My husband recently expressed that he is depressed. Happened a little shortly after my daughter was born (she’s now 1). About a week ago he told me that he loves me but isn’t in love with me. Loves me but not as an emotional or lover. He is seeking therapy and said he is trying to make himself better first before us. I just don’t know how to take this. He use to text/call me all the time and in a matter of 2 months everything has stopped. I just feel so so lost. Can only one relate?
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Yep
The birth of a child, especially the first child, can radically shift where attention goes. Instead of the couple looking to each other, there’s now this third person who demands a lot of attention. It can only subtract from the attention you can give to your spouse.
I remember when our first child was born. It seemed that my son got more kisses than I did for the first few weeks! You really have to make sure you take time to be adults, together. Ideally, get a sitter, so you can have time by yourselves, without the distraction of the newborn (or toddler, now).
If your husband already had a tendency towards depression, the change in dynamics might have been enough to bring that depression to the foreground. It is good that he’s getting therapy. He might also need medication.
As regarding love, you will probably have to talk with him about love means. I can describe what love means to me, which might help you understand him, but you really need to get his ideas, and talk about your ideas.
A lot of people think love is an emotion. They talk of “falling in love” or “being in love,” and the excitement when you have that experience is real. You get happy just being in the same room with the person you love. If they also are in love with you, it can feel fantastic.
But this experience isn’t love. Psychologists call it limerence. It a mixture of obsession and desire, and it can arrive without warning. People don’t control with whom they fall in love, and they don’t decide when to start or stop feeling in love. It seems irresistible. These are all hallmarks of a biological origin.
Over time, a relationship probably develops additional connections. You aren’t simply sexually attracted to your partner, but you admire their skills in certain things, you enjoy spending time with them, you are concerned with how they feel, and so on. You find other reasons why you want them in your life.
But some people believe that limerence — the “in love” feeling — is “real love.” When it fades, and it does because it has a biological origin, then they may talk of falling out of love. They may wonder if they are in the right relationship. They might recognize that they have important connections, but not have the head-over-heels “in love” experience anymore.
Depending on how they view love, this can be a crisis for them, and you.
To me, love is not a feeling, but a *choice*.
When someone loves you, you will feel safe, valued, respected, comforted…all sorts of things. Sexual desire is not love, though it is something you can add to a relationship. Love is love, whether it is with a romantic partner, a child, a parent, or a best friend.
But you don’t feel loved unless your partner chooses to act in a way that lets you feel all those things. People don’t wake up with an irresistible urge to be polite to you, for instance! Someone has to decide that they want to do that, that they want you to feel respect by them.
A friend of mine put it this way: When you like someone, it is about how *you* feel; when you love someone, it is about how *they* feel.
Limerence is kind of a super-like. Someone doesn’t have to fall in love with you in order for you to have the experience of limerence; it is unilateral. The person you fall for doesn’t even have to exist, since people fall in love with movie stars based on a screen character.
But love means you care about what your partner feels.
You don’t need the automatic desire of limerence to have love. But if someone thought limerence was what love was, then they may feel down because they don’t have it anymore. Getting them to think about love as a choice, a way of acting to inspire certain feelings, might be a way to get them to reconnect with you.
Let me also suggest a book: *The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work*, by John Gottman and Nan Silver. Gottman did a lot of research on how married couples interacted, and followed up with them; he learned what behaviors aligned with marriages self-described as happy, as well as marriages that ended in divorce. Both of you reading this might help you understand how love works, and ways in which to improve communications.
All is not yet lost.
Completely agree with 👆🏻👆🏻 I can’t emphasize enough on having the adult time. As women we sometimes lose ourselves in motherhood become a different version of ourselves that our husbands may not recognize anymore not a bad thing but try to remember when you were super happy and clicking and what brought you that joy then recreate it…for us we had 2 under 2 so it was rough for a while but now they’re a little older and we started kayaking again and it’s rekindled so much love and sex is better than before…hang in there