Honest Man Reveals Why He’s Not In Love With His Wife Of 8 Years Despite Her Being A ‘Good Person’
He's unsure what to do.
JOKE_PHATRAPONG / Shutterstock Marriage is a huge commitment — probably the biggest commitment of your life that involves another person, aside from having a child. You’re committing to spending the rest of your life with one person, so they better be the right person. Otherwise, you may end up feeling unfulfilled, as one man on Reddit experienced.
The husband admitted that he didn't love his wife of eight years.
“Like the title says, I don’t love my wife,” the man posted on Reddit. “At least not in a romantic way, and I’m not sure that I ever have. We’ve been married for 8 years, together for 10, and have a son together,” he explained in the since-deleted post, adding that what they have together is more like a domestic partnership.
“That’s not to say that what we have is bad or anything, there’s just zero attraction between us,” he wrote. “We have a great friendship, and I’d even go as far as to say that we make a great parental team.”
When asked why he married her in the first place if he felt this way, the man explained in the comments that he believed he confused feelings of friendship for love when they met.
“I always knew she was a good person… and we are and always have been good friends,” he admitted. “As a young man, I confused these feelings with love. Truth is, I feel the same way about a lot of people. [That] doesn’t mean I should have married any one of them.”
The man felt he and his wife were missing the connection that he believed a married couple should have.
“I’ll often come across women in my day-to-day life with whom I seem to have a much better and more honest connection,” he says. “I turn my back on these people because I don’t want to make any mistakes that would jeopardize my family or myself.”
As if to further prove his understanding of his relationship with his wife, he sees other women in his life as more suitable romantic partners than his wife but doesn’t want to jeopardize their family. He also explained that his family treats his wife as their own daughter, which he thinks might be part of the reason why his wife does not want to end their “sexless, loveless existence.”
“I suppose it’d be tough for a person estranged from their own family to let that sort of thing go,” he wrote. “I have a hard time connecting on a personal level with my wife these days,” he said, adding, “And the longer we’re together, the harder it becomes. I just want to connect with somebody. Nothing more.”
In the comments, people questioned whether the man's idea of a 'loveless' marriage was actually a 'lustless' marriage.
"A lot of people think once there is no lust there is no love. Tbh it’s because they want that feeling of lust again, they want to chase a lustful love," one person surmised. "Nothing wrong with it, but there needs to be actions taken to be fair to him and his wife."
In fact, love can be hard to define, as it's not a distinct feeling but rather a set of feelings.
However, as clinical psychologist and certified emotionally focused couples therapist Michael W. Regier, Ph.D. has explained, love absolutely requires an emotional connection, something this man felt was lacking in his marriage. While this connection can be felt easily in the beginning of a relationship when dopamine levels are high, over time, this "love chemical" wears off and you're left with the day-to-day, allowing that connection to easily wear off if it's not actively worked on.
It's possible to rebuild both emotional and romantic connections.
In the comments, a lot of people tried offering advice on how to shake things up and maybe add a little bit of excitement to get him through the days without worrying about whether or not he loves his wife, and experts suggest working on building an emotional connection that can help lead to a stronger sexual connection as well.
Whatever the case, it seems like he understood what comes next for his life, adding in an edit, “Now I just have to figure out what’s truly important to me.”
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics.