“What a setup for little girls! What a setup to be taught a wonderful prince will come along and meet all your emotional needs while at the same time, we are teaching our little boys not to feel. To be tough. To cut off from their emotional selves.”– The Patti Henry, The Emotionally Unavailable Man.
This quote from The Emotionally Unavailable Man immediately comes to mind as I settle down to write this article.
It is pretty insightful when we reflect on it deeply.
We live in a society that teaches boys to be tough and stoic and to never show pain or weakness.
On the other hand, we teach our girls that they are princesses who deserve only royal treatment and that someday, a prince will come and sweep them off their feet while attending to every one of their emotional needs.
We are teaching the boys to feel little and the females to feel much, and hence, we are setting the girls up for disappointments in the future.
Disappointment when no prince comes to sweep them off their feet.
They are disappointed when they have to settle for a man who doesn’t know what it is to be emotionally connected to someone else.
A little bit of happiness when it seems like he is learning to be more open and emotionally connected.
“Why is my husband so emotionally detached?”
You keep asking yourself this question and can’t seem to get a satisfactory answer.
Well, I have taken the liberty of compiling a list of reasons your husband is so emotionally detached.
Come along, let’s find out which one suits your husband.
“Why Is My Husband So Emotionally Detached?”– 8 Reasons Why And What To Do About It
1. He’s stressed
This could be the reason your husband is so emotionally detached.
Stress doesn’t just make you tired or wish your head didn’t hurt so much; it also changes or affects how you relate with the people you love.
Whenever I am stressed, I am crankier than I usually should be.
I get easily irritated, and if you really don’t know me, you might think I don’t like having people around me.
I am a very social person, but stress is a peculiar way of reducing my tolerance threshold for people’s antics.
My point is that we all have different ways of dealing with stress.
Your husband’s way of dealing with stress could be totally zoning out and ignoring everything else around him.
This could be the reason why he seems so emotionally detached around you.
It could be stress from work or from other projects he is involved in.
You may be saying that he can’t be stressed without you knowing.
But your husband can be stressed at work, and you don’t know why because you are so fixated on your unmet emotional needs.
Ask him how work is going.
Look closely and see if you see an increase in the amount of hours he spends working.
Is he bringing work home?
That’s a sign that he may be under a lot of occupational stress.
Try to see if you can help him with any of it.
Be available.
2. He doesn’t feel appreciated
This is another reason why your husband may be so emotionally detached.
Relationships are not just things that people get into for the vibes of it.
They require a lot of sacrifices and commitment to uphold.
When your husband feels like you don’t appreciate his efforts in the relationship, he may begin to withdraw.
Men love to be appreciated the same way women do.
Appreciate those little things he does in the relationship.
The sacrifices, the efforts, the thoughtful gifts, the attention….
Appreciate them all.
Don’t have the mindset that since it is his duty, he doesn’t need it.
Of course, it is his duty, but even while we perform our duties, we love to be appreciated by those we do them for.
3. He feels inadequate
This is an offshoot of the previous reason.
When a man feels unappreciated in a relationship, he may begin to start feeling inadequate.
He starts feeling like he can’t do anything that will be appreciated, and so he decides to withdraw into his shell.
He withdraws into his shell and suddenly becomes negligent of your emotional and physical needs.
He may also feel a little intimidated by you.
This is not right, but many men are intimidated by high-achieving women, especially when they are married to one of them.
Perhaps you were still a work in progress when he married you.
But you are now a high flier in your career and highly respected in society.
The caliber of men you used to attract has changed, and so has your circle.
He may be feeling intimidated by the kind of people you move with.
If this is the reason your husband is emotionally detached, it is not your fault.
Marriage is not a competition; partners should never be intimidated by each other’s success because a win for one is a win for all.
4. You constantly nag him
Nagging is one behavior that should be absent from any relationship.
It doesn’t do anything to make matters better.
Instead, it even makes things worse.
Men react differently to nagging.
Some may react angrily, while others may just withdraw into a shell.
If you constantly complain about your husband’s inability to do enough for you, this may be the reason for his emotional detachment.
He may have come to the sad conclusion that if you can always complain regardless of his best efforts, then he shouldn’t bother trying to satisfy you.
This is a very terrible state of affairs for any relationship…
You have those very high expectations of him and on the other hand, he is no longer trying.
If you realize that this is the case, you may need to learn better and more effective ways of expressing your dissatisfaction.
Don’t nag at your husband.
Nothing good comes from nagging.
Whenever someone nags at me to do something, I intentionally refrain from doing it even if I want to.
I know it’s petty, but nagging brings out those petty juvenile instincts in men.
5. He’s holding onto past grudges
Unresolved conflicts can be a source of grudges to your husband.
When conflicts are not resolved effectively, even the most forgiving person may still hold grudges toward the offending party.
If your husband suddenly becomes emotionally detached from you, you need to explore this possibility.
This could mean that your husband is growing emotionally distant from you because of his growing resentment toward you.
One of the ways I react to someone who constantly offends me is to assume a detached personality whenever I am around them.
I zone them out to ensure that I don’t get hurt by anything they do.
It is quite effective because it helps me keep my temper in check even while I express my displeasure.
You may need to introspect honestly to find out if this is the case.
Have you constantly had serious conflicts with your husband that were not resolved?
Were you the party at fault in those situations?
If the answer to these questions is yes, then you should know that the reason your husband is so emotionally detached can be traced to this.
This time around, talk to your husband calmly and apologize for those things you have done to offend him.
Tell him you are ready to work on resolving conflicts better and see if he is ready to join you on that journey.
6. He is depressed
Depression could cause emotional detachment in a man.
You may not realize it, but your husband could be depressed.
Depression can cause an emotional distance between you and your husband because he may be hesitant to open up and share what he is going through with you.
In fact, for the most part, it is hard for people suffering from depression to explain what they feel to others.
They may also be scared that their feelings may be invalidated.
In Africa, when you say you are depressed, some people may begin to tell you how you should be thankful that you have food to eat, clothes to wear, and money to spend.
They would also mention how many other people are in worse situations and still happy.
This fear of invalidation of what he feels can be the reason your husband is so emotionally detached.
7. He is cheating
I know people say things like, “Men are polygamous in nature”…
Whenever I hear this, I literally wrestle with the urge to shout, “Hogwash!”.
I don’t believe men are polygamous.
I believe it isn’t easy to be in a relationship with two women and love them equally.
You would surely love one more than the other.
You may not love the other at all.
Most of the time, your wife is probably the person you don’t love.
Sad!
If your husband is suddenly so emotionally detached from you that he combines it with other suspicious behaviors,
For instance, being extremely secretive, making long calls at odd hours, chatting with someone for hours, spending so little time at home, and comparing you with other women, you may conclude that he is cheating on you.
This is a terrible way to end a marriage that started with two people professing undying love for each other.
For me, cheating is a deal breaker in any relationship.
It means that I can’t trust you.
But don’t get me wrong; I am not asking you to go and end your marriage without any concrete proof that your husband is cheating on you.
Get the proofs and discuss them with him.
You may decide to stay in the marriage because you believe he is repentant.
The choice is yours.
8. He doesn’t love you anymore
Men prefer to express love through their actions.
Similarly, they express it with their actions when they fall out of love.
Men wear their emotions on their sleeves, and if you are truly observant, you will know when your husband begins to fall out of love with you.
When a man grows emotionally detached in a marriage, it could be a sign that he no longer loves you.
Emotional intimacy is one of the biggest pillars of marriage; when it is lacking, the marriage begins to crumble.
This is the worst-case scenario because no woman wants to face the fact that the man she loves no longer loves her.
It is a depressing reality to face, but it’s probably not the end of the world or the end of marriage.
There are ways that you can reignite that spark in your relationship, but your husband must be fully ready to join you on this mission to save your marriage.
Spend quality time together, compliment each other, give thoughtful gifts to each other, and don’t forget to truly make love to each other.; don’t just have sex.
A relationship counselor could also do you a whole world of good.
You can try to get your husband back…
After all, when it comes to relationships….
“You really have three choices with your relationship: leave it, keep it the same, or make it better.”– Patti Henry, The Emotionally Unavailable Man.