Dear Bossip: My Husband Doesn't Show Me Any Emotion Or Affection & I'm Considering Cheating

Dear Bossip,

Sometimes, I want to scream to the world how insensitive my husband is, and how he can be a d**k under the most pressured circumstances.

His lack of emotion and interest towards me seems a little suspect at times. He’s an amazing father, but he needs so much more help in becoming an amazing husband. Every time I vocalize how I feel he obviously thinks nothing is wrong, and I just feel like what’s the point. So, I dismiss the conversation.

We’re only going into two years of marriage and sometimes I feel like he isn’t the person I’d like to spend the rest of my life with. When I show him affection he receives it well, but he only returns it when we’re having sex. Sometimes, I feel like we are just two people in our household that are on two different pages on how a marriage should be. He always says he’s the perfect husband because he doesn’t cheat. I mean damn! What is a girl to do?

I’d like to raise my daughter in a household where she sees constant affection so that it won’t be so abnormal to her. He kisses on her constantly and tells her she’s beautiful, which proves he has some kind of emotion there. He always says that he didn’t grow up in a household seeing affection and neither did I, but I always knew I wanted different. I mean damn, sometimes I wish he made me feel special. He worked hard to get my attention but he’s slowly loosing it.

Would I be wrong if I said even though I don’t know any other guys I’ve considered cheating? I want to just feel an emotional connection with a guy, just to feel wanted and needed. I’m so tired of this tired relationship. We’ve tried counseling and I’d brought it up again, but it only helped temporarily in the past. And, he doesn’t think we need to do it again. I need advice please and thank you. – Unemotional Husband

Dear Ms. Unemotional Husband,

You teach people how to treat you. You teach people how to treat you. You teach people how to treat you.

You’re going to have to be unreasonable with your husband, and unreasonable with yourself. And, by this I mean be unreasonable in your request for affection and attention. Be unrelenting. You’re going to have to learn how to communicate effectively, and not with disgust, anger, or hostility. Be compassionate, loving, and endearing. Create the atmosphere and scene. Light candles, dim the lights, and have soft music playing. Then, sit in your husband’s lap, stroke him, caress his face, chest, arms, back, and head.  Share with him how you enjoy, love, want, and need his affection and attention.

Let him know that you enjoy being held, touched, and kissed by him. Let him know that his smell, his hands, his arms, his strength, and his protection make you feel secure and desired. Whisper in his ear how much you long for him, and it would be awesome to have him sporadically, spontaneously, and without provocation if he would just walk up on you and grab you, hold you, and kiss you. Let him know that you’ll love to sit next to him, lay in his lap, or have him lay in your lap, and caress and cuddle with one another. YOU TEACH PEOPLE HOW TO TREAT YOU.

See, if you walk around the house angry, upset, bitter, jealous, and constantly complaining about not being held, touched, and wanted or desired, then it only pushes him further away. Who wants to be around a sourpuss? Who wants to be around someone who is constantly berating them, telling them what they don’t do, and giving them dirty looks, mean mugging them, and sucking your teeth? I may be exaggerating, but you did say that you feel like just two people in a household. Uhm, two years of marriage, and this is how you feel? Spice it up! Spice it up!

Besides, what role are you playing in this? Are you being proactive toward your marriage and affection? Yes, you’ve complained about what he is not doing, and you may be right. But, if someone were to ask him if you were affectionate and loving toward him would he say that you are?

You’ve tried counseling, it worked temporarily. But, were you just as complicit as he in the temporality of the affection? You and he both say that neither of you grew up in an affectionate household. Well, what does that have to do with your current household? Your house is not the household that neither of you grew up in. So, let go of the past and move forward. It’s time to create a new future, and a new message. There needs to be a reprogramming, and rebuilding and restructuring around both of your feelings, desires, and needs.

I swear you folks will let your past dictate your present, and future. You will complain, “I didn’t have this. I didn’t have that. No one gave me this. No one gave me that.” So what! That is the past. Stop making your present and future partners guilty and wrong for what happened in your past. It’s ironic that your husband is affectionate toward your daughter, and you see it and desire it. Did it ever occur to you that you’re the same little girl wanting and needing affection? You didn’t get it growing up, nor see it with your parents, but you’ve yearned for it, and your husband did that in the beginning, but he stopped. Why? What happened? Ask him. Point it out to him. Let him know how he used to be so affectionate and loving. Let him know you just don’t need it in the bedroom, but outside of the bedroom.

And, think about it, you’re only repeating your past by reliving it constantly. And, thus, you will constantly and repeatedly choose mates and partners who are representatively patterns of your past. They will show up and give you the experience of your past. And, you will wonder why you keep choosing these people. Why do these persons always show up in your life? Why can’t you meet someone who is what you say you need and want?

It’s because you are locked into the past, and though you say you want another, you actually “DO” another. You won’t choose differently because your past is so comfortable. It’s what you know. It’s what you are familiar with. So, recreating, rebuilding, and reimaging a new future and experience is scary and unknown territory. And, unfortunately you will sabotage it, the relationship, and yourself. You have to constantly tell yourself you deserve greatness, love, affection, passion, joy, and happiness. And, you have to believe it and know it.

So, will cheating resolve your situation? Hell no! You will only create another problem, situation, and drama to your situation. Again, this is your past dictating your future, working to sabotage you. Don’t pay it any attention. Stop those thoughts, and come up with a positive and affirming action plan.

So, will talking with your husband, being unreasonable in what you want, desire, and need, and affectively communicating resolve your situation? Hell yes. Will being unreasonable and you always being affectionate, caring, touchy, feely, kissing, caressing, and cuddling your husband resolve your situation? Hell yes! If he isn’t doing, then you do it. Again, you teach people how to treat you. It may take weeks, months, or possibly years, but do not stop, and don’t give up. Create the relationship you want, need, and desire. It’s time to be proactive, and not reactionary to the negative. – Terrance Dean