Could this have been your wife? She said she still loves you and needs you, but…
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True story.
I don’t coach women, but they contact me anyway. I heard from one today.
Could she have been your wife?
She said marriage counseling isn’t working out. You don’t trust the counselor or her and you feel like they are ganging up on you. She said you feel like they both see you as the cause of the problems and that’s why you quit going.
I bet you’re feeling tired of being told you’re not good enough and you have to change who you are. That’ll make any guy a little pissed, won’t it?
Your wife also told me you keep saying she doesn’t like you anymore. You don’t think she desires you or respects you.
And then she spent the next 10 minutes explaining to me how much she loves you and wants her man back and why she is so scared that you guys won’t get this figured out.
It’s not as bad as you think, brother.
She said she still loves you. She still needs you.
♦◊♦
Your Life Isn’t What it used to Be
She said in the beginning you guys were all over each other. She loved how much attention you gave her and how she felt so important and valued. You were everything to each other. She loved that you loved your job and worked so hard and were so responsible and dependable.
She also wants to feel like the loving wife and partner she dreamed about being.
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She told me all about graduating nursing school and getting her dream job. That’s when you two decided to start a family.
And that’s when things changed.
She is natural born nurturer, caretaker and empathizer. Always has been. She used to give all that to you. Now she gives most of it to her patients and to the kids. She wants to be a world-class nurse and the perfect mother.
She also wants to feel like the loving wife and partner she dreamed about being. But she feels your pressure to be exactly like the woman she was for you before careers and kids came along. She feels overwhelmed, anxious, tired, scared and predictably…angry.
But she knows one thing is still true.
She still loves you and respects you. She still needs you.
♦◊♦
The Life She Says She Wants
I asked her what she wants.
“What do you want from your marriage?”
“What do you need from him to get that?”
She was on a 15-minute break from the nursing station. I could hear the typical chatter and ding-dong sounds you’d expect in a bustling hospital scene. There was urgency in her voice. Almost panic. She had about 2 minutes left to talk.
“I want us both to feel supported and loved. I want to feel like we’re in it together and have the same goals. I want him to understand me and why my job is important to me and why I’m tired sometimes. I want us to laugh more and have more fun. I want more hugs. I want him to be happier with himself. I need him to not need me to make him feel whole. I need to feel his strength when our life feels crazy. I need him to be confident in himself and in knowing how much I love him and respect him…because I do. I really do.”
“What do you think he needs from you?”
“I don’t know exactly. Lately all he wants is my attention – all the time.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I don’t know either. I’d have to talk with him.”
“Well I don’t think he’ll call you. Can you call him?”
“No, I can’t. And you know why.”
“I have to go. I’ll see what I can do. Thanks. Goodbye.”
♦◊♦
If you can relate to the husband in this story, I wrote this free ebook specifically for you. Click here to download “The Hard-to-Swallow Secret to Saving Your Marriage”
Photo carlo/Flickr
“I want us both to feel supported and loved. I want to feel like we’re in it together and have the same goals. I want him to understand me and why my job is important to me and why I’m tired sometimes. I want us to laugh more and have more fun. I want more hugs. I want him to be happier with himself. I need him to not need me to make him feel whole. I need to feel his strength when our life feels crazy. I need him to be confident in himself and in knowing how much… Read more »
Man you hit the nail on the head. Sometimes men do need there wives to reassure them they’re in it as well. Why does that make them needy?
I can say, it doesn’t take much to feel like you’re at the bottom of the list, or not on it in the first place. A little reassurance goes a long way.
Hi Steve. Thought provoking so I want to toss a few monkey wrenches into the mix! What I’m seeing here is that she’s changed from the women she was when they first met, an now expects him to change how he is, how their life is, so as to accommodate. That would set any guy a drift, no? Maybe a more stoic, or less confident man? . Maybe that therapist had a more feminist approach, maybe they were ganging up on him. Hell, society does it, teaches it, every dating site in the world re-enforces it, so, from the male… Read more »
Love this … “, “a woman marries a man hoping he will change, a man marries a woman hoping that she never will.” I also think of what some called the “frog syndrome” where a women marries her prince and then changes him into a frog.”
Change in a marriage happens unilaterally. One person grows, or longs for something different — a third kid, a new job, a vegetable garden instead of a lawn. One person says, “Alcohol is damaging our lives. I’m going to stop drinking,” and all those happy hours and weekends in the wine country are no longer part of their life together. Yeah, this isn’t exactly the other partner’s first choice. No, they didn’t get a vote. And, no, I’m not talking about one person deciding to take $50,000 out of their kid’s college fund to buy a Porsche. Or taking a… Read more »
Winifred Reilly,
A least, if the one person being the lone agent for change, is open with it and state upfront what is going on, the partner has a choice on how to react to it.
Quitting your job to pursue your life dream, buying that Porsche, a third kid, cameras in the bedroom, etc, shouldn’t be thrusted upon your partner as a complete surprise when it’s already “fait accompli”.
As usual, Steve. This just about hits the nail on the head!!! Please let the men you know and work with that they need to reinforce that most women share this sentiment about their significant others/spouse. Of course, there are always exceptions and we all are at different places on life’s journey of self-knowledge, maturity, emotional intelligence, and confidence in the ability to express all of that! What we’re looking for is spouses who won’t bury their heads in the sand and who are ready and willing to continue to grow–together. None of us has all of this figured out,… Read more »