Watch the subtitled video above if you prefer to listen to my advice.
In today’s video, we’re gonna talk about maintaining healthy relationships. This is almost like a breakup video and I think a lot of you guys might have gone through a situation like this where you’ve been in a relationship for a long time and the longer it lasts, the harder it gets to maintain it, because maybe you’re making your woman unhappy, you’re not giving her what she wants, but she’s not really able to communicate what she really wants. And so if you don’t figure it out, well, you’re gonna end up having a breakup. So I have a situation from a guy who has been in a marriage for 18 years and things are seemingly falling apart. So let’s see what is my advice. What do I have to say about the situation.
The Spark Is Gone In My Marriage: She Lost Herself In The Relationship And We Don’t Go On Dates
I’m going through this after 18 years of marriage. She says she lost herself and doesn’t know who she is. A few weeks back, I made plans to have a date night because we don’t go out much due to work, school, kids, etc.
Well, if she says that she lost herself, she doesn’t really know who she is anymore… There’s this thing called the sense of self circle. It’s a circle that describes how intertwined we are as a couple. And if you’re too intertwined where you can’t really separate each other from each other anymore at all and it’s all just you as a couple, when your own characteristics kind of disappear, then that might be an indicator that you know your woman feels like she’s losing herself, because she has no own identity anymore. And so do you not have your own identity. And with 18 years of marriage, something like this might be possible.
You should ask yourself if that is the case, if you’re just so intertwined but, based on what you’re describing, I think that’s not the case but it could be one of the reasons why, because she feels like she has no more identity. So maybe she feels like she’s not autonomous enough, she doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life aside from the marriage and being with you. Now, that is one thing to consider but I don’t think that it is in this case. But I would still think about this and reflect on about this and actually talk with her about this.
Slow Deterioration Of Romance: What Happens When You Don’t Give Your Wife Attention
So I took her out for dinner and booked the hotel and had someone set it up with rose petals, wine, the whole nine yards. It was great and she said that it took me 18 years to do something nice. It’s like I got in trouble for doing that.
So yeah that must be very frustrating because you did something really nice. Really you set up a really nice date, rose petals, you really showed her that you love her, and she’s like “wow it only took 18 years to actually show me that you love me“… So it’s kind of a protest behavior. She probably can barely even believe it anymore, and so you must be very discouraged. What I would suggest you is to not stop doing this kind of stuff because she probably doesn’t even believe anymore that this can work. She lost faith a long time ago. So one time alone with some woman, this might work on one woman. Some woman might think “Wow! Okay, something’s changing here and I like it” but not every woman is gonna like it right away.
So you gotta stay persistent and I know that’s very unrewarding. It doesn’t feel good. Like “I did all of this nice stuff and she didn’t like it. Well shit! Why would I do it again?” I would keep on trying to do more nice things. She clearly said that it was something nice and you know, she expressed her disappointment that it took you so long. So she recognized that it was nice. It’s just if you compare that to all of these 18 years where she felt like you didn’t do enough, it’s just not enough. So you got to stay persistent. And you don’t have to do something crazy like what you suggested. What did you do? You booked the hotel, dinner, set up rose petals, wine… That’s way overboard, right… I mean it’s not overboard in the sense of it’s bad.
It’s amazing! Any woman is going to love that, but you don’t have to do something that is so hard to maintain. Just keep on doing more date nights. Spend more time with her and you can do simpler things as well. Quality time is all that matters. It’s not the rose petals that matter so much. Yes, it’s a nice sign of affection, but it’s more about spending time and especially we’re going to see this in your case that you have a complicated situation, so it’s kind of obvious that she misses quality time with you. That’s one of the things that she misses.
I thought I was doing something romantic…
And yeah, you definitely were…
My Wife Isn’t Happy With Me Anymore: When She No Longer Wants You And Says It’s Not About Sex
She said sex isn’t an issue. I’ve asked her if she’s happy. She said she hates that she told me how she feels about our relationship being stagnant and lacking affection.
Yeah, it’s probably emotional. So she doesn’t feel like she is valued enough, right, so that’s why she doesn’t want to have sex and you mentioned this that I think you only mentioned this later on that she feels like she’s being used for sex. And so she probably feels like it’s because something’s missing. The emotional connection is missing. Not the sex. And I guess you already recognize that, but you haven’t really figured it out what is the right approach to get that emotional connection back.
I work out of town, so I’m gone for two weeks at a time and only get three days off. I try to make it work locally but we were falling behind. They don’t pay enough, so I had to make the change for the better but it just got worse. She has said I spend too much money on my hobbies, my cars, gaming, etc. but she is acting like we’re about to lose the house and we have bill collectors calling, which isn’t the case.
Well, I’m sure that is accurate. That’s probably not what’s going on but women kind of think differently. They are more calculated. They think more ahead of the future. They also tend to worry a lot more actually, surprisingly, and so the thing is, right now the problem is that you’re working out of town. Right now that’s the only way to make it happen, right? So what did you say… You were falling behind, and so that’s why you’re working not locally, basically, and so she knows that the only choice to make this happen is for you to not work locally, right? So she knows you have to be out of town. It’s a shitty compromise for her, right? She knows that well, okay, we gotta pay the bills, so you can’t be here, but of course, it’s very clear that she misses the time, and so you’re trying to find a solution.
Wife Is Distant And Not Affectionate: I Tried To Reignite The Spark But She Refuses My Advances
All bills get paid normally. I pay everything to lessen her stress. Her stress comes from bills for kids, work, school, etc. … I don’t know, I’m lost and I don’t know what to do. I’m working on getting my CDL, commercial driver’s license to be home more often, but that will require me to work over the road for two years before I can find a driving job locally. So I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I’ve mentioned about trips but she always rejects them.
I’m going under the assumption that she knows that you’re doing this and that this is the plan to fix it and clearly, it doesn’t work for her. So I would tell her… I would ask her “Babe, look, how do you feel about this and what do you actually want? So I know that you want to spend more time with me and I need to make more time for us as a couple but look, the next two years are gonna be a little bit tough. So I wanna find a compromise that works for both of us to spend more time.”
Some of these nights that she actually found nice, and try to make them happen. You said you mentioned trips but she rejects them, so if she doesn’t like trips, have you tried something else? Maybe, well, if she cares about money, trips is not a good suggestion because trips will be expensive. So clearly, if she’s counting the dollars… Who knows why she’s counting them, but she’s counting them, so obviously, suggesting trips is the worst thing that you could do. So you should think of ways of how can you spend time that doesn’t cost that much money. So I think a trip is the most… One of the most expensive things… So an out-of-town trip is not the most expensive yet, you know, going on a vacation in another country is more expensive, but yeah, you’re probably gonna spend at least a few hundred bucks if you go on a trip out of town. Right, you have kids as well.
Maybe do you need your kids taken care of, or the kids also need to eat on the trip. So it’s going to be expensive. So can you find other cheaper ways to spend quality time with her? So for example, just something in your town. I don’t know where you live but there’s probably lots of small activities here and there. It might make sense to think about some of the things that you’ve used to do in the past. I know it’s been a long time. 18 months… 18 years, so think hard think back about what are the things that you used to enjoy as a couple that were not trips.
Maybe you used to do mini golf, or maybe you enjoyed going to a bar. I know it costs money as well but maybe you enjoy going to live music and going to a live music bar for example, it’s not that expensive. So you get the idea. What are some other things that you can do that might not automatically trigger her money issue? She probably thinks money all the time. At least it’s what it sounds to me. So you gotta find something that is low effort, cheap, and preferably something that she used to enjoy a long time ago. That might actually spark some nostalgia. So that might be really good.
All She Can See Are Problems: She’s Falling Out Of Love With Me And Thinks I Only Want Sex
The reason she’s not happy is that she is stressed out about bills, jobs, school, which I pushed her to go back to. She says I just use her for sex. I’m an affectionate person, she isn’t, which I don’t like, but I live with it. She says we have sex and I just go to sleep. Of course, we just went for 30 minutes to one hour. It was amazing and yea, wants to talk, etc.
So if we look at the love languages, there are certain things that she might like. So it seems like physical touch is not her thing. So sex might not be the thing that triggers her, but clearly, it’s talking. A few years ago I dated this one… Some women just love to talk, man… And they want you to talk and it’s just the one thing that they want and you just gotta accept that. I dated this woman many, many years ago and she just… When we were in bed at night she wanted to talk with me or tell me something and at times it would drive me crazy, but you know, it’s just what she wanted and you gotta, if you wanna make her happy and you want your relationship back, or your marriage back to be what it was like, then give her the thing that she wants. And even if it is it’s frustrating, like you invest in something that is not paying off so much, right, and so you don’t feel like doing it, it’s very demotivating…
Right now, my YouTube channel is currently not monetized, so any video that I make is kind of not so motivating because the YouTube channel itself doesn’t even generate money. So I generate money from the coaching sessions and from my book sales, but that’s it. But the channel itself doesn’t make money, so sometimes I have days where I don’t want to record videos. It’s just the truth. I’m going to be honest with you guys. Sometimes I just don’t feel like it. Sometimes I’m like MEH… You know, I’m still only at 842 subscribers, I need 160 more so that the channel is monetizable, so that I can tell Google “Yo! Pay me for this!” and sometimes I don’t feel like it but I have to keep pushing forward and you’re in the same situation with your woman right now that you gotta suck it up. You gotta talk with her and it doesn’t feel good, I know. So maybe you have to try to find some new topics and the thing is what I would just suggest is, try it out for… Try it out for three months.
I know three months sounds like it’s a long time but not really. Or even just start with a month. Have sex and if the sex is great, then look, suck it up! Try to talk with her for just a little bit. Even if let’s say you talk and you say you’re tired, right, and you talk and you have a conversation, and then you literally fall asleep, that can really happen to some people, right? You just fall asleep because you’re so tired, right? That would be better than not wanting to talk at all and just saying “look I want to sleep” because at least you’re trying. So I would see just maybe that changes a little bit in her demeanor in her behavior.
If you give her some more time, I think she needs quality time and probably also words of affirmation, or rather she’s just one of those women who wants to talk. Maybe I’m wrong about this assumption but she sounds exactly like this woman that I dated. And I gave her what she wanted and she was happy, and of course, me as a guy, you know, I was rolling my eyes a little bit but it doesn’t kill you, right? So just try it out for a month to talk a little bit more after sex and see what happens. And if it doesn’t change anything, okay, fine…
I highly actually suggest go through the five love languages. Gift giving, acts of service, words of affirmation, sex doesn’t seem to be it, quality time… And switch through these and see which ones work and do each one for two, three weeks, just see if there’s a change. Now I know that you’re out of town, so it’s a little bit more difficult, but try to increase it when you’re there, or for example, quality time, even if you’re out of town, it could be a phone call, for example. Or it could be a quick video call just to also talk with her. And she might like that. So try to figure out, okay, maybe some of these things do work if you do them repeatedly and it doesn’t happen overnight, especially after 18 years, if she felt very neglected for a long time. You can’t expect results to happen overnight. Now, of course, she needs to also tell you what she wants, but we’re gonna get into this a moment.
Planning Your Relationship: Relationship Reconnection Rituals To Connect With Your Wife
Another problem she has are my hobbies, which cost money. She has a hobby which I’ve invested a lot in… T-shirt making, tumblr making, etc printers, computer sublimation, printers screen press, etc
Oh, this is a pretty geeky woman. I might like your wife. Okay, so yeah, so you feel like it’s not even because you both have hobbies and you feel like you’re spending too much money, she feels like you’re spending much money. She’s not… Because well, she already invested the money, I guess, I assume, right? And you’re continuously investing money into it, so I know this is a shitty compromise. It’s not a long-term compromise at all for sure. Either you should stop to invest in your hobbies and just maybe you can keep most of your hobbies without spending more money while you try to see if some of these things work that I suggested, or you have to talk with her about how does she feel about the money.
So sit down with her, make money plans to actually go through this because one thing that might be going on is that you don’t realize how much anxiety she really has. If you put this down on pen and paper, and you make a financial plan basically with her how to spend money, you might see all of the things that she doesn’t want to spend money on, then you might discover she is actually really freaking out about financials, whereas you clearly are not. So that is a huge disconnect.
Why is that disconnect actually happening? What is the things that are scaring her? So maybe if you might do that exercise before you could possibly see what is going on there because clearly, you seem like things are overall fine, obviously, you have to pay the bills, but you’re not going to be homeless in then six months from now. It sounds to me, but I guess maybe she’s just looking ahead five months from now, five years from now. Who knows. So maybe you gotta talk about this as well.
Wife Says I Don’t Do Enough: I Feel Like My Wife Is Looking For Problems Instead Of Solving Them
She says I never help with kids. She says I never do housework. I don’t know but it’s just gotten to the point that she’s just making up things to get out, but I’ve asked if that’s what she wants, but she replies I don’t know what I want. I need time. Well, I need a wife. I need my partner back. So I need your advice.
Well, okay, she doesn’t know what she wants because she loves you, but she feels unhappy, so okay, she says you never help with the kids, you never do the housework. So that is another love language. That’s acts of service, so I don’t know if that is true if you’re not helping or if you feel like it’s just bullshit… Now, clearly, if she doesn’t feel happy, her tank of happiness is so low, it’s like almost dry basically. It’s already the last bits of drops are evaporating. Then anything is going to be a problem. First, you gotta build this up over time. I don’t know if you’ve already done this but okay, if you never help with the kids, or you never do housework, maybe it’s true, maybe not. Maybe you just have to do small things here and there. So for example, if I just listen to what you said, quality time might be it. But acts of service definitely and words of affirmation. I don’t know how often you tell her you love her. Clearly, the talking thing is important to her after sex, for example, she wants to just be there with you in the moment. And sex is not what’s missing. Being there in the moment with you seems like what’s missing.
And I’m thinking that the reason why she can’t go on trips for example, is because she’s telling herself she can’t be in the moment because she’s worrying about the money. So maybe she would love to be on a trip with you but she doesn’t think that she can be in the moment. She doesn’t think she can enjoy it. She could probably more enjoy talking to you after sex than going on trip, which sounds like what the fuck?! That makes no sense, right?! But that’s probably her mental mindset right now. So you gotta understand her worries a little bit and just see if the way that you’re thinking, the way that both of you are thinking are just complete opposite, polar opposites, right now. And you gotta make an adjustment to see if it changes.
She’s probably not gonna make the adjustment because clearly, she’s the one who is more unhappy and feels neglected, and it seems like she’s not the kind of person who wants to make it work right now. So I know that’s not fair but you got to try to make it work on your end first and then see if that changes, and if it doesn’t change, then maybe you can go to a therapist as well. To a couples therapist. But first, I would see if just more quality time can help you. So quality time is probably for her talking and you don’t have to go on a trip. I don’t know what you guys enjoy, but honestly even just man… I’m remembering this time many, many, many years ago. I had this a really great girlfriend in the US. A long-term relationship and it turned into a long-distance relationship eventually, and then I visited her in the US. We both used to live in Germany and I just remember these simple strolls that we had in… Was it Galveston, Texas? Great city! And just simple stuff, being with her and talking a little bit over a cup of coffee, or something like donuts, or whatever, right? Simple stuff.
Going On More Dates With Your Wife: Dates Don’t Need To Be Expensive Or Complicated
If you’re with a great woman and with a great partner, you don’t need to spend that much money. It’s about the time to be spent together. So I know that a lot of things, maybe some of the things that I’ve advised, maybe you’ve tried them already. I don’t know what are all the things that you’ve tried and I know you’ve tried something, but I think maybe you’re giving up too soon because you think you’ve done this really big thing, right? The petals. The rose petals. And you feel disheartened. That’s understandable but I think it might gain you a lot more results if you just do lots of small things. You did this one big thing, but that’s never going to make it right if she felt neglected for years, and years, and years. So instead think of lots of small things… So what is one tiny thing that you could do every two days? Or every three days.
I’m not saying that you have to be Mr. perfect for the rest of your life and do one small thing every two days, every three days… That’s unrealistic, right? Nobody can do that. I can’t do that. You can’t do that. Nobody can do that. But you can do it for a short while just to see if it actually changes something and if it actually changes something, then when you scale it down and do it less often, it’s actually not gonna bother her so much because she just knows that you’re making an effort. That is pretty much my advice for you. I know this is not so easy and let me just go back to your last message… Right, she doesn’t know what she wants. She needs time.
So yeah, what does that mean? Does she need time? She doesn’t really know it, right? So she’s probably one of those kind of women who want you to figure it out. Women are just often like this. I don’t know what I want. I want you to figure it out. I need some time to think. So look, while she’s thinking and needs time, just give her time. I’m not saying give her time to think about… What I’m saying is give her time to spend time with her in small ways, tiny ways here and there, and maybe that will improve it, and I’m guessing she probably feels like it’s not really a relationship anymore. It’s probably too mundane. It must be very tricky as well with you always being out of town, so that probably adds to it as well, so I definitely would think if yeah, phone calls or video calls could help with this as well.
I am not a big fan of long-distance relationships, but when I am long-distance, I do video calls because it’s just so crucial to connect. So maybe this will help as well. So that’s what I got so far. I think your situation probably would need more long-term help and more long-term attention because it’s very complex I think. And it’s a long-term relationship, so you gotta basically experiment. You gotta experiment and tweak and see what works and what doesn’t and then adjust accordingly. So I do think that coaching might actually be quite helpful for you. I usually don’t suggest this for people in the videos. I always do it for free, but I think in your case this might be helpful. Anyway, I hope that was helpful for you, give me a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, and never forget to unleash the king within.
