Anyone have any words of wisdom? I'm married to the same man over 20yrs. I love him with all my heart, but have never felt so ignored, neglected, or excluded by anyone as, much as him...always. Even with physical intimacy, he's just not interested in me in hardly any form. I'm tired...I pray daily for him and our marriage. Just wondering when it's time to count your losses and move on
Marriages can go through dry spells. If he were to post about it, he'd probably post the problem with his marriage is that his wife is depressed or stressed about the marriage. I've been there with my wife, usually during PMS, where she has thought we had huge marriage problems because we didn't get along well during her PMS. She'd remember arguments during PMS or post-partum blues from years earlier as examples of our marriage problems. Then two weeks later, she could be crazy about me and happy about our marriage. I'm not saying that's your situation, but sometimes us men don't really know what's going on with you women folk.
I've read that less than 1% of couples who regularly pray together get divorce. I've read about a couple of informal surveys on this. You could start praying together more.
It's actually pretty easy to start getting along better. Let's say you are home when he gets home from work. Before he gets there, make his favorite drink, lemonade, tea, or whatever. Have it chilled and ready to serve. When he comes home, meet him at the door with a really bright smile, hug him, kiss him, and tell him how thrilled you are to see him. Ask him if he wants to sit down and have a glass of whatever you made for him to drink. (You could also make a snack for him.) When he sits on the chair or couch, sit on the floor next to him and lean against his leg and engage him in conversation.
I've been reading 'Love and Respect'. If you could read that together or even by yourself, and find a church that offers a class in it or some kind of seminar, that will help. It explains how women crave love and men crave respect, and how they interpret the same words differently. If you criticize a man, it can be taken as a lack of respect and contempt for who he is as a human being, so you have to be very careful about this. Men in this situation may go silent or try to avoid the conversation, and she feels unloved. So she ups the criticism and he feels less respected. The author calls it 'the crazy cycle.' As a wife, you can work on trying to make him feel respected and hopefully he'll respond with making you feel more loved.
As far as the sexual part goes, tell him what level of activity you'd expect from him and ask him to take the lead. If he needs to go to a doctor change his diet, those are things to consider. You could try kissing him constantly when he comes home, and see if that leads to anything.
A lot of men don't want to go to marriage counselors. I'm not against it in principle, but I'm a bit wary of them myself. You could end up with a counselor whose objective is not to save the marriage, especially if it's a secular counselor. I also remember occasionally tuning in to a 'Christian counselor' on the Christian radio station for a minute here or there who was advising callers to leave their spouse for a while, it seemed like, whenever I called in--- on the radio, after only talking to one party. It didn't sound like violence was the issue either. I've read that marriage counselor success rates for saving marriages aren't necessarily all that great. I'm not saying there aren't great counselors out there. But how could you know before you go, and could the counselor cause some problems?
For a man, marriage counseling sounds like it could be an hour of his wife talking bad about him with someone else to join in. If he's not down for marriage counseling, fortunately, there are other ways of improving your marriage.
Btw, I don't think you have any Biblical grounds for divorce based on what you've shared. If you divorce him just because you aren't getting along and marry someone else, that would be adultery.
