This is a guest post by Jacques Geldenhuys.
Hi All,
I am sure most men think they are alone in feeling unwanted by their wife.
Feeling that they are not needed and that all they do bears no fruit at all.
My wife and I will be married for 15 years this coming October. And sometimes, I am not sure how I even lasted this long in an intimacy-less marriage.
In my eyes I do everything that I can possibly think of. I clean around the house, cook, wash the dishes, play with the kids, work a 10 hour day at the office, make breakfast and coffee when ever my wife wants it, tell her how pretty she is, how proud I am of her, doing everything and anything I can think of to make her happy and not wanting for anything.
So why does it seem like my marriage is a ghost ship on its way to nowhere. Getting no attention. Not hearing any words of affirmation.
Not getting touched.
In the end, isn’t that what drives us men? Isn’t that an important part of what we need and want in a relationship? To be touched. Our hands to be held. Our lips to be kissed.
Why is there that longing? Why do I feel like I am in a marriage that has been dead for a long time with no possibility of revival?
When you are feeling like this, the possibility that you want to hear that God is the answer, is 90% of the time not the answer you want. Even if it is the truth.
My mindset at this stage keeps telling me: if I pray and do everything that is expected of a Godly husband, then why am I still empty? Why does my wife not have the same mindset to make me happy in any and every possible way?
The only answer I can come up with, is that I am most certainly not doing what I am supposed to. Yes all these thing I mentioned are important. And needed. But I am clearly missing the point somewhere.
I know for a fact I am too scared to talk to my wife because maybe I am the problem and causing the loneliness. And I don’t want to hear that.
I have decided that I will not allow Satan, or the world with all it’s worldly ideas to take a hold of my marriage any longer.
I will write a letter to my wife. Not a e-mail. An old fashioned “love letter.” Telling her exactly how I feel. How lonely I am. I have nothing to loose and everything to gain at this stage. And my aim will be simple. I don’t want to light the spark again.
I want to build a new fire.
You can’t want to build a new fire on old feelings and the past. Times have changed. You have changed. Your wife has changed. I am going to build a new fire. With the emotions I have in me now. And make sure she knows how I feel. What my needs are. And I will spell it out for her. I need x,y,z,a,b,c ….. she is after all not a mind reader, nor am I.
But I will also tell her what I think her needs are. For one simple reason. We as men read the situation wrongly 99% of the time. And we assume we know what they need. And we build on that. By sharing with her what I think, we can discuss how wrong, or right, I am in assessing her needs and where I miss reading them.
My aim will be for us to start talking about our situations and needs. Expressing ourselves.
We as men have more emotional needs then any woman would ever realize. Being intimate has less to do with the physical actions, and more with the emotional act of being intimately together. And if we don’t tell our wives this, how will they know?
I even thought of having a game night with my wife every week. One week I determine the date, the other week it is up to her. And then we will play “strip rummy” or something. But not in the way most minds think. This will be to strip away insecurities. Strip away problems we don’t want to talk about. Strip away ego’s.
I am sure this will help me in my future with my lovely wife. We both prayed before we got married to make sure that our marriage is from God and a blessing. Why would that change?
By Jacques Geldenhuys