Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Many wives have no idea what to make of what their husband is telling them when it comes to his feelings toward and distance from them.  Quite often, he is contradicting himself or saying things that do not make a lot of sense, or at the very least show very little consistency.

A wife could explain: “my husband has become very distant to me over the last several months.  He never shows me any affection and he doesn’t seem to care if I am happy or not.  In fact, he pretty much ignores me.  Recently, I decided that I just wanted to lay all of this on the table.  I am tired of pretending that I don’t notice how he’s acting.   So I flat out asked him if he loves me.  He hesitated for a minute and said that sometimes he does, but he clarified that sometimes he “definitely does not.”  I asked him what this meant and he told me that it was hard to explain and he didn’t elaborate.  Plus, he refuses to discuss it any further.  He has just gone back to being his sullen and withdrawn self.  How am I supposed to respond to this when I’m not even sure what he means by it? What does this mean for our marriage?”

Obviously, I can’t read minds. However, I do dialog with men and I think that I have a firm handle on what they are alluding to (or are trying very unsuccessfully to express) when they make these kinds of assertions.  I will share some insights with you below.

Although He’s Not Making A Lot Of Sense, He’s Trying To Express Some Vague Dissatisfaction:  When a man says that he loves you some of the time but doesn’t on other occasions, he’s not really telling you much of anything.  Because love doesn’t turn itself on and off in that way.  So instead of saying something truly meaningful (or even accurate) what he is trying to do is to get your attention.  He wants you to be aware of some dissatisfaction that he has about his life, your marriage, or the situation in general.  Now, it’s possible that you are already aware of this situation or of his dissatisfaction, but he may think that you aren’t paying enough attention or aren’t taking enough action, so he’s saying something as drastic as this to get your attention.

Although What He’s Saying Is Hurtful And Maddening, There’s Some Good News Here:  This wife admitted that she still loved her husband although she wasn’t all that pleased with his handling of this situation.  She hoped that he hadn’t lost his love for her or that if he had, that she could get it back.  Frankly, I didn’t think that he had lost his love.  If he had, he likely would have told this very directly.  It was more likely that his unhappiness was situational.  What I mean by that is that when things were going well, he likely felt a great deal of love for his wife.  But, when they were not going well, he felt a lack of love because of his frustration or disappointment.

So why is this good news?  Because it means that he still loves you and is still invested in you and the marriage.  If he wasn’t, he would not feel the frustration that is causing him to say what he is saying.  So this is positive news.  And although this situation can seem daunting, it’s not nearly as bad as dealing with a husband who is very confidently and directly telling you that he is no longer in love with you in the slightest.

How To Respond To This And To Begin To Pick Up The Pieces:  What is very important to understand right now is that this is a situational problem.  It’s not that your husband doesn’t like the person that you are in general.  It’s not that he’s not attracted to you or that he doesn’t want to be married to you.  It’s that, sometimes either during times that trouble him or during issues when there is stress or conflict, he projects his feelings of frustration onto you and he translates this as, at that time, as he’s not feeling love for you at the time.  This is unfortunate, but not insurmountable.

What Does This Mean For Your Marriage?: It means that you will need to pay attention to a couple of things.  First, during what situations do you think he shuts down and pulls away from you? What is happening during this time or what circumstances surround his behavior?  Once you can pinpoint this, you can begin to eliminate the issues or circumstances that are causing him to feel this way.  Because frankly, once you can make him more content on a regular basis, it only makes sense that he is going to feel love for you most of the time and then drop the whole “sometimes I don’t love you” act.

A decent script for addressing this would be something like “well it hurts me to hear you say this because I still love you and our marriage.  But, I agree that there are some things that are not working and are frustrating.   Will you commit to working with me to eliminate these things so that we are both feeling loving all of the time instead of some of the time?”

It’s important not to lash out or place any blame.  Sure, this hurts, but you don’t want to get defensive so that you push him even further away. Instead, you want to facilitate a sense of cooperating and working together so that he actually moves closer to you rather than further away.  This most definitely doesn’t mean your marriage is over.  It just means that you need to take inventory. And you need to take action.

I wish I had taken some action when my husband started to say some of these types of things.  Unfortunately, I assured myself that he was just blowing off steam.  Eventually, things got so bad that we separated.  I had to use many of these principles to save my marriage.  In fact, I had to look at my marriage and my husband in an entirely different way.  If it helps, you can read about that entire emotional process on my blog http://isavedmymarriage.com

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