My Husband Straight Up Told Me He Doesn't Love Me Anymore

I recently heard from a wife who recently had a very upsetting exchange with her husband. They had recently exchanged some pretty heated words and the husband threw up his hands and said their whole marriage was a "farce and a joke." This stopped the wife cold in her tracks because normally when they argued, he would say hurtful things about the issues, but not about their marriage.

The wife could not resist her urge to dig deeper. She responded by asking him what in the world he meant by this. He snapped back with "don't pretend that you don't notice how awful things are between us. There is nothing here anymore." Speaking through her shock, the wife asked "What, you're saying you don't love me anymore?" To which the husband responded with "I can't honestly say that I do."

Well, needless to say, the wife was both stunned and devastated. She could not deny that things had not been all that great between them, but never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that he no longer loved her. Sure, he annoyed her sometimes and there were days when she wasn't sure why they were still hanging on, but she knew deep down that the answer was simply that she loved him and this trumped all else.

Now, with his assertion that he no longer loved her, she didn't know where to turn or what to do. Her first inclination was to ask him for more specifics. She wanted to know exactly when he stopped loving her and why. She wanted to know if there was anything that she could do about this or if she could change it.

Of course, the husband was very resistant to all of these questions. The more she pushed, the more annoyed and distant he became. He didn't know the answers, he told her. All her knew was that things were very bad between them and he didn't look at her and see the same person anymore. The wife was at a loss. She wanted to know what she could do to fix or improve this situation or if she should just accept it as a lost cause. She was pretty clear on the fact that she did not want to give up. She had invested too much and she cared too deeply to walk away. I will tell you what I shared with her in the following article.

When Your Husband Says He Doesn't Love You, This Doesn't Always Mean That It's True, But It Does Mean That You Should Pay Attention And Take Action: In truth, it's entirely possible that the husband was just reacting to his frustration with the situation. And, while it could be true that he no longer loved how the marriage or his life made him feel, it didn't necessarily mean that he didn't love his wife. It most probably meant that he was (at least temporarily) not feeling loving, intimate, and empathetic feelings for her.

And, despite the wife's pain and frustration, I felt strongly that she was much better off addressing the lack of intimacy and empathy, than the specifics of what he was saying. She was not sure about this at first but eventually, she had to admit that every time she asked her husband things like "do you still feel like you don't love me?;" or "we had a good together, so does this mean that you're feeling differently?" she almost never got the response that she was hoping for. Instead, her husband was a bit resentful of being constantly questioned.

He seemed to want to try to change their attitudes and to improve the situation to see what happened, while the wife was constantly needing and wanting reassurance and to define the situation. I completely understand this. It's very scary and painful not to know what the future holds and to be afraid that you are just wasting your time or delaying what is going to be true pain and disappointment.

But, what you have to keep reminding yourself is that all you control is how you act, respond, and project. So, if you can place a positive spin on these things on a daily basis then, at the end of the day, no matter how it turns out, you will know that you put yourself in the best position to get the most positive outcome. You will know that you acted in a way that you can proud of and that you did absolutely all you could.

Ways That You Can Try To Returning The Loving Feelings: Everyone intuitively knows that their positive actions can potentially help the situation. But, most people want to know how they can make their husbands love them again. Well, it's unrealistic to think that you can "make" a grown man do anything that he does not want to do. But, you do already know what elicits loving feelings in him. You know how you treated him before and the things you did when you were dating. You know what the atmosphere was like when you were first together and / or most happy.

And although things in your lives have likely changed quite dramatically, nothing at all says that you can't draw on those same things and situations that bound you together in the beginning. Sometimes, it really helps to look at your lives then and at your lives now to see where the biggest differences lie to then determine how you can change this. People will often tell me things like "well, obviously, we have more responsibilities and stress now and it's unrealistic to think that we can just turn back the clock and be happy go lucky like we were."

Maybe. But, you can incorporate more fun, attention, and bonding into every day. In reality, married couples can serve as each other's support and comfort in these times of higher stress. That's one of the beautiful things about being married. Rather than turning against each other, you can stand together and this mechanism can actually strengthen you if you harness it to work for you rather than against you. So while you can't turn back the clock, you can use what you know about your husband and your relationship to improve what is your reality today.

My husband told me that he didn't love me several times before he eventually left for a separation.  I suspect he wanted a divorce.  Thank goodness I didn't let that stop me. I kept right on working on the marriage (by myself, since he wasn't interested at first.) Eventually, (though commitment and lots of effort), I was able to not only save the marriage but make it stronger. So, it was very much worth the effort. You can read that story of how I saved my marriage on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com