Do You Feel Neglected In Your Marriage?

In some marriages, one or both partners may begin to feel neglected by the other. Feeling neglected by a husband or wife doesn’t mean he or she is failing to do their duty or is being intentionally difficult. It can mean feeling as if your spouse doesn’t care anymore what you are thinking or feeling. What happened to your happy relationship?

Feeling Neglected Makes For An Unhappy Relationship

For example, your spouse never answers your questions about things that you know must be bothering them at work. When a spouse stops communicating and sharing their innermost feelings, or doesn’t include you in activities, you begin to feel as if the person is excluding you from their life.

This can be emotionally painful and difficult to handle.

One of the most frequent causes of a spouse feeling neglected is when two people begin to go separate ways. The marriage is intact and there is no intention of divorcing, but each has their own schedule and it doesn’t include the other spouse most of the time. People who are married need to have their own interests, but it can be taken too far one way also.

What Are The Reasons?

There are plenty of reasons why married couples can begin to develop separate schedules. For example, a working spouse may have many work commitments that require attendance on weekends or evenings in addition to the regular schedule.

The spouse who cares for the children often has a full calendar of events and commitments requiring at least one parent’s attendance. Normally the same parent takes responsibility for being at the kids events on a regular basis.

Other activities which can separate couples include sports participation, going out with his or her friends too often and volunteer work. The more people do separately, the wider the channel between them grows. This can lead to feelings of neglect for two reasons. First, most of the time communication will decline. Second, the spouse most often left out of events will feel excluded and even unwanted.

Lack of Affection

There can be many different things going on in a marriage that can make a spouse feel neglected. One of the most obvious is when there is little touching, affection or infrequent sexual relations. People like being kissed and hugged and treated tenderly. When the signs of affection that were once displayed regularly are now few and far between, it can make a person feel neglected and unloved.

A spouse who feels neglected may also claim that the couple doesn’t have fun together anymore. With separate calendars, it’s hard to come together and enjoy quality time as a married couple. A spouse who works a lot of overtime often has a married partner at home who is wishing they could find just a little time to spend together.

Sometimes when a husband or wife claims they are feeling neglected, it can seem as if a mountain is being made out of a mole hill. The neglected person is feeling badly about the relationship. The other spouse is just doing the various things he or she enjoys doing or feels is necessary to do. So the first thing you have to do is talk about the issue without sounding critical or childish.

Communication Is Essential

Keeping good communication going in a marriage is crucial to its longevity. If you think your spouse is working too much then you should discuss your feelings with them. But you don’t want to start pushing blame onto them for all the marriage woes or for your feelings. A discussion should be two-way which means you give each other a chance to explore emotions, feelings and facts without recriminations.

To avoid one spouse feeling neglected, there should always be joint activities on the calendar for the husband and wife. You have to have time together in order to nurture the relationship. Living separately emotionally even while married physically is not good for the marriage. It is always important to take time out of busy schedules to do things together.

The Neglect In Your Marriage May Not Be Intentional

A spouse can feel neglected in a marriage for a number of reasons. Often the neglect is not intentional. It evolves over time as people simply try to handle day to day living as best as possible. But a marriage takes a conscious desire and plenty of effort to keep communication lines open while reserving time for joint activities.