Have you fallen out of love with a “good man” husband?
A common theme in many movies involves a woman trying to decide whether to stay with a ‘good man’ despite no longer loving him.
It’s a fiction often based in reality though, with countless people struggling in relationships where everything seems perfect… except for the emotional connection.
If this is something you’re dealing with, hopefully we can help.
Ask yourself these 8 questions to help explore why you’re feeling this way and decide what to do about it:
1. Could you fall back in love with your husband?
The first thing to consider here is whether you loved your husband to begin with.
This is a fundamental aspect to deal with before figuring out your next steps, as it determines what foundation your marriage was based upon in the first place.
For example, did you date—and by extension, agree to marry—this man because he embodied traits you admire, even though you didn’t feel much for him emotionally?
Or was this a ‘smart’ pairing because your goals were aligned, and you’d be able to achieve them as a united team?
Were you pressured into marrying him to please your family?
Or are you closeted from your true nature and have been using this marriage as armor to protect yourself from being ostracized by your community?
Alternatively, perhaps you loved this man initially, but that love has dimmed and cooled over the years.
If this is the case, is it because life circumstances have put intense stress on your partnership? Or has he changed dramatically from the person you met and is now someone you barely recognize?
‘Falling back in love’ with a person can’t happen if there was no real love present in the first place.
In contrast, if there was love there at the start, there may be the possibility of breathing new life back into this marriage.
See this rather like a blazing fire that has cooled down to ash over time.
If you rake that ash a bit, you’ll inevitably find a few embers still glowing within them. Sometimes, it just takes a bit of care, fuel, and gentle tending to breathe those embers back into a crackling fire again.
If there was never a fire in that hearth, however, there’s nothing there to rekindle.
2. Are you mistaking a lack of passion for a lack of love?
When you contemplate how you feel about your husband, do you feel like you don’t love him because that ‘spark’ you experienced at the beginning of your relationship is missing?
Are you assuming that you don’t love him anymore because the initial whirlwind of passion has dulled into the mundane routine of marriage and home life?
Love can take countless different forms, and just because the feelings you have for him have changed, doesn’t mean they’ve died.
The single word “love” has many meanings, ranging from that first ‘flash in the pan’ sizzle of new partnerships to the long-lasting, enduring love that 90-year-old couples share after a lifetime together.
The reality of marriage is that the first blazing sparks aren’t long-lasting. That early passion is a fast-burning wildfire, whereas marriage is more like a long-burning, comfortable hearth fire.
Sadly, a lot of people only want to experience the sparkling fire, so they move on from one relationship to another so that they always have a roaring blaze.
Since each partnership will eventually cool, they keep feeling like they’ve fallen out of love and repeat the same cycle over and over again.
If your husband is a sincerely good man, it may be worth learning how to appreciate the warmth of this hearth fire rather than dousing it and seeking out the next, temporary inferno.
3. Do you feel ambivalent towards him? Or even active dislike?
When you think about your husband, are there any positive feelings at all? Or do you find that you are irritated or angered by his mere existence?
Ask yourself this question: if he were to keel over and die tomorrow, would you be devastated at the loss? Or relieved?
Or even celebratory?
Being realistic about how you’d feel if he were to suddenly disappear can shed a lot of light on your true feelings about him.
It can also help to write a pro and con list of all his traits that you can think of.
Write down everything you dislike, as well as the things that you appreciate and admire. Once you have it all written down, cross out or circle all the traits and behaviors that could be improved if you work together.
If you still care about your decent husband, determine whether these changeable aspects are worth the time and effort to keep your marriage alive.
Alternatively, if you know he’s a good man, but for you, there are deal-breaker traits that can’t be changed, you may feel more relief and peace if the two of you decide to part ways.
4. Do you still enjoy your husband’s company?
When you and your husband spend time together, do you enjoy each other’s company?
Do you get along well, share a certain sense of humor, enjoy the same hobbies, pastimes, and entertainment, and have engaging conversations together?
Can you count on this man to stay by your side no matter what happens?
Do you trust him?
Has he consistently shown up and worked with you to overcome obstacles and find solutions to whatever life has thrown in your path?
If so, ask yourself whether your life would be better or worse without him.
Life can be incredibly difficult and lonely at times, and having a wonderful, stalwart companion by your side can be an incredible blessing.
Even if you don’t feel what you consider to be ‘love’ for this man, is there care present? Or admiration? How about respect? Do you appreciate how he goes above and beyond to do things for you without needing to be asked?
If you still enjoy and value your husband’s company, consider what it would be like to spend the rest of your life with this man.
It could be a secure, trusted companionship with the perfect housemate; someone you know you can rely on and can spend a wonderful time with well into your golden years.
We can care for people deeply and appreciate their company without ‘love’ being present per se.
The key is to recognize what your own needs and wants are and decide whether you think the rest of your life would be better and more fulfilled without this man by your side.
5. Would you want your husband in your life if you were no longer married?
This builds upon the previous question. If you weren’t married, if physical intimacy wasn’t an expectation, and if you were free to have relationships with other people, would you still want your husband in your life?
Would you still want your tradition of Saturday brunch, Friday night movies, or binge-watching the latest TV series together?
If the answer is “yes”, you may not be dealing with a lack of love so much as a change in your relationship dynamic.
As we mentioned earlier, passions tend to cool over time, and what was originally a powerful deluge of emotion may have shifted to a love that’s more friend- or sibling-like.
This isn’t a bad thing, so long as the two of you can discuss it openly and take necessary steps to ensure each other’s needs are met.
Essentially, your relationship has shifted towards a life-long, possibly platonic companionship, which can be a wonderful thing if both of you are okay with that.
In contrast, if your answer to the above questions is “no”, then delve into the reasons why you wouldn’t want to have him in your life anymore.
For example, do you feel so much resentment towards him that you wouldn’t want anything to do with him?
Or perhaps you feel like you’ve never been able to live your own life because everything you’ve done has been dictated by his wants and needs?
Understanding why you would (or wouldn’t) still want him in your life can go a long way toward figuring out whether you should stay or go.
6. Are you focusing too much on the negatives?
Life has its ups and downs, and when struggles arise, it’s often easy to overlook the positive things that are going on at the same time.
For example, let’s say you’re stressed out because of personal finances, and frustrated because you two haven’t slept together in months.
Maybe you don’t get enough alone time – he always wants to be in your space, and he constantly interrupts you when you’re trying to concentrate.
If all your time and attention are focused on the things that are less than stellar, you likely aren’t paying attention to the good things that are going on.
Maybe he’s always in your space because he misses you when you aren’t around.
Perhaps he’s been interrupting you to see if you’re hungry and would like him to make you a snack or coffee, not just because he sees you enjoying yourself and wants to ruin your alone time.
If you take a step back and look at the entire scenario from an unbiased perspective, seeing the intentions behind his actions, would you still consider them to be negative?
If a friend came to you and expressed the exact same frustrations, what would your advice be?
It’s also worth considering whether you’re projecting your own uncomfortable or unwanted emotions onto your husband or marriage because it’s easier to scapegoat him than deal with your feelings or problems.
For example, a person who’s dealing with a chronic illness may feel like they have no control over their own life. As a result, they may take action toward something they can control, namely their marriage.
They may turn all their bitterness and anger toward their partner and decide to end things as a means of taking some form of decisive action.
In situations like this though, things tend to get worse rather than better and the person often ends up regretting what they’ve done.
So whatever your situation, objectively weigh up all the positives and negatives in your marriage and determine whether one outweighs the other.
Everyone makes mistakes and has annoying habits or personality traits. There isn’t a single person on this planet who is flawless and won’t mess up somehow.
So if your man is sincerely good, loving, and devoted, consider focusing more on everything that’s going right, rather than dwelling on your perception of what’s going wrong.
7. Are you truly unhappy or simply wishing for something else?
There are many different reasons why people become unhappy in their marriages, so it’s important to determine exactly what is making you feel like you don’t love your husband anymore.
For example, is he not putting the same effort in that he did at the beginning of your relationship?
If so, it might make you feel used and resentful—as though he’s taking you for granted and treating you more like a piece of furniture than a treasured partner.
Maybe when you were dating or newly married, he’d tell you that you were beautiful and do thoughtful little things like surprising you with flowers ‘just because’.
Now, several years into the marriage, he simply grunts a hello when he comes home, eats with you in silence, and then does his own thing.
You may feel as though you’ve experienced a ‘bait-and-switch’ scenario in which the person you thought you were marrying turned out to be someone significantly different.
If things have changed dramatically from how they were at the beginning, it’s a good idea to delve into why this happened.
Changes don’t just spontaneously occur, and although you may be feeling crap about it all, it’s likely he’s not particularly happy either.
Have the two of you been through some intense stress together? For example, have you had to deal with severe illness or death in the family?
Are the two of you worn thin from work obligations, child-rearing, and other adult responsibilities?
If so, is it possible that he has withdrawn into himself because he’s overwhelmed by his own emotions?
A lot of men shut down and retreat instead of expressing what they’re feeling, which can lead those around them to feel neglected and unloved.
If your relationship has changed significantly over the years and is making you question whether you love your husband or not, couples therapy is a great idea.
A therapist can help you both get to the bottom of what you’re feeling, and why, and offer tips on how to navigate a path forward.
This may entail you both expressing how you’re feeling and learning how to better support one another (for example, learning each other’s love languages).
Or you may discover you’re both actually seriously unhappy and need to take different directions.
It’s also possible that you’ve been repressing and denying aspects of yourself because you’re afraid of how others will react. For some people, what they’re interpreting as a loss of love towards their partner is actually anger or frustration towards themselves.
There are as many different ways to have a marriage as there are couples on this planet.
If you think it’ll help, work with an experienced therapist or counselor who can help you sift through the muck and get you both back onto a track towards greater happiness and fulfillment.
8. Does being in this marriage make you feel uncomfortable or unsafe?
This is a difficult thing to think about, and many people shove these feelings as far away from their consciousness as possible. But it’s an important one to bring out into the light.
When you say you don’t love your husband, does this encompass feeling uncomfortable or unsafe with him, especially in an intimate sense?
Quite often, when relationships begin to break down, one partner may start to feel seriously uncomfortable being physically intimate with the other.
They may find excuses to avoid intimacy and feel sadness, disgust, or even fear when and if their spouse tries to initiate anything.
This will inevitably lead to unease and conflict within the home, as intimacy is usually an expectation in marriages and long-term partnerships.
That said, if the uncomfortable partner tries to force themselves to be open to intimate relations, they end up feeling horrible about it.
Resentment intensifies, and any caring feelings they have will be crushed by feelings of being used or even traumatized by the unwanted touch.
If this situation rings true for you, please take the necessary steps to extricate yourself from it as quickly as possible.
Talk to a therapist, friends, or family members you can trust, or even a shelter hotline.
You aren’t alone in this, and people can help you move on from this situation that’s actively damaging you.
Final thoughts.
Now you’ve asked yourself these important questions, you have the opportunity to work through everything you’re experiencing before making any decisions.
If you’re still struggling with whether to leave your husband, you may benefit from some therapy sessions.
It can help to bring forth the causes of the various emotions you’re experiencing and can help shed light on the situation as a whole.
Once you understand why you feel the way you do, and what brought you to this point, you’re better equipped to make this big, life-changing decision that will affect you both.
Ultimately, the best thing you can do is weigh up the options that are ahead of you.
Determine whether your life would honestly be better without this man at your side. And if the answer is no, you and your therapist can figure out the best way for you and your husband to move forward together.
Good men are absolute treasures as husbands, and even though things aren’t ideal right now, they have the potential to get better.
If there’s any uncertainty on your part, it’s a good idea to wait it out and not make any hasty decisions.
Difficult situations pass, and emotions—including love—ebb and flow like tides.
It’s far better to wait and see how things change over a few months than make a spur-of-the-moment decision that you may regret for the rest of your days.
