Welcome to MarriageBuilders, ML...
Have you read all the articles on this website? A good place to begin is with Basic Concepts. Keep reading these articles, because in one of them, "The Three States of Marriage" you'll learn couples can be in Intimacy (which is where you desire to be right now), Conflict, and Withdrawal.
You'll find that Harley's premise is that we can fall in love with our spouses again and again. And they can, also.
Many posters here on MB have had just that experience. We work for it.
I can see why you posted in this forum, Negoiating in Marriage. I suggest moving your post to the "Emotional Needs" forum, though, because it gets more traffic and I think you will get greater response.
Have you considered that what you're asking for, that you want to love him, is that you want to have loving feelings for him? Love is a choice...we choose to believe we love and then act on our own choice...the result of our acting on our love is a lot of loving feelings.
Something I learned when I came here and had a lot of the same issues you had. What I learned quickly was all my efforts to change my H were more harmful than helpful.
Relationships are like a dance...when you change your steps, the dance changes.
Also, I learned that we create our own resentment in ourselves...expectations are premeditated resentments...and we experience resentment as if someone else is making it inside of us. They really aren't that powerful. We are.
And resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
When you read the Basic Concepts, you'll learn how not meeting Emotional Needs (ENs) and doing Love Busters (LBs) leave our resulting feelings...our Love Bank, drained. Takes away that in love feelings...and since we are trained to react to our feelings...well, we stop acting on our love for our partner.
Please consider changing your belief to match your vows when you got married. None of our vows said we would be there through sickness and health if we felt like it. Our vows were set to hold us to our beliefs, regardless of our feelings...and guide us when our feelings weren't what we wanted them to be at the time.
Feelings change. Like the weather. They are signals coming to us, about us, from our beliefs. They deliver the information. They aren't guides to our life...because if we believe "when H doesn't pay attention to me, I dont' exist" then we'll feel erased, rejected, angry, fearful and a lot of pain. From our belief. And we have thousands of them, accumulated within.
These beliefs distort our life experience and reality. Going with the belief above, the H may be depressed, angry with himself, believe he's damaging to others, or being attacked anytime he engages in conversation. Lots of beliefs in there...a partner cannot know why their spouse is choosing to do and not do...until the other shares their truth.
Funny thing is, in marriage, we become enmeshed...and a sign of this is being so focused on our partner's truth, which isn't being shared, that we don't examine and know our own truth, nor share it. Enmeshment means the other person's stuff determines our stuff...and that's a recipe for resentment, frustration, pain and disaster.
So I guess the great news is, ML, is that you can feel in love with him again, you can be attracted to him again...and you do it through being with him, again. You identify your ENs (there's a questionnaire on this website you can download), your LBs (another questionnaire...Harley is all about saving marriages...he doesn't make this difficult)...and you can ask your H to fill out the ENs for himself and the LB one on you...and you do the same.
Often, partners don't. Because they are in the Withdrawal state of marriage. If this is the case, then you can fill them out for him as best you can, really considering him with new eyes...and yourself, on the LB one, because identifying what we are doing and not doing is where we start.
Not with what we are feeling and aren't.
Take the action, the feelings follow.
And consider the last line of your post...if your H has to earn your love (make you love him), then you are slave to others' decisions. That means, they control you because you've chosen to make your own choices dependent on others' feelings and actions. Really tough way to live, ML...in fact, wouldn't that be the center of resentment? That you've enslaved yourself to someone else?
You're a whole, complete, marvelously made individual, with her own power and limits...because luckily, you're human...and that's how all humans are made. Your H is your equal. You are separate and equal humans in a human marriage...not one completing the other...two wholes making a greater union. And that union is like the third part of your marriage.
You can do for The Marriage what you may not want to do for your H right now. You can honor your Marriage, even when you don't feel like honoring your H right then.
Helps to break the enmeshment and inject respect, if you choose this new perspective and new actions. And your power is you get to choose your perspective, the way you perceive, what you believe and even, each thought you have. That's a lot of power...and no one can make you change anyone of these...you choose.
What I see in your post is your top ENs are Family Commitment (FC), Domestic Support (DS), attention (maybe conversation) and Openness and Honesty (O&H).
Interestingly enough, when you fill out your EN questionnaire about your needs, some won't hit that top ten because they are already being met. Financial Security (FS) is a very real Emotional Need. He's meeting that. What you may be feeding your resentment with is discounting him meeting this...I know I did. And when my DH and I (that D is for Dear Husband, not Dead or Darned) got to where we were safe to hear each others' truth, I found out that his primary act of love was working to support his family...that he often consoled, loved through going through rough times at work by thinking, "They are my world. I do this for them."
Ironically, so did I...when I was left alone with the kids, over and over again..."I do this for my DH. I love him."
Before, he didn't see mine as an act of love, nor did I see his. Seeing what is there first, then changing what isn't.
So reasonable to get that backwards, I think.
Welcome. Thank you for being brave and posting here. Please keep doing it. Know you're brave and committed...from your choice...so you can feel your power, your full half of your marriage...and understand your limits...you are only half...cannot be more in any relationship on earth with humans...
LA
