My wife doesn’t feel loved, which really sucks because despite what she may think, I actually love her more than air. Full on, unconditional, no matter what I love her, she’s my favorite person. I ask her what I do or say or don’t do that makes her feel unloved, ways I could show love differently than I do that she would feel, etc but I get back that it’s “not her job to teach me how to love her. She’s not my mother, I should know how to love someone, I don’t love her. If I did I wouldn’t have to ask”

Y’all 100% honestly she could say it makes me feel loved when you build a rocket ship and find a way to land us on mars and I’d spend every moment of free I have for the rest of forever studying rocket propulsion and lunar habitats.

Help me out

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#409,149

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NeverPostAnything69 t1_iuk271a wrote on October 31, 2022 at 10:41 PM

#409,899

Dude, you're not a mindreader, and you shouldn't have to be. If you want to stay in this relationship, she needs to start communicating better. This isn't on you.

Paranoia_Pizza t1_iuk2pan wrote on October 31, 2022 at 10:45 PM

#410,168

OK, it sounds like she's told you before and you're not hearing her.

These are the things to ask yourself:

What pisses her off most in the world? What is happening when she begins to look exasperated, sad or annoyed? How much quality time do you get together? How much time does she get to look after herself?

I'm really generalising her but quite often women do all the emotional labour in a relationship & to me it sounds like that's what's happening for you you just don't see it. However I could be completely wrong which is why I've listed out the above

Legitimate_Shirt513 OP t1_iuk2v8q wrote on October 31, 2022 at 10:46 PM

#410,263

Replying to Paranoia_Pizza (#410,168)

You’re probably 100% right. I’m sure she’s tried to communicate her needs, I’m also 100% sure I didn’t get the memo.

DarkBlue831 t1_iuk2wpf wrote on October 31, 2022 at 10:47 PM

#410,280

Love languages. Find out what Hers are. Maybe the way you give love or perceive it isn’t the way she interprets it. Doesn’t mean you don’t love her, but that could be. For example, mine are physical touch, quality time and words of affirmation. My wife’s are acts of service and quality time and physical touch. I always thought saying words of affirmation and giving gifts was the best way to show love. Although my wife appreciates it, her go to is acts of service. Taking the trash out, doing dishes, yard work, cleaning up. Stuff like that. Where as I see those things as just necessary responsibilities and took me a while to understand. But that’s my two cents. Hope it helps. My only guess based off of what you said is she may have already expressed it to you and felt unheard as actions may have not shown otherwise even though you whole heartedly love her. I went through a similar phase and this is what helped me get out of the rut.

Paranoia_Pizza t1_iuk36zw wrote on October 31, 2022 at 10:49 PM

#410,439

Replying to Legitimate_Shirt513 (#410,263)

It's really hard and I get that. Have you had a think about the questions above?

Honestly, my first guess would be house work and quality time. But that'd just an educated guess lol

whatthechuck27 t1_iuk8nh8 wrote on October 31, 2022 at 11:32 PM

#413,658

The crux of this is it IS her job to tell you what her need is. All people are responsible for expressing their own wants and needs to others. The only way you're going to understand is through her communicating it and developing emotionally. Granted, she's probably told you/verbalized it before, that doesn't mean it really "clicked" for you or truly understood. Other comments on the 5 Love languages are also really great suggestions as everyone receives and shows love differently.

EvenSpoonier t1_iuk9pvc wrote on October 31, 2022 at 11:41 PM

#414,299

This is where love language theory comes into play. There's a relatively short book called "The Five Love Languages", by Gary Chapman. It's flawed -the test in the back actually breaks pretty seriously with some rather important aspects of the theories laid forth- but it gets the point across. Get a physical copy of this. Be sure your wife sees you reading it. Leave it around, pique her curiosity. Yes, this is manipulative, and that isn't entirely cool, but unfortunately she has made it clear that she's going to have to think that reading this was her idea.

Because here's the thing: yes, actually, it is her job to teach you how to love her. That is the job of every romantic partner. There is no way around this, because there is no one way to love people: even though Chapman's book distills it down to five general themes, there are still so many variations that no two people are ever going to be alike. People aren't telepaths. We have no good way to learn about people other than talking to them.

Now, the above all said, the book isn't just for her. You do sound like you could use some coaching on general ideas, and the book should help in terms of inspiration. You probably already have some sense of things that haven't worked, and this may give you a sense of what you could try next. But if she thinks there's a single way to love people that can just be taught to people in childhood, then she doesn't sound like she's any more savvy about love than you are.