My Husband Is Always Mad At Me. He Constantly Says He Doesn’t Love Me Out Of Anger. What Does This Mean For Our Marriage?
By: Leslie Cane: Some wives occasionally feel unloved by their husbands. And, much of the time, they don’t feel this way because of the way that their husband acts. They feel this way because of the words that he carelessly says when he becomes angry. Many times, the husband’s go-to words when he particularly wants to hurt his wife is to tell her that he doesn’t love her. As you can probably imagine, when this happens even once, it is very painful. But when it becomes a habit, it can make you question your husband and your marriage.
A wife might say: “my husband and I have been fighting a lot within the last couple of months. Lately, when he becomes angry for various reasons and we begin to argue, he will tell me that he doesn’t love me and that he has never loved me. This is always said out of anger. And sometimes, after things cool down, he will apologize and tell me that he really didn’t completely mean it but that he gets so frustrated with our marriage sometimes. The first couple of times that he said this, it didn’t bother me all that much. But as it becomes more and more common, I’m starting to get really concerned. I mean, if you hear something often, eventually you are going to start believing it. I’m starting to become worried about my marriage and I am starting to doubt his love for me. Am I overreacting?”
I actually didn’t think that this wife was overreacting. Hearing the person that you love repeatedly claim that they don’t love you can make you have multiple doubts and of course, it hurts. Sure, he can apologize and try to take it back. But by then, the damage has already been done. You can’t turn back time or pretend that you didn’t hear him. So, you have to deal with this issue rather than just hoping that it will eventually go away. I will discuss some ways to do that in the following article.
Have A Very Honest Conversation And Then Continue To Talk Every Time This Happens: I believe that it’s very important that you address this. He needs to know how deeply this hurts you and he needs to understand how often this is happening. So the next time he begins his whole ‘I don’t love you’ stance, stop him and let him know how you feel about this. A suggested script might be something like: “I need to stop you right there. We can talk about the underlying issues in a few minutes, but there is something that I really want to address first. Your telling me that you don’t love me out of anger is becoming a habit. It happens quite frequently and every time that it does, it hurts me more than I can say. I know that you are reacting out of anger, but I need you to stop saying this. Even if you don’t really mean it, these words still hurt me and they make me doubt our marriage. Can you say anything else? You can tell me how frustrated you are and you can even say that you dislike how I’m acting. But saying that you don’t love me as a person or as a wife is just too much. And know that I’m going to bring your attention to it every time it happens because it is just so hurtful that it needs to stop.”
The next step would be calling him on it the next time he begins his verbal mistake. So, let’s say that you have had the above conversation and he slips back into his old ways and he begins telling you that he doesn’t love you out of anger. You would need to stop him and say “I’m drawing your attention to the fact that once again, you’re going with the ‘I don’t love you’ message when you are mad at me. I’m going to ask you right now to stop. You can be angry at me and we can talk about it, but telling me that you don’t love me isn’t fighting fair.”
The key is to allow him to see just how often he falls back on these old habits. He needs to understand that this is a common occurrence and that he has fallen into a habit that has to change. Often, people don’t even realize what they are doing until someone else brings their attention to the same.
Try To Identify Any Triggers Or Patterns That You Can Remove: Sometimes, you can identify a trigger or a topic that brings about this pattern over and over again. Sometimes, a couple has never really learned how to resolve conflict without resorting to hurtful name-calling. Other times, it is one particular topic that tends to bring out the worst in one of the spouses. Sometimes, if you can identify and then fix this trigger, you can also eliminate the hurtful words. This is very important because if this continues to go on, it can really deteriorate your marriage. The wife may begin to feel as if she needs to retaliate in some way and things just go downhill from there. Your marriage is the most important relationship in your life. So it’s very important that you both learn how to manage conflicts in a way that doesn’t destroy it.
I learned this lesson far too late. My husband and I were fighting in very destructive ways. Things got so bad that we eventually separated and almost divorced. It wasn’t until I learned how to work with our habits rather than against them that things got much better and we are now very happily married. If it helps, you can read that story on my blog athttp://isavedmymarriage.com
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