Sexless Marriage: “I Love You… But I’m Not In Love With You”

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. I'm going to read you another email from a follower that's been married for a long time. It's a different situation from the last video that I did, but just as painful. If you have ever heard the words, "I love you, but I'm not in love with you," then this is going to feel very familiar to you. Here's what he wrote. He says, "I am 47 years of age. My wife is 45. We've been married for 17 years. 2 kids, 14 and 11. We had our ups and downs, but nothing dramatic. No cheating that I know of. No big blowups. We function well." We parent well. About a year ago, she told me that she loves me, but she's not in love with me anymore. She says she feels more like roommates. She says she feels emotionally disconnected. She said she doesn't feel butterflies or excitement. Our sex life isn't completely dead, but it's rare. Maybe once every couple of months. And when it happens, it feels obligatory. She does not initiate. She doesn't flirt. She doesn't touch me unless I start it. I have tried everything. I've taken her on trips. I've done more around the house. I've been more attentive. I've read your book, The Dead Bedroom Fix. I've been working out consistently. I've improved my wardrobe. She says she appreciates it, but she still doesn't feel that spark. Recently, she said she doesn't know if she sees us growing old together. That one crushed me. I asked her if she wants to separate. She says she doesn't know. She doesn't want to break up the family, but she doesn't want to feel stuck either. I feel like I'm in limbo. I don't want a divorce. I love my wife, but I don't want to spend the next 20 years feeling unwanted. Is there a way to bring that spark back? Or once a woman says she's not in love anymore, is it basically over? Okay, so this is something that I hear quite a bit, actually. There's something about human behavior that leads a lot of men to say, "Wait a minute, did they all get together and read some kind of book or something?" Men and women both say this. They share stories about, you know, their trials and tribulations with their significant other, and all their friends say, "Oh my gosh, it's exactly like my man and my woman." And the whole "I love you, but I'm not in love with you" thing is, yeah, it's that common. And when guys hear it, what a lot of them think is, "I'm about to leave you, dude." But there's something that's kind of possibly more sinister going on under the surface here. Often what it means is that she's not just feeling very neutral towards you, but often it means somebody else or something else in the background is causing her to question all of her feelings towards you. Now, I want to be careful here, okay? Let's be fair. This does not mean that automatically mean that she is sleeping with somebody else. Often what it means is she has formed some type of emotional attachment to somebody else. It could be a coworker, and believe it or not, the coworker may have no idea that your spouse is having feelings for him. She just may have a regular daily coffee or lunch with him, and she's starting to feel a little something, little butterflies. And if you ask him, he's just like, "It's just Karen from the office." It could be an old boyfriend from the past has reconnected with her. Thanks to social media, oh boy, is that common. Maybe it's some guy from her workout class. CrossFit, for some reason, is just synonymous with infidelity and stepping over the line. Regardless of what's going on, there's something that's very in common with all of these scenarios, and it all points to the same little fact: new relationship energy is super duper powerful. That early stage excitement, that novelty, the frequent texting and talking, that validation that they get from the other person. All those things light up the brain in a way that a long-term, safe, and stable relationship cannot do. So if and when she experiences some of the energy, whatever form it comes in, from another person, it really makes the existing safe, long-term relationship seem very flat. So it's creating a real contrast there, and it's not because you're a terrible person. It's because at no fault of yours, you haven't been new guy for like decades now. Now here's the part where a lot of guys struggle. They find out possibly about this new guy on the side, and what a lot of guys say is, yeah, but my wife has never had to struggle for anything. We've never had any real drama between us. There's been no real big fights or anything. I've never cheated on her. We've been solid. Everything's going well. Because a lot of guys in their mind think safety, lack of drama means job well done. Everything's good here, right? Not necessarily. Absence of drama by itself, again, does not create desire in a relationship. That neutrality, that meh, as I often call it, slowly but surely erodes at the, if you want to call it sexual connection between the two people. 2 competent adults running the logistics of life, paying bills, taking care of the kids, all that becomes very safe and predictable. And safe and predictable by itself does not create desire. Sorry. When your wife says to you, "I'm just not in love with you anymore," what she is pointing to is a lack of polarity, an absence of tension, an absence of an emotional charge. So what a lot of men do when they're presented with this kind of scenario is they do the wrong thing. They become even safer, more comfortable, more freaking boring. And sometimes some of their behavior goes into the neediness. The guy's wanting some kind of reassurance from her. He's doing what I've heard somebody call the little pick-me dance. Picture the animal in front of the wife or in front of the mate saying, "Pick me, pick me." It's approval seeking. And it's very not sexy in any way, shape, or form. When you try to earn attraction through comfort and through reassurance, all that does is just cement the roommate dynamic that you have built over the years. I talk about this in my book, The Dead Bedroom Fix, and you can learn more at deadbedroomfix.com. It's my best-selling book. You cannot negotiate someone back into the old butterflies feeling. You cannot spreadsheet your way into feeling that spark again. What your wife is doing in these scenarios is comparing you, Mr. Comfortable, Mr. Familiar, Mr. Yes, Boring, to the new relationship energy that she's feeling potentially with the new guy. And every time you become more accommodating, more comfortable, more boring, more reassurance-seeking, you slowly but surely chip away even more at that connection between the two of you, the connection that you so badly want. In short, new relationship energy feels alive. Over-accommodation feels needy and repellent. Now let's talk about what we call the feeling of being in limbo. She says she's not sure if she sees the two of you living long-term and growing old together. That means that she is already mentally exploring life without you. That's not good. But what you don't want to do is respond to that with panic. If you beg her, you're just confirming your scarcity that you feel. If you plead with her, you're just confirming your fears. If you just try to appeal to her logic and explain things, Mr. Spreadsheet, again, you're just lowering yourself down on the totem pole of potential partners for her. Instead, what you do is you respond with grounded clarity. I do not want a roommate marriage. I want passion and connection. And there's nothing wrong with that. If we are going to stay together, wife, we need to work intentionally towards rebuilding that. If not, we need to be honest with each other. This just isn't gonna work. That is strength without being aggressive. Now let's address some of the positives that the follower here, let's call him Steve, what he has talked about here. He says he went to the gym, He has improved his wardrobe. He's taken her on trips. These are all great things, but if these things are driven by fear of losing her, not so good. You better believe she feels that energy from you. Improvement that is done out of a feeling of scarcity and fear has a way different feeling than improvement that is done from strength and independence. Women tend to respond to internal stability in their man, not necessarily some dumb little performance. The pick-me dance, as it's called, does not work. Because if every little change that you make feels like a bid for connection with her, it will not reignite desire. Okay, now let's go back to her and talk about a possible emotional attachment that she has made with another person. How do we break the spell that she's under, so to speak? Well, from what I've seen, the only thing that breaks that spell is reality. Because fantasy thrives in both secrecy and comparison. That little fantasy weakens when she sees that you are not fighting for her anymore. You're not clinging to her. You're not freaking out. When she sees that you are a man that will not stand for this indefinite emotional limbo, when you understand that you can't control whether or not she chooses you, what you can control is whether or not you stay in a relationship where you are not desired, but you are tolerated. And this is where men need support because if you go at this whole thing alone, you just end up being very emotional in all this. One day you're strong, next day you're very anxious, the next day you're very resentful, next day you're very angry to bordering on violent. And that inconsistency kills whatever chance you have of possibly reigniting the desire within your relationship if in fact this is salvageable. This is why groups like ours, the Brotherhood, exist. And you can learn more at help4men.com or jump right to the join page at help4men.com/join. We're not going to push you towards divorce. We're not going to villainize your wife or villainize you. We're going to help you stay grounded so that you can rebuild something real or make a real clear decision about your life. What you don't want is another 20 years of polite indifference because guys, that can happen. We hear it every day. Man finds out about some little emotional affair decades ago and since then it's just been this weird limbo state. You don't want that. What you want is to be chosen. Here's the bottom line. When she says, "I love you, but I'm not in love with you," it doesn't necessarily mean it's automatically over. All it means is that she's probably emotionally investing elsewhere. And if you respond by shrinking and chasing her, you just accelerate the process because that spark does not come back through comfort. It does not come back through neediness. It comes back through strength, and clarity and mutual effort. If she is willing to set all the horseshit aside and rebuild with you, there's hope. But if she is not and you remain in this limbo state, all it does is chip away at your sense of self-respect. You end up hating yourself. And once that love for yourself erodes, you have no hope of building genuine attraction and genuine romantic love with anyone. Thank you so very much for watching, guys. If you like this, give me a like, give me a subscribe. I would greatly appreciate it. We'll catch you on the next one.