How Do I Get My Husband to Love Me?

You can get your husband to love you more by making a few important changes in yourself

Some women find that their husbands have lost interest in them. 

Instead of love, they see a tired or impatient look in their husband’s eyes.  And, these women feel less important than the TV, or computer, or even their husband’s friends.

We need to take a moment to think about why husbands love their wives in the first place.  Although many women think that they will be loved simply because they are the “wife,” love doesn’t come from obligation or roles.  Maybe it should be that way, but the human heart doesn’t respond to should’s very well.  There are many men who love their wives dearly.  What is going on in these relationships?  What do the women do that helps to create such strong feelings in their men?

Some women try to get more love by pleasing their husbands, but that doesn’t work.

While some women focus on pleasing their husbands, that usually does not stimulate their husband’s love.  What it does is make the women more resentful as they see their love going out, but they don’t feel it coming in.  Loving their husband starts to feel like a bad investment.  Focusing on pleasing your husband can create the same problem that it does with parents who focus on pleasing their children–they end up with a husband who is self-centered and demanding.  Loving and pleasing turn out not to be the same thing.  Pleasing is not bad, but it should be a result of other relationship work–not the main work itself.  Please your husband because you love him.  Don’t please him in order to get love from him.

Who do men commit to and why?

There are a lot of needy women who see boyfriends come and go without committing to them.  Although they are working to please the men so that the men will love them, they don’t become valuable enough for the men to commit to them.  What initially pleased the men a lot becomes less and less pleasing, just as an old toy can be left forgotten under the bed.  For commitment, he has to find in her something he believes he cannot find in another woman.  This is also true for the married man to stay committed in his heart.  In my work as a marriage and relationship coach, I have found the most important qualities of a woman that bring out a committed heart in a man are:  good boundaries which build respect, loving messages which build attraction, admiration which makes him feel like a man, and partnership which builds connection.  A woman who has these three qualities will far outshine any other woman.  She will be a woman her husband never wants to lose, and she will be a woman he desires to be with each day.

Boundaries are healing and promote a loving relationship

It really is surprising to many women that boundaries are helpful in stimulating a man’s love.  After all, boundaries mean making changes in oneself that do not go along with the damaging behaviors of one’s partner (or others).  To understand how boundaries build love, consider how hard it is to love someone you don’t respect.  Someone who will go along with damaging behavior, or who simply complains about what you are doing, but then puts up with it. Boundaries build respect.  On the other hand, if we have good boundaries, but don’t balance them with loving behaviors at other times, we may get resentful compliance, but not an improved relationship.

1. Husband yells at you and put you down
2. You use a boundary such as walking away and not interacting with him for one hour.
3. After one hour, you again treat him nicely, with no reference to why you walked away earlier.

Done consistently, this soon ends the yelling and verbal abuse, improving the relationship for both husband and wife.  Can you imagine how the relationship would just get worse and worse if either:  1) no boundary was used; or 2) the couple did not get back to the business of loving each other?  In my book, What to Do When He Won’t Change, I help women to have a loving approach with strong boundaries to improve their relationship with their husbands. Many women have written to me to tell me this alone saved their marriage.

It’s important also not to lose love by harmful words or actions.

There are many frustrations in marriage that mostly come from the differences between husbands and wives.  In their frustration and because of poor communication skills, women and men often give messages that make their partner feel less desirable or even defective.  Complaining and debating both create distance.  Withholding words of love also emotionally starves our partners who can become hungry to get those words from someone else.  I teach my coaching clients that the more you make your spouse feel like you like him just the way he is, the more of the best you will bring out in him.  Just think about how you would behave with someone who made you feel that you are terrific just the way you are?  Now, contrast that with how you would likely behave with someone who complained about your behavior or personality.  Which person would get the best from you?  Which way will get the most love from your husband?

What does this mean on a practical level for you?

Well, that all depends on what you are doing now in your relationship and and what your husband is doing.  If your husband is doing something which is damaging to your relationship, you need to deal with it by having good boundaries and also by communicating in a loving way at the same time.  This is the point at which many women turn to books for help or get relationship coaching, depending on how severe the damage is to their relationship.  Books will give you patterns to adapt and follow in your situation, such as the book I mentioned above.  Coaching will get you direct assisted help for what to do in your particular situation. Regardless of which choice is better for you, you are going to need to:

1. Stop hurting your spouse with your words,
2. Use loving words to build a good connection, and
3. Use good boundaries to stop your husband’s damaging behaviors.

Loving others is the best way to get love from them.  That doesn’t mean just doing whatever they want.  It means doing what is best for them–the loving and the tough.

Another very helpful thing is to overcome any insecurities you have.

Insecurities lead to jealousy, criticism, control, and withdrawal.  All of these will make your value plummet.  And, if you are insecure, it will be really hard to follow through with your boundaries long enough to change any negative patterns in your relationship.  All of us have some insecurities, but there are some very practical things we can do to overcome them without needing to go to counseling.  I provide many ideas for becoming a secure, attractive partner  in my book, Overcome Neediness and Get the Love You Want.  Many times the behavior that people think is really secure is actually harmful to our relationships.  You never want your husband to feel like: you are a lot of work, that he has to put up with you, that he needs to do what you want so you won’t become upset, or that he enjoys getting a break from you.  If you think your husband feels any of these things with you, I recommend you to work on overcoming neediness.

Getting love and emotional commitment from your husband

Pleading, arguing, sexuality, promises, and bargaining are a few of the commonly tried shortcuts.  If you have ever truly loved someone, then you know they didn’t get your love by doing these things.  I think instead they consistently made you feel important and desired. Single women who can make men feel this way are not going to have a hard time catching one. And, married women who make their husbands feel this way are not going to have a hard time keeping them.