If your Husband Doesn’t Appreciate you - Tips and Advice on Improving your Marriage

There are many married women who find themselves unloved and neglected by their husbands. Even after investing all their time and effort into the marriage, wives sometimes discover that they are at best taken for granted and at worst rejected by their husbands. If your experience too has been dishearteningly similar, here are some tips to make your husband appreciate you and the relationship you share.

Stop being a superwoman

If your marriage has come to a point where you feel that your husband doesn’t appreciate you anymore, you must have already tried your best to please him. This perhaps includes cooking five-course dinners for him, losing weight and trying to look attractive for him and even planning weekend getaways without the kinds. If none of this has worked, maybe it is time you stop trying so hard. Continue with your family and work commitments but only to the extent where it gives you some return and does not become an unending circle of sacrifices. Your husband will probably notice that you have stopped striving for the superwoman badge, which is the first step towards noticing what you do for him and your marriage.

Don’t assume that he can read your mind

Don’t all women wish that they had husbands who could anticipate their deepest desires and empathize with their feelings without having being told what their wives are going through? While such a mind reader or two may actually exist in this world, most husbands are woefully unable to fathom what is going on in their wives’ minds. So if you feel that your husband does not notice you anymore and is falling out of love with you, perhaps he has no idea of your feelings of rejection. Falling silent and acting sad around him will not make him aware of what is actually bothering you and may in fact make him uncomfortable and prompt him to move further away.

Speak your mind but do it the right way

Don’t whine about how unloved and unappreciated you feel in this marriage. If your husband has already stopped communicating, it is unlikely that your nagging will make him say nice things to you. On the other hand if he has not yet started giving you the silent treatment, your whining and moaning may prompt him to switch off. If you indeed to wish to express your feelings of rejection, choose a time when your husband is relaxed. Calmly indicate that you have been feeling unloved and unappreciated recently and would like to feel more fulfilled in the marriage. Instead of directly accusing your husband of making you feel this way, ask him if he may have any input on the situation and seek his suggestions on ways to remedy it.

Avoid comparing him to other husbands

One of the biggest mistakes that a wife can make is to compare her own husband to her friend’s. Nothing upsets a man’s ego as much as being compared to another man. If you keep on and on about how much your friend’s husband loves her and values their marriage, it will only make your husband feel inadequate and once he starts feeling that he cannot make you happy, he will give up trying altogether.

Rekindle your intimacy

One of the most common reasons why husbands drift away from their wives is because they feel they no longer share the intimacy they used to in the earlier days of their marriage. Men generally put a higher premium on physical closeness with partners than women do. As a result husbands will often use the lack of intimacy as a reason to disconnect with their wives in other spheres of the relationship as well. So if you have been neglecting this aspect of your marriage due to kids or pressures at work, now is the time to fix the problem. Take a couple of days off from work if possible or leave the kids with a trusted relative for a night. Use the free time to rekindle the physical intimacy between you and your husband and he will be sure to appreciate your initiative and return your love.

Share his interests

Very often men lose interest in their wives when they find them too deeply focused on the kids and other domestic responsibilities. Men feel left out of or uninterested by the intimate family circle and begin to look for other ways to have an interesting time. Eventually the wife finds that she and her husband hardly have anything to say to each other and no longer do things together. So share your husband’s interests and be curious about what he enjoys doing. If your husband is passionate about golf, accompany him to his club one day instead of sitting at home and cursing his game. Your husband will appreciate your enthusiasm and maybe reciprocate by agreeing to do something you like. Better still, think about all the mutual hobbies you once shared and see if you can revive your husband’s interest in any one of them. If you both enjoyed bird-watching or hiking in the earlier days, ask your husband if you both can do it again some time. Doing things you both enjoy together will help you to come close to your husband and make him see what an interesting person and fun-loving companion you are.

Take a break

After marriage women automatically take on a number of responsibilities on themselves. As a wife you probably keep house, cook meals, clean and pick up after everyone else. You are also the primary caregiver for kids and have perhaps gone back to juggling a family and a career. Eventually it becomes easier for you to do everything alone rather than waiting for help from your husband. This however may lead your husband to take you for granted so that no matter how hard you work and how much you try, you are never appreciated. The most dramatic way to stop this vicious cycle is to take a break for a few days with some girlfriends and leave him to manage – kids, work and family – as best as he can. When he faces a vacuum, he will appreciate your emotional and physical investment in the marriage.

Being taken for granted is one of the most frustrating experiences that women go through in a marriage. But there are ways to get yourself noticed. It will require a little bit of patience and lots of love but eventually you can get your husband to value you and your marriage.