Married and Frustrated! (2)

Q. I married the kindest, most compassionate, and positive woman in the world. That person no longer lives in my home. The person I deal with each day looks like the person I married, but has a completely different attitude about life than the individual I married. What can I do to find the wife I married? I really miss that person and would like to have her back. Please help me. 

A. When two people meet and get along well together, they often say they’ve fallenin love. Actually, they’ve fallen into what’s called limerence, which is just a fancy way of saying they’re deeply attracted to each other. This whole thing involves showering each other with attention and trying to make each other happy every single day.

At the start, when there’s a strong attraction, the brain goes wild, releasing feel-good chemicals like dopamine and oxytocin, which is also known as the love hormone. This combo makes people feel super happy and pumped about each other, making them want to really focus on meeting the other person’s needs and wants. These chemicals, which are really just brain messengers, help people feel close and caring toward each other. But as time passes, especially in marriages, these levels naturally drop. This can make the relationship feel less intense and special, and sometimes people start to take each other for granted, leading to feelings of disinterest and neglect.

Your wife might be experiencing some of these feelings or maybe she’s going through some personal challenges and possibly depression. You can ask her what’s going on, turn towards her and tune into her needs and feelings. To keep your marriage feeling strong and caring, it’s crucial to stay intentional. Research shows that marriages thrive when couples consistently show they value and appreciate each other through their actions and words daily.

Marriage is a lot like spiritual life. The more you remain engaged in communion with Jesus each day the more you will experience dynamic spiritual growth. If you become careless about practicing daily spiritual disciplines, spiritual vitality and viability will be lost.

To get back to experiencing greater empathy, compassion, and affinity in your marriage relationship, you and your wife will need to be mindful that it takes intentionality to keep marriage vibrant and dynamic. From a biblical worldview we would say  couples must be deliberate about living by the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). 

We encourage you to make these practices a part of your daily routine so you and your wife can get back to having the kind of marriage relationship you started out with. Concentrate on what you can give to your marriage rather than focusing on what you can get from it, and your marriage will once again become the place you loved so much. After all, love is patient and kind (1 Cor. 13:4).

You and your wife will remain in our prayers.

Bible references are from the English Standard Version.