My Husband Said He Doesn’t Love Me Anymore: What To Do When Husband Doesn’t Love You Anymore

My husband said he doesn’t love me anymore – What to do when husband doesn’t love you anymore.

I sometimes have women who contact me who have just received a devastating message from their husband. He has either freely admitted or has reluctantly disclosed that in the wife’s words: “he doesn’t love me anymore.” However, often when he sees the wife’s very strong and very painful reaction, he will make the concession that he “is willing to try to work on or save the marriage.” This can seem like a half-hearted consolation prize. Many wives will respond with something like: “he doesn’t love me, but he’s going to force himself to go through the motions and salvage something that he thinks is dead? No thanks.”

I completely understand how this feels. I was in the same situation a few years ago. But, don’t make the mistakes that I did. These things almost cost me my marriage and they just prolonged the healing and continued to cause the holding back and the delays that only made things worse. Yes, this hurts, but if you still love your husband and your marriage, you must handle this in the right way. I’ll discuss this more in the following article.

Yes, Hearing That He Doesn’t Love You Hurts, But Often He Doesn’t Mean This Literally: A man may think that he’s very sincere when he tells you that he either doesn’t love you or doesn’t love you in the same way, but understand that men are absolutely horrific at evaluating and then quantifying these types of feelings. Often, if you can even have a tiny bit of success with digging a little deeper, you’ll often find that a husband’s feelings about this topic fluctuates depending upon what is going on in their lives.

If they are having stress in their job, have fears and insecurities that go hand in hand with being a provider in this economy or aging, have doubts about their parenting or marital skills, or feel that the intimacy and bond that they used to enjoy with you is slipping away, they can very easily (and commonly) misinterpret these things as “falling out of love.” Trust me when I say that I’ve seen countless men do a three hundred and sixty degrees turn when the things in their lives (or the intimacy and quality time with you) begins to turn around.

Things look a whole lot differently when a man has a safe haven or a gentle net on which to fall. It’s important to prioritize this in your marriage and to not take this message too personally. I know it’s painful, but I also know that it’s highly unlikely that he actually means precisely what he said. He often means that he feels lonely, scared, unsure, or isolated. He’s frustrated and feeling vulnerable and will often say these things just to get your attention or strong reaction. Often it is the strongest call to arms that he will give before he starts threatening or thinking about divorce. But don’t panic. My saying that certainly doesn’t mean that this is your reality, but I say it because I want this to be a wake-up call for you so that you’ll actually take action and not ignore things as I did.

Don’t Allow His Telling You That He Doesn’t Love You To Sabotage Your Marriage Or Set You Up To Fail: I know first hand that many of us have the same reactions when our men hint at or tell us that they aren’t feeling so loving anymore. We are generally first shocked. Later we become angry. Sometimes we become defensive. Eventually, we become depressed or panicked and this can lead to behaviors that we don’t recognize in ourselves. We become clingy. We demand answers, but not in a good way. We demand rather than ask and insinuate that the answer is wrong. There is no pleasing us. Even if he is trying to be kind and honest, our reactions are so strong and scary that he will want to hold back or to avoid us.

It’s absolutely understandable why we feel this way. Our foundation has been shaken to its core. But it’s also important to understand that these behaviors will bring about negative reactions and feelings in our husbands. He’ll begin to think that he too can not win. He will begin to wonder if he was wrong to commit to trying to make this work. He’ll suspect that things may be worse than he thought. And so he’ll deep down wonder if maybe he shouldn’t just go through the motions until it becomes obvious to you both that the marriage is over. This is obviously not what you want. You’ll want to set it up in the exact opposite way, which I will discuss below.

Moving Forward In A Positive Way: If you’re going to have the positive outcome that you want, you’re going to need to be able to elicit positive feelings followed by positive behaviors by both you and your spouse. It’s so tempting to pull back, afraid to allow yourself to be vulnerable and to only go in part way. Don’t. You don’t want to settle for less either. Your real goal is to restore the feelings of affection and intimacy that you once both enjoyed.

However, don’t mistake this for thinking that the giving and the concessions must all be yours. In all honestly, you can not give him what you don’t have. If you’re feeling insecure or down about yourself, you’re not going to be able to present the best version of yourself to him. And this is the woman that he fell in love with and wants back. Take this time to do the work that you need to do so that you can be happy with yourself first.

This will allow you to be the laughing, alluring, and open woman who is able to be happy with someone else. I know that it sounds cliche, but it is so true. Your husband wants the light hearted happy woman who made him a priority and who had the time for him back. This made him feel secure, understood, and “in love.” He doesn’t feel the same way anymore because he thinks that this woman is gone for good. It’s your job to show him that she’s not.