Do you ever reject your husband’s love or feel resentful around him? A recurring theme with my clients is that we get to a point where they are resentful that their husbands didn’t do something that they would do. Perhaps it’s something around the house, like giving the kids a bath or washing the dishes. Or it’s lightening the mood by being silly. Or coming home from a trip early. Or just not loving them the same way that they show love.
I want to talk about that last one because it’s the trickiest one to understand. There’s no obvious deficit, imbalance, or boundary violation.
What is it about the way your husband shows love that doesn’t work for you? Why are you “rejecting” his attempts at showing you care?
Let’s say that your husband wants to show you his love by snuggling. Or that he just wants to talk to you and visit and you would rather work on your business, take care of your kids, or go read a book… anything but chat. And by the way, I’m 100% guilty of this… it’s one of those things that I use as a barometer of my health. As you’ll see, there’s a lot to learn about ourselves through the way we do or do not connect with our husband…
#1: No time for presence? No time for him
Your husband models presence, so rejecting it may mean you’re rejecting it in your own life (or feeling guilty for not spending enough time in presence). While not every man is the same of course, a lot of men tend to focus on one thing at a time. One thought, one task. As women, we’d have 3,000 tabs open if our mind was a browser and men are more likely to have one or two. When we reject caring for ourselves through presence, we reject care from others. And I don’t mean the obvious self-care that you love to do or do because it’s tied to a goal, I mean the self-care that you always put off because you’re too busy accomplishing (doing) other things. The kind of care that presence gives us, that opportunity to just sit in quiet and still our mind, is eternally refreshing to our soul, which leads us to number two…
#2: No time for spiritual connection? No time for him
Connection to your husband means finding and connecting to the Source (God, Jesus, Universe, Soul, etc.) inside him. If you’re not connected to this in yourself, you’ll have a hard time finding it in others. How can you find what you don’t recognize? There’s something out there, at the very least your Higher Self, guiding you through this world and it’s what connects all of us. Inside our bodies, we are all energy from the same Source. When we get out of alignment with that we grow unhappy, and that’s why we need to take time each day to realign to the energy, vibration, or frequency of what we really are. Imagine you’re tuning the radio back to the Real You station. Guess what? Your Real Husband can be found at the same station. Can you find It when you talk to him?
#3: No time to acknowledge your unhealthy behaviors? No time for him
Others, like your children or parents, you may be willing to see as separate from you, but your husband feels like an extension of your identity so every standard you hold yourself to, you’ll hold him to, and you’ll be especially critical when he doesn’t do the things you’ve learned to do to “stay safe.” An example is self-sacrifice… It’s an unhealthy way of getting people to like us but to admit that it’s not necessary or even not healthy would be a blow to our own self-identity, so it’s easier to judge him for not doing it.
Another example is constant doing. When he doesn’t accomplish a lot or seem driven to, but that’s like breathing air for you, you’ll judge him.
Look at what you’re judging your husband for not doing and you’ll likely find something you learned to do early on to stay safe or feel worthy… do you still need to do it? Is it REALLY who you are? (See #2).
This falls under the Exploring Triggers step of my Quantum Love Journey Framework, and you’ll find these triggers usually when you get to step 5, Connection & Empathy. For the woman who’s hated her husband’s face for a long time and feels like she’s outgrown him, she can almost feel sick to her stomach about connecting with him. When you shift your focus to finding the Source within him, you’ll realize that 1) there’s more work for you to do and 2) you can get him back on the same page by staying happy in your own healthy state no matter how he’s being (which he’ll entrain to, aka match your energy) and through empathy you can also help him to move through stuck emotions and get realigned back to HIS authentic self.
Empathy is the key to true caring. It requires you to deeply understand what someone else is going through and you can’t be in your own pain when you try to do it. This is why my marriage coaching program focuses on our own inner work as women for three months before we even try connection and empathy.
To read more about having a Conscious Marriage and strengthening the relationship you already have, click here!
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