Last night my wife said that she sees that I am doing lots of things to express love, but that she doesn't feel loved. She's not sure how much of that is due to me speaking the wrong love languages, bad experiences in the marriage, bad experiences in early life, or just a fear of letting herself be loved.
This feels real to me, I don't think she's making excuses. But it's really depressing to try so hard and have her not feel loved...
We'll keep working the love languages to see if she can identify concrete things that do make her feel loved.
Sounds like she's suffering from depression to me.
I'd be careful not to overwhelm yourself with LLs and then monitor progress against the way she feels. But maybe just keep doing what you are doing. Then listen to her concerns. The fact that she acknowledged it should be good enough. It sounds like she's admitting that it's her own issue and not yours. It almost sounds like she's letting you off the hook but if not, then be careful that she's not trying to manipulate you somehow.
If she is depressed, then you will drive yourself crazy taking ownership of it. Good luck. Sorry for a crappy answer.
Anywhere is walking distance if you have the time
-Steven Wright
Quote: Well, she does suffer from chronic depression, that's clear. She has throughout our marriage.
So depressed people feel unloved? What tipped you off to the idea of depression?
Jonathan
YES! Unequivically, depressed people have a much harder time recognizing, feeling, accepting and recieving love.
As a depressed wife who also frequently experiences bouts of feeling unloved by a good decent loving husband, I can really relate. (BTW right now things are very good)
Since I analyze my feelings and pay attention, I've found that this feeling of unloved breaks into some main basic catigories.
1. H really is acting like a jerk. Self absorbed, not helping with the children beyond playing with them. Isolated on the computer. Extremely neglectful, not asking how my day went or any questions about me, seeming to have no interest in me, as if my presence makes no difference to him. When I do ask him for support or let him know I'm sad, or emotionally needy, he can be distant, blank, unavailable. He isn't mean about it, just sort of absent and I get the impression he is indifferent to my pain and to me. He's polite, friendly and makes me want to blow things up to get his attention or get some sort of reaction, or just to express my frustration.
2. The dear boy thinks he's showing me love, yet the very things he's doing are shooting him in the foot. Some actions and words can be intended as thoughtful and endering, yet to the reciever be insulting, mean and rude, even when you know that isn't your spouses intent. My H will often think he's doing something good by keeping the kids from bothering me, when I'm holed up in my room. Unfortunteately, because he hasn't let me in on his plan or asked me what I needed, I saw it as desertion, abandonment, that he'd rather be anywhere but with me, and that I'm the only one who cares enough to carve out US time, away from the kids. (And part of the depression is I don't want to be with me, so I don't blame him for not wanting to be with me either- except it hurts and I do blame, because he's supposed to love me.) I also have a friend, whose way of showing bursts of affection was to poke me, this annoys me mucho. It took a while to at least train him out of poking me in the tummy. So do discover if anything you are doing to show love is actually irritating instead of loving.
3. H is using the wrong love languages. I see that he is showing me love, but don't feel it. I give him credit, it makes me admire him, but no warm fuzzy feelings. This does strengthen the intellectual knowlege that H Loves me. I have faith in his love for me even though I may not at the time feel it, and to have faith that the chances are really good that I will again, in the near future feel it, even if I currently dispair. Or H is only meeting part of my LL needs either unbalanced or simply not enough volume. And yes people, I DO communicate this with my dear H. (communication doesn't always help, sometimes my dear continues to be clueless even when handed clues on a silver platter and hand fed.) Something that's helped alot is celebrating when I do feel loved. Noticing specifically what, or what combination helped me feel that H loves me, or wants to be with ME. Simple things, like an ivitation to go for a walk, or watch a TV show together, nuzzling my neck, suggesting a game, invitation to dinner, moving my hair out of my face, getting me a hair binder, a card, flowers, setting up child care, parenting (getting the kids to brush teeth, do homework, take meds, do house chores). I'd much rather he got the kids to clean up, that doing it himself, especially when it's the kids junk in the first place. I love that he's willing to clean, but supervising shows me more love. One of the things that's helped us, is that I have several no fail things he can do that when he does them I ALWAYS feel loved. Also sometimes I need some repetition or time for it to sink in through the love barriers. You can train your body and mind to react positively to certain cues.
4. This has nothing to do with H. Poor self care, lousy eating, lack of exercize, can make it really hard to recieve love. It's also for some strange reason in this state dibilitating motivation, everything is too hard or too much trouble, a shower, brushing teeth, getting dressed, eating or stop eating junk. Things I find helpful in this state are, offers of fresh fruit ready to eat, getting real food and presenting it, announcing that we are going out to eat, running a bubble bath, getting the toothbrush, putting toothpaste on and handing it over, finding clean clothes, help into or out of clothing, being read to, reassurance that he does love me over and over, while it's not ok not to feel love, that the love still is sent and that I'm not judged defective and you're not giving up on me or us, that you have faith it will happen and I will be able to recieve again. Laughter is also a good way to bridge this love barrier, watch a funny comic routine, or show, or jokes.
5. This one also has little to do with H. The void and deep dark pit, never ending neediness. This is where H doing LL's helps, but is more like a bandaid on a gushing wound. It's physically and emotionally impossible for H to fill the need, and H will go crazy if he takes it as his responsibility. This is where meds and therapy, lots of self nurture are necesarry. If it lasts more than 2 weeks, its time to get more professional help. I've found that this state can be a thing that passes, and once it does I can feel loved again. It can creep up, insidiously, it's marked with lots of self doubt, indecision, feeling worthless or pointless. Things that are usefull for this stage are listening to positive stuff, audio is most effective, happy music, check on lighting sunlight, fulspectrum, move my bod (simple walk if nothing else, good cardio best), force myself to smile and list positives. Motion, emotion, posture are all very linked. Sometimes a good cry, vent and journaling the pain and desolation, burning stuff, shreding paper, punching, are cathartic. Usually it's just a cycle of the disease of depression and will dissapate if I change what I'm doing. I try to list all the things that are stressing me and see if I can delegate or let go of some and try to see what might be blocking my ablity to feel loved. Again, if this state persists even after changing back to good self care or if you can't even manage to do good self care after trying for a week or two, it's time to get extra help, see the therapist more, up med dose, or change meds.
6. Not enough sleep or time together. Too tired to feel loved, or not spent enough quality connecting and quantity connecting time together. General recomendations (and I completly aggree though it's not always feasable or practical) Date once a week, overnight (24-48hrs) once a month, and one week once a year.
Obviously, my needs are different from your wife's, however this may help in your detection process. However, many things are common with women and depression, and right now I'm LD. Much luck to you in finding things that work.
This is a very helpful post for me - I have read it several times this morning and this evening, and there's a lot to chew on.
In the car today, as we were coming back from sailing, I thanked my wife for hanging in there and believing that I love her even when it doesn't feel like it. That seemed meaningful to her (it got me a good hug, at any rate ;-> )
I don't think either my wife or I can write down as clear a list as you have for your relationship. It's a useful checklist for our discussions. We had an interesting discussion today where she agreed that shell pay attention to what does and does not make her feel more loved and let me know, and I agreed not to feel guilty about anything she's not helping me know that I need to do.
More later...I really appreciate the time and thought you put into that message. It was helpful.
