Remember back in the early days of your marriage when your wife seemed overly concerned with whether or not you were happy and fulfilled? At the time it may have felt that she was hovering too much in an emotional sense. You miss that now though, don’t you? It seems lately that she doesn’t care one way or another whether your relationship will last. You’re frustrated, as you should be, but what now? Are you climbing an uphill battle by trying to save a marriage your wife doesn’t care about or is there an effective way to turn this around so you two can rediscover what drew you to one another in the first place? You love her, right? Even though she’s now acting detached and uninterested, you still see some promise in her eyes. That’s the reason why you need to get serious about your relationship and get your wife engaged in building a future with you once again.
I want to briefly touch on one point before I offer some advice on rebuilding the emotional bridge with your spouse. Some wives become lazy once they marry. That’s not to suggest that this is what is occurring with your wife. You know her better than anyone so it’s obvious that you’d be the first to suspect if she just stopped working on your marriage because she felt so safe and secure in it. If she’s giving off signals that she doesn’t care for you as deeply as he once did, it’s not a case of laziness at all. I just thought it necessary to point that out because it’s possible for a man to overreact about what is happening within his marriage when it’s just a case of his wife not trying because she thinks she’s already captured his heart.
Now onto what you can do to not only save your marriage but methods you can use to build it into a stronger and more satisfying union for you both. Your wife may have stopped putting the effort needed into making the marriage work because she’s feeling emotionally neglected by you. This can happen in marriages that are a few months old or sometimes it takes years for a woman to allow these feelings to impact her interactions with her husband. Women are sensitive beings and we need tenderness, love and devotion in order to feel valued by our spouse. I’m the first to admit that life can be incredibly busy and as such a person’s primary relationship can begin to fall by the emotional wayside because of this. Have you been as attentive as you used to be to your wife? Do you actually listen when she speaks with you about what is going on with her or her feelings? If you’ve taken her for granted, she’s going to stop trying at some point. It’s truly that simple.
You’re going to have to throw caution to the wind here and romance your wife again. I know you probably thought those days were far behind you but your marriage is struggling and it’s up to you to find a way to pull it back from the brink of despair. Begin by telling your wife how you feel. Be clear about how much you really do love her. Women love hearing that their husbands would marry them again tomorrow. We tend to lose a bit of our self confidence when we are married to the same man for a time. You can bolster your wife’s by commenting on her appearance, writing her love letters and reaching for her hand so you can hold it in yours sometimes.
Communication has to take center stage if your wife has become disinterested in working on the relationship. She may not be ready to talk about the problems you two are facing when you are, but don’t let that deter you. Make it clear to her that you’re available to talk whenever she is and you understand the gravity of what’s going on in your marriage. If you show her that you are taking this seriously, that will help her understand that you want to play a role in fixing what needs to be repaired. An attentive husband who is invested in making the marriage work is a powerful force to deal with. Let your wife see that you believe the marriage and her are worth fighting for and you’re prepared to go into battle to keep what you love.