Although a husband used to give his wife enough affection at the beginning of the marriage, his affection may gradually transfer to other people (e.g. children, and people outside of the relationship) as time passes, and it can also quickly fade away as the relationship runs into all sorts of difficulties. Hence, it is normal for a wife to go through a phase of lack of her husband’s affection at some point. But no doubt, affection is an important thing that holds a marriage together, and no wife wants to lose it.
Now are you craving affection from your husband, More specifically, are you yearning to be hugged and kissed, or do you desire to receive his caring messages or words (e.g. “I cherish you…”, “I love you because…”, and “Thank you for adoring me…”)? And do you see your husband as cold, distant, self-centered, or only interested in your children? It seems that lack of affection is not a serious problem, but it may make you feel lonely, unimportant, unloved, and ignored in the relationship. It hurts your relationship in the long run.
If you have no idea how to get your husband to be more affectionate, you might read the 6 tips below:
(1) You don’t have to ask for affection:
When your husband has not shown affection to you for a long time (e.g. holding hands, buying gifts, sending cards, giving hugs, and sitting next to you), it is understandable that you really wanna speak some words to him to let him clearly know that you are upset with him, like “You doesn’t care me any longer.”, “You are so icy to me!”, and “I need your affection!”. But even if you attempt to get him to be more affectionate by demanding, begging or joking about his loss of affection towards you, it does not work well in the long term. Doing so again and again will disgust him, thus causing him to get further away from you.
Surely, your husband may agree to do it the way you like on the spot, if you just occasionally ask him to; but if affection becomes one thing that you have to frequently ask and then be given on your demand, that will be bound to make each other feel awkward and uncomfortable. For example, if you constantly pressure him to hug and kiss you, you will only feel lonelier on the contrary while seeing his reluctance in doing that. Being upset about his lack of affection reflects you are longing to be loved. Therefore, only in case your husband spontaneously shows his affection to you from his heart instead of feeling forced, you will feel true love. Directly asking for affection just makes him think that you are so needy and insecure.
(2) Avoid the lack of affection and sex trap:
For a lot of couples, the desire for more sex vs. the need for more affection is a common battleground. To help you better understand it, look at the case below:
Terry and Veronica have been married for six years; although nothing major has happened in recent days, the relationship reaches a stalemate because of the existence of something tense and uneasy. They no longer communicate with each other in the usual way. For example, right now Terry just comes up behind Veronica without any words, while she is watching TV or washing the dishes.
In the latter session with Veronica, she admitted that she no longer feels the need to satisfy Terry sexually like before and that having sex becomes a chore for her, and she also complained that Terry only kisses and hugs her only during sex. On the other hand, in another separate session with Terry, he revealed Veronica’s objectionable behavior to the counselor – He complained that Veronica often looks nasty upon seeing her and that he wants to maintain a healthy sex life but she is always reluctant.
In Veronica’s eyes, Terry doesn’t care about her anymore, and she feels tired and fed up with sex. But in Terry’s eyes, Veronica is no longer in the mood for sex; after being turned down time and time again, Terry even said to his heart, “don’t expect me to get intimate with you anymore”.
After you walked through the example above, ask yourself whether you two also have fallen in the lack of affection and sex trap – your husband needs enough sex but fails, so he doesn’t feel like being affectionate towards you; meanwhile, you want him to show you more affection but he just does not fulfill your needs, and you choose to withhold sex as revenge. Under such a situation, neither of you feel close or satisfied in the relationship. Therefore, it forms a vicious cycle in the relationship.
To get out of such a trap, one or ideally both should make a change; and now that you badly want to make him more affectionate, you might as well make the first move.
Such a vicious cycle never springs out of nothingness; usually, it is due to couples’ inability to settle a particular difference between them. So, you should wake up to the fact that you two will inevitably have a variety of differences, and you have to resolve them sooner or later. The majority of differences in a marriage can be resolved successfully, no matter how difficult they seem. Remember, it is normal that there always exist some unresolved differences between spouses; but if not handled properly in time, an unresolved difference may lead to anger, hurt, bitterness, and distancing; as regards a series of relationship issues, it is also difficult to say who is right and who is wrong. The correct approach should be to hold each other accountable for each other’s behavior and make joint efforts to resolve those sticky differences as a team;
Again, it is quite important to treat your husband as a teammate instead of an adversary, when you attempt to settle differences. As long as you decided to address them in a cooperative and intentional manner, you will find that it is always possible to find a way to get through them ultimately.
(3) Focus on things you can control:
In the marital relationship, you can’t expect that your husband will always act the way you like. Your controlling behavior only leads to his resistance, distance, and shutdown. Instead, if you focus on being easy-going, fun, and happy, the odds are good that the affection and flirting will follow normally.
A lot of husbands also confess that they know well the loss of their affection towards their wives under the influence of various issues, such as being stressed out by work, being hassled by kids, and being unduly concerned about the future of their married life. Hence, rather than wait for your husband to change for you, it is better to offer to support him and inspire him by being happy, loving and full of energy. By being more focused on your self-care and happiness, you can become more attractive, and meanwhile, you can give him more space that they may want.
It is of no avail to only fret about the loss of his affection. By contrast, the more you focus on things you can control, the more stress you can release.
(4) Leave out the emotional content:
In marital life, many wives complain that their husbands are often unwilling to have an in-depth conversation with them. Many times they are still incapable of exactly feeling how their husbands feel; for instance, after long hours of work, a husband may not want to express how he feels hurt by his workmate/boss upon returning home. Hence, probably your husband is also under stress from his job, and he thinks that there is no need to talk about it in front of you. And this reflects the difference in a behavioral way between men and women. After a man gets home from work, he may just want a beer in his hand and sit on a sofa to watch a sports game, or even he may simply want to veg out the rest of the day.
A man usually needs more alone time than a woman in a relationship; sometimes when a man just simply wants to immerse himself in peace, he may give his woman the silent treatment if she messes with him at that time, and she may interpret his silence as a sign that he is not affectionate towards her, but he doesn’t mean that. So when you notice that your man just wants to be alone with himself (e.g. when he is sitting alone and his face stiffens with dismay), don’t think too much, and you do not have to force him to tell you what is disturbing him, just let him be, and perhaps he will pick a right time to talk about it with you later.
To help you better deal with such a situation, here is a piece of advice: just leave out the emotional piece. And keep showing your care and attention to him. For example, give his shoulders a massage, go out together to watch a movie, or cook his favorite meals for him; in short, during his alone time, you still can do a lot of things that he may relate to as a stress-reliever and make him grateful.
(5) Give positive feedback and reward his attempts:
When your husband gives you affection in the way you want, or when he just gets a little closer to you, don’t forget to timely reward him with positive reinforcement, it can be a smile, a wink, an expression of sincere admiration or appreciation, or an admiring look. In the long term, this type of positive feedback can help shorten the emotional distance between you two. Positive reinforcement can encourage your husband to set his affection on you by giving positive affirmation to him. On the contrary, negative reinforcement (e.g. constant verbal abuse and criticism) will do the opposite.
Therefore, to offer positive feedback effectively, you should be sensitive and patient to his feelings in everyday life; when you notice he does something wonderful for you, do not take it for granted, and tell him what he does that you like, as well as how it makes you feel. Remember, your man constantly needs your affirmation, and he appreciates your affirmation to his efforts that he makes towards what you want.
(6) Don’t distort your taste for a man:
Research demonstrates that attractiveness between spouses is subject to the contrast effect in perception. Sensual scenes in soap operas, romantic novels, and romantic movies may bias your expectations and distort your taste for a man to some extent, thus reducing the degree of your satisfaction with your husband. For example, if you become immersed in reading romance novels and dreaming about the irresistible heroes that are vividly described in them, your man’s good qualities will probably become bland in comparison.
But on the other side, if you can choose to learn the truth about a real married man, selected at random from your surroundings, it is more likely that you will increase your admiration and respect for your husband because you will deeply understand that no one is perfect. On a practical basis, if you avoid indulging in romantic fantasy, you may not think your husband is not so affectionate towards you, because you no longer expect too much of him.
Over time as you get more satisfied with him, you will become more affectionate towards him; gradually, he starts to be aware of your growing affection for him, and he may feel the need to reciprocate in the same way.
To a great extent, the choice of romance is choosing reality over fantasy. Just like no women can stand up against the exaggerated images of a heroine of romance that is designed to captivate men, it is also impossible for a man to stand up against the dramatic descriptions of men in the novel, drama, image, prose, and other types of literary works. Therefore, you have to be aware of one thing – your husband must have his desirable masculine traits; but if you always compare him with the ideal man in your dreams, he may withdraw himself, rather than show you the best side of him as a man, because he knows well that it is impossible for him to meet your expectations.
In a relationship, enjoyment and comparison can hardly coexist in harmony; hence it is also inadvisable to compare your husband with any other men; after all, there are always men who are more excellent than your man. To make your husband more affectionate, you should let him understand your meaning – you surely know he is not perfect, but you love him and you appreciate what he does for you as well as the family. By the way, you might tell him that you also do not want him to compare you with other women. Mutual understanding is quite important for maintaining a marriage.
Remember, in real life, marriage does not mean getting married to a perfect person, and it is more of a long term relationship in which both spouses can get most of what each other wants.
The final word:
The lack of affection is closely linked to the loss of emotional intimacy in a relationship. If you allow his affection to die out without making any efforts to put it back into your marriage, you two will be bound to experience a dip in marital satisfaction. Many times, your husband may also want to be more affectionate towards you from the bottom of his heart, and what you need to do is to trigger his emotional desire for you.
Moreover, if you always find yourself in a position of being abandoned or rejected, you must be aware that complaint, hate, and rage don’t get him close to you, and it is urgent to seek a more effective way to get along with him.
If you want to get more tips about how to get your husband to be more affectionate, you might go on to watch the video below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience:
Maybe, you are also interested in the posts below:
How to deal with an emotionally distant husband – Make him open up.
6 tips on what to do when you feel rejected by your husband.
Why your husband is distant – How to stop him from being distant.
9 simple tips on how to be irresistible to your husband again.
7 tips on how to get back emotional intimacy in marriage.
5 tips on how to make your husband feel loved and respected.
Signs your husband is pulling away – Why he seems distant.
What to do when your husband rejects you sexually – what does it mean?