My wife and I have been married for 10 years. To make a long story short she doesn’t care much about physical touch (kissing, hugging, holding hands, cuddling, sex) but I do. I feel so disconnected from her and alone. I’ve tried to stop caring about physical touch like she does but I can’t. How can I continue to love her and stay if I feel neglected. I do my best to show I love her in other ways (5 love languages) when i ask her what makes you feel loved the most she says idk.
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That sounds difficult. People sometimes disconnect when they feel their needs aren’t being met.
Is she getting what she wants?
Finding out that answer could be the best way to build connection.
Try: “I want to love you the way that works for you” rather than
“I feel neglected” to open up to each other. (People sometimes need lots of deposits into their love bank before they feel like being physical).
Good luck.
Some people have issues with anyone occupying their personal space. Even their spouse. It’s something that likely isn’t going to change.
I’ve been married 15 years and have a similar situation. What you need to recognize is that just because physical intimacy isn’t how they express their love, that doesn’t mean they aren’t expressing it.
You need to look for the other ways that they are showing you. They bought that food that you like, but they hate. They washed your favorite hat because it looked dirty, and they let you pick what movie to watch on date night.
Some things you can’t compromise. If being close makes her uncomfortable, that isn’t going to change. But that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t love you. She just loves you in a different way than you expect.
Intimacy (including sex) is a legitimate deal breaker for a romantic relationship, so the answer is NOT for you to “try to stop caring” rather the answer is to determine what changes are needed for her to equally “care” about this. OR if you determine that she does not and will not care, then the answer may be you are not compatible partners and ought not be together.
Thanks everyone for the guidance. I’ve tried bringing up the issues but she says I overreact to everything and that marriages will have problems. I understand marriage is about compromise and everything, but I feel like I’m the only one ever caring for the health of our marriage.
As someone who’s going through the exact same thing my biggest tip to you is to hold a space of love for her.
It’s really easy in relationships to get a little selfish and have expectations. Time invested feels like justified entitlement in regards to receiving what we want even if it’s something like physical touch. It is going to feel like a disservice or betrayal to yourself but real love means just being there with her and being happy to be with her and allowing her to want physical closeness when she is ready on her terms and not just when you want it. You don’t want your love to turn into objectifying her. I promise you if you just continue to be happy around her and spend time with her and have zero expectations and just accept her and focus on yourself a little bit it will be easy to keep that space of love for her and of her own accord she will eventually gravitate back to you again.
Currently going through this. It’s not ok for you to be putting the effort in to meet her needs and she not reciprocate.
Try being mindful of how she does show you love. At the end of the day think of at least 5 things she did to show you love. If she showered you with compliments would it be enough for you? If you know she is showering you with love would it matter what form it took? What is blocking you from feeling it if you know it is there? Its easy to see what is missing. It is easy to focus on.
I had to have a serious talk with this with my wife early on. I’ll be honest. In our case, early on, it was kind of a sign of huge marital problems, and frankly I wasn’t even on her priorities list. For us, it took going to the brink of our relationship. For us, a lot of issues came up that I had been lied to about. Honesty in our relationship changed after that.
But the analogy that finally hit home with my wife is that I was like a car running on no fuel.
I have issues with touch. To say I need it is not an exaggeration. I grew up pretty heavily physically abused and letting someone touch me was the ultimate in trust for me. Now don’t get the wrong idea, even holding my hand qualifies here. But a touch that is not physically required by proximity or necessary function, such as handing someone a tool is what I am talking about. But without that vulnerability, my walls start to go back up. (and my wife has known this for years. We knew each other for 9 years before marriage.)
It has not happened for about 12 years now, but when it did, things got bad. My wife realizing ultimately the damage this was causing shook her out of it. And prior to that, frankly, I was the only one in the marriage who was caring about its health. It took almost losing it for her to realize effort needed to be made. And then her parents got divorced and that to her was a wake up call that marriages really could fail in her family. But to give credit where credit is due, since then she has been remarkably caring since that time. The first year or so I kept waiting on the other shoe to drop and it never did.
But I think the gravity of the situation has to be conveyed.
My husband’s love language is physical touch, but for me, that is 2nd to last. It is a lot easier in my opinion to kind of train myself to be more aware and try to hug him more than it is for him to try to become ok with a lack of affection. So I’ve been working on it and it has actually started to become something I like more. So she has to make the effort, but it can’t be forced, and if she never gets there, you have to decide how much of a deal breaker it really is.
” *(5 love languages) when i ask her what makes you feel loved the most she says idk.*” I call bullshit on that. She knows! She just doesn’t want you to know. Why? Because if you knew what her love language was, you would do those things to show your love for her. And then she would feel terrible because she knows your love language and she refuses to do those things. Why? Why does your wife not want to show her love for you? Um . . . tough love . . . think about it. Your wife does not want to make your marriage better.