Emily has a solid marriage of 20 years. She’s married to Steve, her high school sweetheart, and they have a daughter, Francine, who is about to leave home to go to college on the other side of the country.
Although Emily absolutely loves her husband, she is terrified of the idea of Francine leaving.
Emily is afraid of being left alone with Steve, and having Francine home gives her excuses to keep herself busy and avoid long periods of alone time with her husband.
But now that Francine is leaving, Emily thinks:
“What am I going to do? I’m going to have to put up with him by myself!”
“He’s going to want to have sex often. I don’t know if I can handle that! I’m not in the mood at all, it hurts, and I no longer look as good as I used to.”
“We have so many different interests.”
Unfortunately, this is common in marriages of any age.
Couples can stop attending to each other’s needs over time.
At the beginning of your relationship, you fell in love because your husband presented himself in the best light and on his best behavior.
He used to bring you flowers, open doors for you, proudly show you off, listen to you, tell you how pretty you were and how much he loved you, cuddle with you, help you with chores and projects, and many more things.
You had fun together and you admired him so much.
But over the years, this nice treatment started to diminish or maybe even disappear.
In addition, he might have changed. Secretly, you know there are things that you don’t like about him anymore: maybe his mood, his way of thinking, annoying habits, or maybe even the way he looks.
However, you still cannot picture yourself without him. You love him and want to be with him, but at the same time, you don’t.
Is there something you can do or are you doomed to a horrible transition into your new life as an empty nester?
You bet there’s something you can do!
Just as you fell in love with everything that your husband did for you at the beginning of your love story, he fell in love with you for the same reasons.
You probably always took care of your physical appearance for him, were a great buddy to him, and probably even supported his love for a sport. Maybe you even turned yourself into a 49ers or a Red Socks fan!
Every time you had an opportunity, you showed off your cooking skills. You were hot and passionate with him in the bedroom, and you listened to him and laughed a lot together.
Lead The Way Back To Love
If you want to enjoy your husband’s company now that you are going to be living alone with him, you must start doing more of the things that he likes so that he gets inspired to do more of the things that you like.
As you are reading this, you might think that you don’t really want to do that.
This will require a lot of effort on your part.
Maybe so, but you need to understand why it works.
Think of your relationship as a garden.
Depending on the seeds you plant and the care you give it, this garden will become either a beautiful flower garden or a horrible field of weeds.
Yes, it may be hard at first, but if you are willing to take the risk and invest time, dedication, and constant care, you will see results.
Your nice actions toward your husband are like those flower seeds, and if you care to attend to your husband’s needs, he’ll blossom and look for ways to return the favor.
Why would he be willing to change at this point in his life? Because it is in his nature to please you!
Men want to serve their women; it makes them feel worthy.
When he starts making efforts to please you, you’ll once again feel cared for and will start feeling a renewed love for him.
But don’t expect perfection from him.
Some of the efforts he might start making to please you may not be the right ones. If this happens, you will have to open up your beautiful mouth and tell him exactly what it is that you need or want.
For example:
“I need some private time to continue doing the things I enjoy now that our daughter isn’t home.”
“I don’t want to be rushed into having sex more often. I need some time to feel inspired and make it work with my body’s needs.”
“I want us to look for new activities that we might enjoy doing together.”
As you begin rekindling your relationship with your husband, you’ll feel more attracted to him—yes, even with his imperfections (and he with yours)!
You will also continue to have opportunities to speak freely about what you’d like to change in this new stage of your marriage, and little by little, you’ll be able to turn your empty nest into another honeymoon.
You can transform your fear of being alone with your husband into enthusiasm for spending time with one of your favorite people on earth!
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.