Never Really Loved My Husband- Looking for advice

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sdd04
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Sdd04

Guest
We’ve been together for 5 years now. Compared to others, that’s not that long. I was attracted to him in a romantic sense in the beginning but I don’t think I ever actually “fell in love” with him. He is a great person, handsome, hard worker, and a lot of other things. It’s been a few months since I woke up one day and realized I don’t love him anymore or never really did. I have been avoiding sex because it makes me anxious. Kissing and cuddling is fine but I still don’t feel anything for him than more than a friend. I don’t want to divorce and I am not looking for advice moving towards that.

I am looking for people who have been in my situation or have gone through how I feel and had a positive outcome. I am looking for hope that this can get better or if this is just a phase.
 
Matthew Kelly’s book “The Seven Levels if Intimacy” helped my marriage when I was feeling “out of love”.
 
Thank you for your reply. I will check out that book. How long were you feeling “out of love” before everything changed?
 
It’s normal for physical infatuation to fade, but remaining distant from your husband isn’t going to help. When was the last time you had a full physical? How are you sleeping and eating? I ask because our physical condition affects our feelings more than we realize–sometimes to the point of “rewriting” history, even. Our feelings can be overwhelming and still not reflect objective reality.

I would also suggest initiating sex with your husband. Make it nice–candlelit dinner, adult beverage, nice dress, whatever you think is going to help you two relax and get in the mood. Try to approach him not as if you were completing an unpleasant chore, but as if you were about to have a nice experience. Communicate with him, verbally and nonverbally, about what touches feel good and so on. I have certainly had experiences that didn’t start out with me feeling an overwhelming urge for sex, but that turned out marvelous and enjoyable; and honestly, I cannot think of a single time that I regretted relations with my husband.

Finally, pray that you can love your husband throughout this experience. God is love and the author of love, and He will certainly hear you.
 
We have been married for three decades. The “in love” feeling ebbs and flows. It did seem to ebb more in the first 10 years, after the first 5 ish the new began to wear off, by 7 years we separated for a few weeks.

We separated again around year 11ish.

The good news, in the last 5 years we are closer than we have ever been and it keeps getting better every week.

We remain friends always, always.
 
Thank you for your response. My biggest issue I think is that I was never really “infatuated” with my husband. Our sex life was always more than healthy being at least once a day. It’s just been the past couple of months where I have been avoiding him because it feels like I’m having sex with a sibling. I’m terrified of not being able to move past this and I don’t want to hurt my husband. Have you ever felt like that before?
 
Sdd04 said:
Our sex life was always more than healthy being at least once a day.
Click to expand...
Once a day, for did you say you’ve been together 5 years! Heavens, I cannot think of anything I’d not tire of after doing it every day for that many years!

Time to bring back what brought you together. What did you do on your first dates?
 
Not “once a day” but “at LEAST once a day”.

Familiarity breeds contempt - why not try some new activity together?
 
There has to be something else. You went from more than once a day to viewing having sex with him as your brother. Something happened to create that.
 
Last edited:
@Trishie Thank you for your response. Can you describe what you mean by never “in love”. My husband is my best friend and I think when we got together I kind of forced myself to like him a bit more. I feel as though throughout our entire relationship I always felt more like friends than romantic partners and pushed that thought away because I thought that’s how it was supposed to feel like. I love him as a person now but really nothing more. I am stuck in a situation where I blame myself. I am losing faith that this will get better. I want to love him in a way a wife should love her husband.
 
@Hoosier-Daddy when we got together I was a lot younger and naive. I think I always had feelings for him as a friend but pushed them aside. We never had chemistry or that attraction. He was a great person so I thought I could stay and learn to fall in love with him. There were a few years where I thought I did but I don’t think it was really love. Everything I once felt for him, is gone, and I don’t think it will come back because it was never really there in the first place.
 
@TheLittleLady we used to go out to eat, take trips, things we still do now! We always do things together.
 
@TheLittleLady what if that’s all we ever had? I don’t think I ever loved him. Or at least in a way a wife should love her husband.
 
There is no one way husbands and wives should “love” each other. And anyone who has had a long marriage will tell you that the feelings change over the years.

If your parish gives you access to Formed.org you can watch not only the Beloved series about marriage but also Symbalon. There is one chapter on marriage, I just taught it to RCIA a few weeks ago. It speaks of how marriage is a combination of the types of love (Greek gives us different words for love, far better than the English!)

There was a study done a few years ago that showed couples who had fallen out of love and were ready to divorce, when they stayed in the marriage, were much happier and had stronger marriages after a few years. (I will google and try to find the study)

When we had bad times in our marriage, I can tell you that one of the problems was me. There are always men out there who are fishing. They are in the office, at work, online, and they were ready to give me attention that I did not feel I was getting at home. It made me start comparing my husband to that guy at work who was flirty, who gave me compliments, who dressed well and was adventerous. That was my biggest weakness, I craved attention and complements.

Also, I expected my husband to read my mind. I mean, if my assistant at work can remember how I like my burger, why can’t MY HUSBAND remember? I learned to ask my husband for what I need/want " instead of expecting him to simply know it. Communication helped us so much.

The old saw about a 7-year itch is true. Sometime between 7 and 10 years, a lot of people get bored in the marriage and start looking over the fence. With social media it is even easier to compare our marriages and relationships to others. It is easy to find our day to day buying the right toilet paper and the unrinsed bathroom sink as dull and “not what I deserve!”.

Not saying that you are doing those things, but, just sharing where I was.

Reading that “7 Levels” book helped me.

Reading the Love Languages book helped me.

Retrouvaille has helped many people.

Remembering that friendship, companionship, is worth dying for so it is worth pushing through the dry times.
 
love isnt about how we feel, its an act of the will. You chose to love this man, now you are going to have to fulfil your promise. The lack of intimacy and conjugal relations is what is separating you as well. you need to tell you man what you need, and if its proper and good for him and Gods will, he will change, and if he doesnt you still have to love him.
 
LittleFlower378 said:
The lack of intimacy and conjugal relations is what is separating you as well
Click to expand...
Be careful. There are times in a marriage when we must abstain, injury, illness, other situations. This does NOT mean that the couple is separated, in fact, it can be time to grow much closer.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top