it was mostly me. My husband still thinks it is mostly me.
We are now separated. There had been no arguing or anything. He just suddenly decided he was done.
While I have been clear about my part in screwing up the marriage, he cannot bring himself to see his part. And now I know in hindsight, he is not as deaf as he appears. He is incredibly sensitive, and I tromped on him. He lacks in courage to express himself, to reach out, and to admit when he is wrong.
So here I am, older, and alone, and it did occur to me more than 15 years ago to be done or insist on major marriage counseling. I should have done that.
Both of us are to blame. Now the bottom line is forgiveness. And, if he changes his mind, which I doubt, and wants to reconsider, now I am beginning to understand I cannot do this unless he can say "I am sorry" on occasion, can express a little more emotion, can express sadness, anger… all those things that make us fully human. I sometimes treated him badly, and I scarred him. He scarred me with his indifference. He sometimes made me feel like a zero.
If you are married to someone like my husband, get to counseling. If you are dating someone like my husband, get to counseling, or leave. These kind of people are the most resistant to change. And without meaning to be, they are deeply hurtful, and also feeling hurt themselves, since they cannot express much. They seem so strong, but they are just keeping it all in, and one day, at the worst possible time, they will in some manner explode. Starting Over and Too Old to be doing it…
(UNITED STATES) I have been married going on three years and I was this emotionally distant husband, not wanting to admit my emotional issues. My wife says she has felt abandoned emotionally from me for over a year and just "burnt-out" and wants a separation and possibly a divorce. I have focused all my energy on my faith and it is getting me through this hard time, but I never realized how much my relationship with God was in trouble as well.
I feel so close to God now and have made that commitment to be the spiritual leader of my family but now my wife is not willing to work on the relationship. She feels that she has invested all she can and she just cannot put out anymore. She wanted counseling during the years but I never would go. She would tell me plain and simple the issues. I would change for a week or two and she would not give back and I would give up, so now she just thinks I will give in and she is not willing to put her heart in harms way again. This has been going on over four months now and about two and half months I have totally transformed into a loving, caring mate but she is not excepting anything.
I have always been a good father to our son and provided a home, no infidelity, no abuse, no alcoholism, but I knew there was another level to our marriage that I was dying to reach, I just didn’t know how. I felt it was always something she was doing but when she was ready to walk out the door I looked at myself and the way I detached from her emotionally.
My mother battled cancer for two years of our marriage and eventually passed two years ago when I was 26 and I now I probably got used to taking emotionally from my wife and didn’t take care of the things she needed to talk about then. I soon realized I was the one that needed to work on things but it’s been so hard with absolutely no affirmation of it on her part.
I now read many books, I am going to a marriage counselor every week, I read countless articles and blogs on marriage and what women want emotionally, I have talked with our pastor, called upon Christian friends who have experienced the same thing, and most importantly I truly seek God’s word and what he expects of us as followers and in marriage. I have truly changed into a loving, devoted husband but she is not excepting it and seems she is only becoming more and more distant.
The more and more I learn, the easier this problem seems to fix and it only takes a small effort. But she feels this is just un-fixable and will never be able to be worked out or have the scars healed. But just having the understanding of knowing what each other’s intentions were through those times is totally opposite of what I thought her intentions were then. I know I have hurt her emotionally and don’t expect this to change over night but it seems the more and more close I come to her emotionally and closer to God, the further she goes.
She wants to get separated thinking it will be better, but doesn’t know if she wants to get back with me. So I feel she’s not going to work on anything during the separation and it will only make her more distant followed by then divorce. What do I do?
I pray and pray. I try to talk to her about God or going to church but she will not hear anything only being defensive. I think she feels God has let her down and that God would not want her to be this unhappy. I know this is not true. God wants her to live by her actions and not solely by her feelings but she doesn’t believe this. She feels that the reasons I treated her like this for so long is that I didn’t truly love her but I did.
And when I tell her why, after learning of problems like in this article, the reasons I treated her like I did, are only excuses. I read articles like this one and only learn more about myself. I have a new found knowledge on how to connect emotionally my wife on even a deeper level and that is what I have done. I feel so great and see the future brighter than she probably even imagined. If she could just read one article I think she might think we are not the only marriage in the world that has gone through this.
I try to tell her most men are like this and I feel good that I have worked this out so young and into our marriage. Does anyone have any advice?
I thank you so much for information like this. It has helped me grow into a "real man" for my marriage. This is the first time I have written a comment but I just say thanks again, after researching all the information out there on marriages it is really not that hard to do what you should, once you read. I read articles and say that’s how I feel exactly and never knew it, or knew why I acted like that or why my wife would react the way she does, so just understanding a few simple emotional details about how men and women think are pretty simple but vital to any relationship.
I ask for all the prayers I can get, I love my wife and cherish her so deeply. Thanks for any prayers or replies.
I’d like to point out a couple of books that have truly transformed my way of thinking and opened my eyes to the almost obvious. One is “How to Fix Your Marriage Without Talking” and this book explains how talking about things are not as important as one may think, but making that connection with your spouse is vital. The second, is a book titled “The Walk Out Woman.” I think it is geared toward women but it explains how women’s emotions work, what starts and stops those processes and one topic that puzzled my mind and my wife’s mind was “why men don’t changed until she is walking out the door.” I highly recommend both of them, especially the second one. I hope this helps someone who is at the bottom but is willing to do whatever it takes to make your marriage work, I feel your pain.
(USA) Uri, you have explained your plight so well. How I wish every emotionally distant husband would read what you wrote… and yet many of them wouldn’t listen. And how I wish every wife who is SO disgruntled and feels hopeless, would just open a corner of their heart one last time for husbands like you.
But it’s kind of like what is described in the article “Why Some Spouses Give Up” (which is in the “Save My Marriage” section). Their strength gives way JUST BEFORE the rescue comes.
All I can say Uri, is to keep on the learning path you are going. Learn all you can, love your wife, pray for her, and hopefully she will see and appreciate the change in you over time. I sense that you really “get it” as far as your role in marriage. Keep strong in your relationship with God and don’t give up NO MATTER WHAT!
And if you can shout this message from the housetops to other men to wake them up before it appears to be too late for them, ask God to show you how and where you can go to do so. You might participate with God in saving at least one marriage (and prayerfully, yours as well).
This is the mission we are on as well. We came so close to quitting in our marriage many times. But thank God we woke up when we did. That is why we are so passionate to be a sounding board and a learning center to help people wake up and put the heart of Christ back into their marriages… to reveal the heart of Christ to a world that so desperately needs his saving grace.
God bless you Uri. If you learn anything else that you can pass along, please do so. We appreciate your heart and learning what God is teaching you.
One last thing though, just make sure that you guard your heart. You want to apply these principles so much now, and since your wife is cold at this point, you may be vulnerable to another deception by the enemy of our faith — Keep true to God and to your wife no matter what or who comes your way. The Marriage Message we will be sending out this week would be good for you to read. Blessings!
(USA) Hi all, I stumbled upon this article as I was searching for a way to understand my situation with my fiance. We have been good friends for over six years and dating for over a year. We are getting married at the end of May (less than 2 months away) and recently moved in together.
I have always noticed something distant in him but just wrote it up to him being "laid back". I have always liked his laid back attitude and praised him for it. Now that we are at a point where we should be getting closer, I am noticing more that his laid back attitude is nothing more than him being emotionally distant. I kind of had an inkling that this was the case but this article really opened my eyes. I seriously got chills as I was reading.
I know that my fiance loves me even though I can be very harsh at times but I don’t think that he has any idea of how to communicate with me and I think he is very afraid of me when I very much need him to be a dominant male figure in my life (since I no longer have my father around). I try to discuss my feelings with him but I feel like he disregards anything that I say as nagging at him. He can’t seem to overlook my tone and realize that I am crying out to him for attention.
I have never been a very needy person but I am feeling very lonely and in need of more. Since I don’t live with my mother and father anymore, it has been a very drastic change for me. I am used to coming home to someone who will sit and chat with me for an hour or who actually cares what I did during the day. He always asks, how was your day? But when I begin telling him he floats off into another room or somehow brings the conversation back to something that happened to him that day.
He will say something like, "yeah, that sucks. Well guess what happened to me today!" And I am left feeling very unappreciated and empty. These emotions only become heightened when I get home and he is sitting there playing Xbox or playing on the computer and nothing has been picked up, or even looked over; he hasn’t even turned any lights on and he has been there for 30 minutes!! He just DOES NOT CARE!
It is his world and he is the only one living in it. I am just this person who is expected to cook him dinner, wash his dirty underwear and keep him sexually pleased. I know I said that I liked old fashioned ways but this is crazy! I never expected it to be this way. I give him every opportunity and hint in the world for what I want, I’ve even TOLD him flat out but he just ignores it.
I should have known that he would be just like his father. A bystander in the family. A non-active member of all relationships. I never wanted this and now I am finding myself panicking! Our wedding is in less than two months and I can’t even imagine calling this man my husband! I love him so much but he is not giving me what I need or want. I am so scared right now. I just need someone to let me know that it will be ok.
(USA) Hi Christie, Please, please, please work on these issues BEFORE you marry, rather than being quiet and assuming things will work out later AFTER marriage. Your fiance may be the nicest “laid back” man there is, but if he isn’t open to working on making sure your emotional needs are met in some way (within reason and to the best of his ability), you will live a very frustrated married life together. Just read the above comments.
There are SO many, who have gone into marriage thinking their spouse would be more responsive to their emotional needs later, only to find out the opposite (and live with BIG regrets for marrying).
NOW is the time to find out, BEFORE MARRIAGE, if the man you want to marry is able to share an emotional partnership with you after your marriage. He may be a wonderful man, but that doesn’t mean that he would be a wonderful marriage partner for YOU.
It would be better to postpone any wedding plans (even if it costs you thousands of dollars to do so) and be better prepared for the marriage later on, or to eventually call off the marriage because you see that it wouldn’t work, than to get married in a few months and deeply regret it later. Trust me, a divorce is much costlier on many levels.
Make it a mission together to make sure that you both know how to address each other’s emotional needs. That will take time and learning some skills. Don’t settle for empty promises or for little quick fixes at this point so the wedding can go on as scheduled. Just as there is “buyers remorse” after some big purchases, there is such a thing as “wedding remorse” in marrying quicker than one should.
This man just may need some type of training (and you as well), and you both may need to work on figuring out how to interact together FOR A LIFETIME, so you both feel your emotional love tank is filled. Or he may just be a self-absorbed person who isn’t socially or emotionally ready or able to commit all it would take to make a marriage a good one. Now is the time to find out. I pray you will, and I’m sure the people who have commented above (plus many more who haven’t written) would second that motion. I care and will be praying.
(USA) My husband told me about two weeks ago, he does not love me anymore. He said he cares for me but does not love me. We have a beautiful five year old together. I am trying to save my marriage but it is like he does not want it to work. What should I do? I love my husband but I can not do it alone. I pray everyday that GOD will lead him back to his family.