Wife fell out of love

[Marilyn C]

On ‎7‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 2:56 AM, onedirection said:

@living-direction

Have I asked open ended questions? Yes I have. Every morning I've been doing "how can i make your day great?". Day 1 - nothing, I'm fine. Day 2 - I don't know. I am going to do this every day, interested to see if I start getting real answers.

She doesn't know what I can do to win back her love. All she has told me is to be positive, patient, and to build up her self-esteem. I'm doing all these things. She has entered into mutual activities with me and agrees we need to connect more, but some of it is on her own terms. For example, touching of any kind is off limits.

All the other advice has been great. I am indeed focusing on self-improvement and studying scripture that will teach be how to be a better husband. Some of this honestly is going to be praying, waiting, and acting gracefully for a long long long time.

I did tell her about 'A weekend to remember' retreat. Seed planted. Obviously she didn't respond to me, because that's what she does when I push for progress. That is typical of her behavior in anything though. 2 months from now, she could be booking it herself, we don't know.

I'm looking forward to going to church with her tomorrow. Let's pray that the holy spirit surrounds us and that God's plan is revealed for why we're going through this trial. I'm envisioning a future where we share our testimony to other troubled couples so we can bring more people to Jesus. But right now that is just my dream, not hers.

Hi onedirection,

Being a woman myself I can understand that your wife doesn`t really want to have to tell you what to do. Rather she wants YOU to start saying how you appreciate her, (& be specific) & to acknowledge what she does, etc. Don`t be clingy, but say those things at appropriate times and then move on.

Perhaps if you thought about, and even wrote what things you like, appreciate about your wife, then you will be prepared for different times.

You may be doing these things but are you `patient,` as she asked. Your wife did give you - be positive, patient, and to build up her self-esteem. So....there is your guide, just practice and practice.....and as God changes you, then she will notice. Key here is YOU being changed, & not just getting more religious.

regards, Marilyn.

 

[onedirection]

@Marilyn C

Good advice and I have actually shifted in this direction. We're not having the big relationship talks anymore, just being natural and doing fun things day to day. We are making progress but it is really slow. There are several studies and articles that suggest that it is not a good idea to take sex out of the marriage. These studies also point out the negative things that happen to both the body and the mind when sex isn't present. I've also given her everything she has asked for, changed all my behaviors that she didn't like, and we're not arguing or fighting at all (for weeks now).

Today I'm really struggling with the stamina and patience to go on. I feel like I'm being emotionally abused and that I don't deserve this. I'm trying to stick it out for 1 more month, which will take us to just over 3 months. I just can't be with someone who would knowingly make me feel this way for this period of time. I'm starting to feel like I don't have the love anymore and that I don't want to try.

[Marilyn C]

 

20 hours ago, onedirection said:

@Marilyn C

Good advice and I have actually shifted in this direction. We're not having the big relationship talks anymore, just being natural and doing fun things day to day. We are making progress but it is really slow. There are several studies and articles that suggest that it is not a good idea to take sex out of the marriage. These studies also point out the negative things that happen to both the body and the mind when sex isn't present. I've also given her everything she has asked for, changed all my behaviors that she didn't like, and we're not arguing or fighting at all (for weeks now).

Today I'm really struggling with the stamina and patience to go on. I feel like I'm being emotionally abused and that I don't deserve this. I'm trying to stick it out for 1 more month, which will take us to just over 3 months. I just can't be with someone who would knowingly make me feel this way for this period of time. I'm starting to feel like I don't have the love anymore and that I don't want to try.

Hi onedirection,

You have done well to climb that `mountain` by your own efforts. Now at the top, as it were, and no goal insight, you are left with two choices, I think.

1. Turn around and tell your wife you`ve tried hard but no good. She`ll say, “You hypocrite! Was there a time line on our relationship?” You`ll protest, but will just find yourself tumbling to the bottom of the hill you`ve just climbed - for nothing, and the situation will be worse.

2. Over the top of your climb there is a valley, and if you go down into this valley and walk through you`ll come up on the other side with more than your heart every imagined.

`Though I walk through the valley of death (to self) I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod, (for guidance and correction) & staff, (to lean on) they comfort me...` (Ps. 23:4)

 

So if you choose to go the valley way then you will have to climb down to three ledges.

1.Overcoming fear - You will face your fear of this marriage failing and will the Lord really lead me through this difficult valley.

 

2. Overcoming pride - When you get down to this ledge then all sorts of difficulties will come your way where you will want to stand on your pride and say, “But I have my rights etc.” If you give in, then just apologise and you can go on, but if you stand on your pride then that is where you will stand until you `collapse.`

Going down into the valley and to these `ledges,` will take time and much humbling yourself to the Lord. Situations will come your way and you will have the choice to do something in your own strength/pride or lean on the Lord`s staff, saying “Lord I need you to help me be humble here.” This will take time and many experiences in your daily life.

 

3.Overcoming the goal of expecting intimacy,(sex) - as this seemed to be your destination, you will need to come before the Lord and give ALL to Him, and really mean it. Many tears and battles will be fought.

 

However if you truly become, by the Holy Spirit, (& not your own efforts) humble and learn to lean on the Lord then at the bottom of the valley you will see lovely flowers and fruits, and the chiefest of these is the Rose of Sharon, the Lord Himself.

 You will learn to know sweet fellowship with Him in a way you never dreamt possible and I can assure you that your dear wife will smell the fragrance of the Lord upon you. Our Lord attracts and desires relationships built on Him, and not self. Thus all the pain, torment of heart, and frustration will be worthwhile as your hard outer, religious self is broken away, and the man the Lord is making comes forth.

Praying, Marilyn. 

 

 

[JohnD]

A non-fighting, lovey-dovey life-long marriage devoid of times where one or both never wonders why they are married

in the first place... is a myth.

The biggest part of any kind of successful marriage is the devotion and commitment despite the way you "feel."

You will feel love at times like you and your spouse invented love in the first place.

You will feel anger, resentment, even hate at times. Ready to pull the plug (certainly in today's divorce court society).

But commitment sees you through it all.

That's true love.  That's real love.

And if that's what you have, you will get through it all.

Beware also over-expectations can make the smallest of things seem like the worst of all.

They lead quickly to a trumped up list of reasons to just give up or quit. 

Beware also that we are the worst at EASILY convincing ourselves / being convinced by others how disadvantaged we are... how picked on... how put upon.... in marriage, work, life.

Don't buy into it.

We are all far more blessed than we realize (especially when we are feeling sorry for ourselves).

The devil delights in tricking us into throwing away our blessings (especially the blessing of a spouse we have real love / true love with).

Don't fall for it.

God bless.

[onedirection]

@Marilyn C

 

Very insightful and spot on. Yesterday morning I was feeling depressed, so that is why you saw that type of comment. The night before I was in a deep sleep and I recall a series of vivid memories, painting a picture of how my wife had wronged me in the past, and in my subconscious it stewed negativity. Then I woke up with that feeling, without even being aware of how it got there. I feel like it was spiritual warfare at play and the devil is trying to tear down my progress.

I told my wife how I felt, then prayed on it, and as the day went on the feeling subsided.

You are correct about the ledges, that is exactly what I face -

Fear - I know that when God's plan is revealed and takes place that He has my back. Some fear of abandonment lingers, but I'm mostly over this one.

Pride - I am slowing relinquishing the fact that I deserve to have love reciprocated because I've given so much to this marriage. Being humble takes practice every day.

Replacing the intimacy goal - This is the hardest of all. I am working on replacing this goal with a goal of glorifying my wife through God and being an example to all other men of how to deal with adversity in marriage. I want this to be my testimony.

Last night I asked God for what he wants me to do with my life right now, and he reminded me of how easily I get hyper focused on my own needs. I need to spend a little time each day reaching out to different members of my family. I know others are struggling with the perils of life and I can be an example of how to turn those over to God.

Thank you for the prayers, I'm taking it one day at a time, and I can tell you that in small bits and pieces all of your prayers are being answered.

[Justin Adams]

Welcome

Edited July 28, 2018 by Justin Adams

[Still Alive]

On ‎7‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 1:33 PM, onedirection said:

Hey all first time poster. I've been going to church my whole life, saved at 15, and recently baptized publicly, late 30s.

I've been seeking additional counsel online and stumbled on another website where I received really poor non-christian advice that led me down a path of anger, resentment, and distrust. So I'm coming over here now to reinforce advice that is faith-based. It turns out that all of that advice was bad, and very inaccurate.

Long story short, my wife feels like she lost love for me a couple years ago after we had kids. Maybe it is midlife crisis, post-partum, or us just not working hard enough on the marriage after coming down off the high of the "in love" feeling.

Since May we have been battling this in a variety of ways - fights, counseling, cordial discussions, then back to fighting again. Divorce has been threatened a few times, to the point where we actually discussed the terms of an uncontested divorce.

For the past 6 weeks it has been a loveless, sexless marriage. I feel deserted and hopeless. Some days I have knots in my stomach and can't sleep and it causes me to lose weight. I feel like I don't have the stamina to stick this out.

I pray on it. And at times I am able to regain strength for a period of time, but it subsides again. I'm a very logical, driven person, that does a lot of reading and works really hard to fix things. My wife on the other hand is a retreater. She finds it hard to follow through on reading the counselor assigned books, she shuts down easily, is entirely guided by emotions, and gets into a rut very easily and cannot get out.

I tried being very passive for the last 2-3 weeks, to stop pursuing her so she could relax and feel like she wanted me again. It didn't work. Now I am taking a very active stance and I'm forcing certain exercises on her. For example, we were assigned the 5 languages of love book, and I am making us do all those recommendations of making love deposits.

I also feel like my wife's faith and trust in God is weaker than mine. She is embarrassed to pray with me. She won't see a church counselor, only the therapists at the doctor's office. She doesn't have any friends or family that know how to give good Christian advice. We go to church on Sunday and she says she believes, but she just won't surrender to God. I admit, I am not very good at surrendering either, probably none of us are, but I know I'm much further along in trying to become more christ-like.

I'm not sure what will happen next, but both of us are at the end of our rope, and we are terrified of divorce. Neither of us have abandoned the other person (physically). We need help!

The good news is that you are still together. The bad news is that this reminds me a lot of my first marriage, especially the part about your wife's attitude.

A very brief background: After 20 years and having three daughters, aged 10, 13 and 16 at the time, my wife decided I was abusive. This was 21 years ago. No, I wasn't abusive. She was just learning about abuse in a church class about abuse. But to appease her and save our marriage, I went to all sorts of classes, counceling, read books, etc. Nothing workded and, it became clear after all the learning, that SHE was the abusive one and had been projecting. This was also in the days of repressed memories that turned out to be FALSE memories. That played into it as well.

But here is what I learned, and it has served me and my current wife of over 20 years now very well. And I'm speaking to all married people, not just you: Love is an action and love is a decision. All people are loveable and hateable.  If you fall out of love with a person it is on you, not them. As a married person, your JOB is to put your spous's needs before your own. But this doesn't mean being their lap dog. In a "perfect" marriage, it means the man uses his strengths for his wife, and the wife uses her strengths for the husband.

And when you put your spouses needs first, an amazing thing happens - your love for them increases.

However, if they are "hell bent" on not doing it and, truth be told, already checked out of the marriage, what will happen is your putting them first will quite literally push them away to the point where they leave. This is what happened to me.

And only three weeks later I found the love of my life. She is my best friend. I call her "sister, mother, daughter, lover, wife" because she is, in a way, all of those things to me. We are a single unit. We pray together every single day and one part of that prayer is that our love for each other grows.

And how has that worked out? If love was money, originally we had $10,000 and wanted to be millionaires. Well, we are now billionaires and, honestly, we see no reason we can't strive for trillionaire. And, frankly, I didn't think one could feel this strongly about another human being. Sometimes I look at her and she is so precious that I just start tearing up. Sometimes she sees me do it. Do you have any idea how loved that makes her feel? And she is loved that much.

Heck, I'm tearing up just typing this.

Stay in the lord. It gets better, regardless of who he has for you. It may be your wife, or she may leave and it may be someone else. It's better if it's your wife, but that's up to her. Your showing your love for her is up to you.

Edited July 27, 2018 by Still Alive

[onedirection]

@Still Alive

I understand there is a possibility that God's plan may be to remove her from this situation, which would be akin to what you have experienced. However, I still believe that my role in this transformation is to bring her closer to God. She admitted in couples counseling this week that her spiritual faith is not that strong. She believes in God and goes to church, but she hasn't turned her life over to Jesus completely. Her spirituality is repressed, she will not pray with me, and gets uncomfortable when Christianity is expressed vocally outside of church.

On the positive side, she has been scheduling and attending her own individual counseling sessions. She reports things are getting better and she seems much happier lately. We are scheduling a lot of dates with and without the kids, plus we have more vacations planned on the horizon. There has been no fighting at all for weeks. She has stopped picking fights with me for no reason and being hyper-critical.

Maybe this is a sign of things to come.

[Still Alive]

5 minutes ago, onedirection said:

@Still Alive

I understand there is a possibility that God's plan may be to remove her from this situation, which would be akin to what you have experienced. However, I still believe that my role in this transformation is to bring her closer to God. She admitted in couples counseling this week that her spiritual faith is not that strong. She believes in God and goes to church, but she hasn't turned her life over to Jesus completely. Her spirituality is repressed, she will not pray with me, and gets uncomfortable when Christianity is expressed vocally outside of church.

On the positive side, she has been scheduling and attending her own individual counseling sessions. She reports things are getting better and she seems much happier lately. We are scheduling a lot of dates with and without the kids, plus we have more vacations planned on the horizon. There has been no fighting at all for weeks. She has stopped picking fights with me for no reason and being hyper-critical.

Maybe this is a sign of things to come.

Your first paragraph is very reminiscent of what I experienced. Your second paragraph is not. This is a very good thing! I consider staying together to always be the best path, but it takes two. The fact that she is receptive and you ARE still together is a big plus. Do your part, pray, and trust God. And that second paragraph is very good news. FWIW, I just learned from one of my daughters that my ex admits that she made a mistake. Yes, she did, but God provided for me - and my daughters. I hope you don't have to go through that.

And if there is one thing I've learned, and my wife and I embrace, is that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger - in the Lord.

[John_Leung]

Don't know what to say, except that I'll pray for you.  

I'm unmarried, so I can't give much advice.  However, 1 Corinthians 13 and latter part of Ephesians 5 describe what love and Christian marriage are like. Do you know or talk to other married couples at your church about your situation? If God has put you and your wife together, then surely this marriage means to last.  Maybe revisit places where you guys first met, fell in love, or liked, or recall happy memories together? I get these ideas from the Christians novels I've read about overcoming marital struggles. 

Above all things, pray for both yourself and her, and continue to love her even if she shows little interest.  Be strong, brother.