There is a reason. And in fact, I want to give you 10 possible reasons why he is pulling back from you right now and what you need to do about that.
Now, in this video, I want to talk about something that’s going to be realistic, and that is you will go through seasons where your partner or your husband actually may pull back.
And it isn’t something that you should be freaking out about.
However, we want to make sure that you’re on the mark for why he’s pulling back and you know what to do so it doesn’t necessarily get worse.
1: He is pulling back because there is added stress or pressure
Okay, the first reason why your husband could have pulled back is this. There is added stress and pressure either externally, which could be through his work, his family circumstances, something going on outside of your marriage, or internally.
Men process pressure and stress differently to women.
For us women, we want to talk about things when we feel a certain way, we want to verbalize and express, when men actually do the opposite, they pull back, they go into their cave and they almost want to process what is going on and try and find the solution and fix it before they’re ready to be able to come forward and talk about it.
So, if you’re feeling that your husband is withdrawing from you, the first thing that I would do is I would assess, okay, is there any extra added stress or pressure at the moment that could be contributing to this behavior?
Has he got an extra workload at his job?
Is he feeling that he is not being validated enough in his job?
Is he feeling extra pressure financially? Are you putting pressure on him to meet certain expectations within the marriage?
Either way, when you’re able to identify where his added stress and pressure is coming from, it will give you a starting point to be able to work out what the solution could possibly be to be able to relieve this stress and pressure.
2: Husband is pulling back because of loss of physical attraction
Okay. Number two, you’re probably not going to like this, but I need to be honest if you want to be out to get some progress.
And that is a big reason why husbands can pull back from their wives, it’s because there is a loss of physical attraction.
Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you have put on a lot of weight, or maybe you’ve lost a lot of weight, or you’ve let yourself go.
Men, whilst they are visual creatures, and they’re more inclined to be visually attracted to a woman, they can still feel less physically attracted to a woman if they don’t see her in the same way that he used to see her.
And what I’ve done is I’ve actually done another video on six areas to compliment men, which you can go check out here.
I would highly recommend watching that video, because a big part of what makes a man feel more physically attracted to a woman is the way that she makes him feel.
And that could be something as simple as giving certain compliments and verbally affirming him in these six different areas.
However, if you feel that you have actually let yourself go, you don’t look after yourself, you don’t maybe dress up, you don’t respect yourself, you’re not taking care of your physical appearance, then it could be a reason why he has pulled back.
It doesn’t necessarily mean that he loves you any less, but what it means is that it will affect his desire towards you.
Whilst this may be an uncomfortable subject to talk about, we need to remember that we are responsible for our role in a relationship.
There are certain things that we need to be constantly aware of and maintaining, whether it is our self-worth, whether it is affirming our husband, or whether it is our physical appearance, so that we can continue to increase the attraction and desire that he has for us, so that we can have a more fulfilling marriage.
3: He is pulling back because of a lack of respect
Okay, number three, there is a lack of respect. And what I mean by this is he could actually be lacking respect towards himself, meaning he doesn’t feel that he’s worthy enough.
Maybe has some hate towards himself, some unforgiveness, because perhaps he hasn’t achieved what he wanted to achieve, and he despises himself.
Or he feels that you no longer respect him.
Maybe you criticize him a lot, maybe you put him down, maybe you nag him, maybe you don’t thank him.
I’m not pointing fingers at you and saying that it is all your fault, it always takes two to tango in a relationship.
However, we need to understand that there has to be a level of accountability in a relationship or in a marriage.
We can’t just keep going, “It’s all his fault. He should be treating me different.” If we ourselves are doing certain behaviors that are producing certain reactions from him.
Respect is huge in a marriage.
Men need to feel respected by their wives, and they need to feel that they can respect themselves, that they have this sense of self-value, that they have this sense of pride.
4:He is pulling back because you criticise or nag him
A big reason why husbands will pull back from their wives is because the wives have turned into criticizing, nagging women, who basically never make him feel good about himself or never make him feel like what he does is enough.
If you are a Christian like me, then you will know the Bible verse that talks about, “It is better for a man to sit on a hot roof than it is to be with a nagging wife.”
The fact that the Bible says that a nagging wife is one of the worst things that a man can be with really makes it black and white.
Constantly nagging, nagging, nagging, putting down, criticizing and belittling your husband is going to turn him off and it’s going to make him really pull back.
He’s not going to be physically desiring you.
He’s not going to feel good about himself.
And he’s probably not going to want to continue to invest as much into the marriage, because he feels like what he does isn’t good enough or who he is isn’t good enough.
So it’s really important that you guard your words, that you process what you need to process internally before you turn it into an attack on your husband.
5.A huge reason why husbands can pull back from their wives is because of sexual neglect.
We need to address this issue obviously.
Sex and intimacy is a huge part of what keeps a relationship and a marriage strong.
It isn’t about how many times that you should be having intimacy with your husband per week. It is about the quality, not the quantity.
And if you’re someone who is basically neglecting your husband’s sexual needs in a marriage, then that could be a reason why he has pulled back.
And unfortunately, sexual neglect can lead to them wanting to go and seek it elsewhere, seeking sexual fulfillment elsewhere, starting emotional affairs or physical affairs with somebody else.
And I don’t want you to get to that point, and I don’t want you to freak out and start assuming that that’s what he’s doing.
What I want you to do is ask yourself, “Okay, why am I neglecting my husband sexually? Why don’t I desire him?
Why don’t I want to sleep with him? Is it my hormones? Is it the children? Is it I don’t feel sexy within myself?
Is it his behavior and it makes me not actually want to sleep with him, because he’s not being really nice right now?”
If you can get the core reason of why you don’t want to be intimate with your husband, then it’ll really help you work out what the solution needs to be.
6. He has pulled back because there is too much change going on.
If you are getting into marriage right now, or you’ve been married for a while, then you need to be realistic that change is inevitable.
A man will marry a woman and feel like later on down the track, that she’s completely changed and she’s not the same woman that she was when he first met her.
And obviously, this can happen with women meeting men and feel like, all of a sudden, he’s not the same man that you first met.
This is why it is so incredibly important to be realistic about change, being something that you cannot stop within a person and within a relationship.
However, if you are able to communicate through that change, work through that change on a compatible level, then you should be able to work through it.
There are going to be seasons of change and growth in a marriage, and hopefully they are positive. Hopefully you’re both going to be learning and growing from that change.
However, a man can pull back if he feels like the woman that he’s married to has changed completely, whether it is physically, whether it’s mentally, emotionally.
If you think that’s the reason, then what I would do is I would use this as an opportunity to self-reflect on who you were when you first met him and why he was attracted to you and desired you and fell in love with you, and who you are now.
Are you actually two different people and you realize, “Well, I actually want to be this woman that I am now. I don’t want to be the woman that I was.”
It’s something that is a conversation that needs to be had between you and your husband. But if you’re able to identify who you were at point A and who you are now at point B, it’ll help give you an indication of accountability and who you want to be ultimately, and how that is going to affect your marriage.
7. Lack of appreciation has made him pull back
One of the huge reasons why men pull back in relationships and why men even, I guess, struggle to commit and that they see marriage is something that is a risk for them is because they don’t feel appreciated, if they don’t feel appreciated in the dating phase, then they’re probably not going to want to continue through to the relationship and the marriage phase.
Appreciation is a massive part of what makes a man feel more physically attracted to the women that they’re with. And this is done through verbal affirmation, it’s done through acknowledging what they’re doing, and acknowledging who they are. And like I said before, if you haven’t checked out my video on the six areas to be able to give a man complimenting, go and check that out, because that’ll make a lot more sense to that point.
Okay. Before I talk to the last couple of points, I just want to say this. I have a monthly coaching membership called The Flourish Project. And this membership is an affordable way to get love education, whether you’re single, dating, married, or going through a breakup, or just want to have personal development. It has fundamental guides and lessons in there as well as weekly live Q&As in the private Facebook group to really set you up to know how to get through seasons like this and what to do if you ever find yourself in this sort of position, where you’re questioning your marriage and relationship. What I’ll do is I’ll drop the link for it down below, you can go and check it out.
8.The reason why your husband could be pulling back from you right now is there is a communication breakdown.
Communication is key to being able to keep a relationship strong. And if you feel like right now there’s a lot of silence, there was a lot of resentment, there’s a lot of anger, and you’re just not meeting eye to eye, it could be because you actually need to have a really good conversation.
Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that that conversation is going to happen right then and there at the perfect timing.
In fact, this was one of the lessons that I put inside at The Flourish Project, my group coaching monthly membership, is I actually teach you how to speak to men, how to communicate to them effectively with a specific method that I have invented.
But communication is something that you need to address.
You can’t just wait until you feel ready to talk about things or until you feel like…
Like he’s ready to talk about things, because you could be waiting a lifetime and it’s probably going to get worse.
9. He doesn’t feel like a priority anymore
A big reason why your husband could be pulling back is because he feels like he is no longer a priority and that the kids always come before him or something else always comes before him.
When we get married to somebody, we’re the apple of each other’s eyes, especially in the honeymoon phase.
So, it’s normal that we’re constantly prioritizing that person.
However, with work , or girlfriends, or kids coming to the pitcher, or maybe you’re just shifting into a new sort of career or purpose, he may feel a little bit neglected.
Now, obviously it’s not about you dropping everything and doing whatever it is that he wants, there needs to be a healthy balance here in the marriage.
However, it could be an opportunity to ask yourself, are you actually de-prioritizing your husband?
Are you neglecting him?
Are you making everything too much about the kids so he feels like he’s just got a flatmate and a mother instead of a wife and a lover?
10. Husbands can pull back is unfortunately there is outside temptation.
Outside temptation doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be a person, although that is probably a big reason why.
He may feel that he’s getting more fulfillment from somebody else, more emotional fulfillment, physical fulfillment from somebody else, so he becomes focused on that and he drops everything in your marriage.
However, outside temptation could also be a different circumstance. Maybe it is the freedom that his single mates have.
Maybe it is a new career opportunity that would allow him to do so much, but right now he feels really tired in his marriage.
Outside temptation is like that shiny object that he’s being distracted by, which often makes him lose perspective in what he actually has with you in the marriage.
It is really key that you identify this is the reason as soon as possible so that you can address it, and it’s not necessarily about trying to remove the temptation and forcing him to think differently about the temptation.
It’s about being able to create an environment and a marriage that is so incredibly amazing that he doesn’t want to be tempted, and that he isn’t tempted by anything else, and that is possible.
Just because you’re going through a rocky patch in your marriage doesn’t necessarily mean that it is doomed or that it can’t be repaired.
We need to be able to stick through these seasons and work on it in a way that it actually gets us the progress, the joy and the fulfillment that we’re meant to have in a loving marriage.
You shouldn’t have to keep going around in circles and you shouldn’t have to feel like everything that you do doesn’t work.
That’s why love education is key.
That’s why wisdom in how to build a marriage is key. And that’s why I’ve built my monthly coaching program, The Flourish Project. Again, you can check the link out for that down below.
