How to Get My Husband to Love Me Again: Tips On Evaluating The Situation So You Can Show Him How

I often write about how I was able to save my own marriage when it was on its last legs, so I am sometimes approached my wives in a similar situation. Recently, I've been asked for advice or tips on topics like "how can I get my husband to love me again," or "my husband detaches from me," or "my husband doesn't show me any affection." The basic theme of all of these are that the wife doesn't feel the bond, intimacy, and closeness to her husband anymore and insists that the husband's actions (and lack of affection) are blocking her from restoring these feelings. So, in this article, I will discuss ways that you can encourage loving actions, gestures, and feelings within your marriage.

First, Look At Your Own Actions In Your Marriage: I know from personal experience and through my research that when affection starts to wane and distance starts to appear, people tend to react in one of two ways. The first thing that a wife may do is try to overcompensate for the coolness and detachment that starts to show up in the marriage. She may start to become clingy (men often see this as "high maintenance.") She may hover or become overbearing, or she may shower her husband with affection or gestures that just come off as "fake" or insincere. Here is what you need to understand if you are tempted to take this tactic. All men want to feel loved, understood, and appreciated, but they also want a confident wife who is on equal footing. Your husband can not respect you if you demean yourself or try to "make" him love you through insincere or desperate actions. (I know this firsthand.  I did this.  More on that here.)

The other thing that wives often do when they feel their husband's no longer love them is they pull away themselves. They shut down. They pull back. Either consciously or subconsciously, they are thinking "well, two can play this game. If he's going to act that way, then I'm not going out of my way for him." No one wants to leave themselves vulnerable when they feel that the love will not be returned or that they may be rejected. But, here is the problem with this tactic. In order to have the close, intimate, and strong marriage that you want - in order to bring back the "feeling of being in love" in your marriage, you absolutely have to let down the walls you think are protecting you. True intimacy can not happen if either person has not allowed themselves to be a full and willing participant.

To Encourage Your Husband To "Love You Again," Show Him How: Think for a second about what you really want from your husband. If you want him to show you more affection, ask yourself how much GENUINE (not putting on a show, or overcompensating) affection are you showing him? If you want more appreciation, then show and tell him why you are grateful for him. Turn the tables, if you will. Now, many people will say "well, that's not right. I'm doing all the work and he's getting all of the rewards."

Understand that in time, you are going to get back exactly what you are giving. By your actions, you are teaching your husband how to treat you. And, as you promote positive feelings his way, he's going to be a lot nicer to live with and this is only going to give you more of what you want.

Take An Honest Look At The Personality Of Your Marriage And Your Place In It: When I tell people to look at their marriage's personality, they give me a weird, questioning look. What I'm trying to get at when I ask this is this. If you had to describe your marriage in a couple of words, how would you describe it? Be honest here. Because if you're really wanting to know "how to get my husband to love me again," then it would be reasonable for me to think that "loving," or "affectionate" are not going to be the phrases that are characteristic of the marriage right now. More than likely, you would honestly describe your marriage as "cold," "distant," or "detached."

But, what about when you two first met? How would you have described it then? Likely, "fun," "loving," "affectionate," etc. And, at that time, did you feel loved by your husband? I'll bet you did. So, your goal, then, has to be to get back to a point where you can use some of the same words to describe your marriage today as you did when you were in love.

This may mean that you need to bring back some of the qualities that your husband first fell in love with. I'd be willing to bet that the woman with whom he had fun and felt loving toward is still right in front him but the stresses of day to day life have put her on the back burner. But, how happy is she today? And, how happy was she then? Isn't it worth it, then, to make the effort to bring her, (and the loving feelings in your marriage) back? Because your husband was once very much in love with her. And, he can be again, but first, you have a bit of work to do.

I absolutely understand where you are right now. A couple of years ago, my husband flat out told me he didn't love me anymore. But, eventually, it dawned on me that the tactics I was using to get him to love me again were not working. Luckily, I was able to change course and return the intimacy and affection. You can read my very personal story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com/