Finding out your man doesn’t love you is such a rejection.
It hurts like crazy and crushes your self-esteem. You feel like you were let down in the worst way when you least expected it.
Your head is racing with terrible thoughts of how this could happen, if it’s hopeless and what it means for your future, which can seem so dark.
Does it mean you’re not lovable?
First of all, no! It doesn’t mean that at all.
I’ll give you proof in a moment, but more importantly, if what you want is an irresistible magnet to make you feel attractive and desirable, let’s dispel some myths that could be hurting your relationship.
Myth #1: We can talk it out
When he says or acts like he doesn’t love you, it’s as tempting as a Cinnamon to talk to him, but I don’t recommend it.
These State of the Union addresses are likely to do more harm than good, as you probably already know from receiving them. They always seem like they will help, but they don’t.
No one has ever felt more confident, connected, and wanted after talking about why they don’t love her.
When I was having these kinds of conversations, the driving force behind my desire was fear.
I wanted to talk until he saw things my way, otherwise known as rolling him into changing his mind, so I didn’t have to be afraid.
The more scared I was, the more steam I had. The more I screamed, the more he wanted to get away from me, which made me even more scared.
What a mess!
So here’s what I’ve learned to do instead: Take that fear onto someone else. You need to feel seen, heard and understood, more than ever, and make sure you’re still lovable.
He can’t give it to you right now, which hurts, but it’s temporary.
But you can get it from your friends, family or a relationship coach.
You might think this isn’t the same as listening to him, but we’re not done yet. So stay with me here.
Myth #2: If I do more for him, he will feel my love and love me back
Another mistake you can fall into as a mere mortal woman is trying to win his love by doing things for him so that he will love you back. But that’s not what makes men feel loved.
They feel loved when they manage to do things for them you and see you happy as a result.
You got it; I’ll repeat that because it’s very opposite of what makes women feel loved, but it’s very complementary to what makes us feel loved.
Men feel love when they carry heavy things for you, assemble furniture for you or bring you your favorite sweet and you are happy as a result. They feel in love when they do things for you and you accept them with joy and gratitude.
Isn’t that great?
So a much less exhausting and more effective approach to restoring love in your relationship than doing things for him is to be receptive to him doing things for you.
You could show that you are pleasant by smiling and making yourself happy, even though you are also feeling hurt and sad. I know it sounds contradictory.
Then let him squish the creepy bug in the bathroom or take care of your car or make you a cup of coffee. Then smile and say how happy that makes you.
Myth #3: If he doesn’t love you, he’ll never love you back
It may seem permanent that he doesn’t love you, and you probably feel hopeless about it. This is understandable because it is very painful!
But because he used to love you and now he doesn’t, that means he changed his mind. Since he changed his mind, that means he can change it again, right?
What he’s probably trying to say when he claims or acts like he doesn’t love you is that he feels deprived of oxygen, just like men feel about respect in a relationship – it’s their oxygen.
That means it’s not really about you as an individual. It’s not that you’re unlovable or unattractive to him. But you may have never been taught what respect looks like and you may have been unwittingly suffocating your marriage.
This was my experience as well.
If you learn what respect looks like to him and show more respect, it will breathe new life into your marriage. We see that happening a lot on this campus.
A student was telling me this just yesterday when she read the book The Empowered Wifeshe completely changed her understanding of what it means to be respectful and realized that she wanted to apologize profusely as a result of her new awareness.
She was surprised that her husband hugged her when she managed to tell him that she understood he had been disrespectful and regretted it.
As scary and painful as it is, when your man doesn’t love you, it doesn’t mean your love story with him is over, according to my experience of helping more than 15,000 women fix their marriages.
It probably just means there are gaps in your education, just as there were in mine, about how to love and be loved in return.
In other words, this could be—and often is—the collapse before the breakthrough to feeling more loved than ever.
I can’t think of anything more important and exciting to learn.
Which of these three things – not saying “we need to talk”, receiving instead of doing more for him, and restoring the oxygen of respect – would you like to experiment with first so that you can succeed?
By Laura Doyle
