This email explains how we can easily get caught up on surface-level issues in our marriage. Asking if you can make your wife love you again is a surface-level question. We can DO all the right things but that won’t attract our wife’s loving affection if we’re not BEING the kind of man who makes her feel emotionally safe and trusting. Below are three better questions to ask ourselves. These questions will help uncover underlying issues when our wife seems to have lost interest in us.
1. What Do Women Need To Feel In Love?
A few days ago, Google directed a man to my blog because he had a heartfelt question.
His question was, “Can you make your wife love you again?”
If you’ve ever wondered if your wife can love you again, you know how he must feel.
No doubt his story is much like yours or mine.
He remembers when his wife used to respond affectionately to his touch and smile when he entered the room.
Having an intimate and supportive relationship with her probably inspired him to work hard at his job and remain committed to the relationship.
But over the years, something changed.
A small peck on her cheek seems to annoy her now.
Placing his hand on her leg makes her tense up.
He’s met with excuses when he tries to initiate sex with her.
He hoped this was just a phase but over the months, it has only got worse.
Today, he’s wondering if she will ever love him enough to engage in the intimate, respectful, nurturing relationship he craves to have with her.
Asking if our wife can fall back in love with us is a surface-level question.
A deeper question is, “What do women need to feel in love?”
You see, we can DO all the right things in our relationship but if we make her feel disconnected, pressured, or criticized we can kiss intimacy goodbye.
Without a consistent experience of emotional safety and connection, she won’t feel enough trust to expose her intimate side.
2. What Limits You From Building Connection, Trust, & Emotional Safety With Your Wife?
It’s ironic how we, as guys, tend to answer this question the same.
We tend to focus on what needs to change about HER (like her state of limbo, irrational thinking, or emotional drama).
Another usual response is getting stuck on deciding if the relationship is worth our effort or not.
These common responses send a message to her that we can’t see past our own discomfort to connect with her feelings.
This makes us feel boyish and like a powerless victim to her.
It should go without saying that being a victim or acting boyish isn’t the path to building a better connection with our wife.
Criticizing her moods, arguing, walking on eggshells, and being resentful doesn’t help either.
When we look closer at ourselves, we might find even deeper issues.
When we look closer at ourselves, we might find even deeper issues.
Issues such as…
- Feeling like a failure
- Aversion to conflict
- A knee-jerk response to people-please
These deeper personal issues are what we need to focus on to unblock a meaningful emotional connection with our wife.
This connection is critical in a long-term relationship.
Without it, she won’t be able to trust herself to be soft and affectionate towards us.
3. What Is 100% In Your Control Right Now?
There are 3 zones in life…
- What’s out of our control
- What’s under our influence
- What’s in our control
Happiness, confidence, clear boundaries, and mojo only come from staying focused on things 100% in our control.
Our wife’s feelings towards us are under our influence, not under our control.
Whenever I speak to a man who is frustrated, lonely, upset, rejected, or in panic mode, it’s because he’s been focusing on things that are either out of his control or only under his influence.
When I’m coaching a man who doesn’t know what to do next in his relationship (limbo) it’s usually because he hasn’t forged an internal masculine frame that is 100% in his control.
Our masculine frame is our blueprint to follow!
Although this sounds like simple advice, many of us didn’t know HOW to build a masculine frame that is 100% in our control before our marriage called for it.
A Call To Confidence
If we have a blueprint or a “compass” to follow, we will always know how to respond to things like being rejected for sex, marriage limbo, or the uncertainty of her feelings towards us.
Hint: Her timing or clarity of feelings is not a compass.
Last year, a man we’ll call John, joined one of my group courses where I teach my masculine confidence framework.
John was down in the dumps.
He and his wife hadn’t had sex in many months.
His wife was unsure if she could continue in their marriage of 25+ years.
6 weeks into the course, everything changed for John!
He learned how to have his own compass to follow even when his wife was withdrawn or emotional.
He learned how to give her emotional space without walking on eggshells around her.
Her passion for him returned and to this day, they are both loving a brand new version of their marriage!
When I take you through my masculine confidence framework, I train you to forge an internal locus of control.
This means you learn how to respond from the inside out instead of the outside in.
Being this kind of non-reactive man who can be comfortable in his own skin is the only version of yourself your wife can fall back in love with.
Would you like help identifying the underlining issues that are keeping your marriage stuck?
If so, then fill out my “Get Grounded Now” form for a free consultation.
Much Love Brother,
Garrett Prettyman
