“When you first fell in love, it seemed like you could spend every waking moment together, and neither of you would ever get tired of it.
You were each other’s best friends, and the time spent together was nothing short of magical.
Fast forward a few years (or even months) into marriage, and now it feels like your husband is finding every excuse in the book to be anywhere but near you.”
This is the story of my friend, Matilda, and the story of many other women in marriages today.
Their men, who were once the love of their lives, are now strangers in the marriage.
Always everywhere except with their wives.
This issue has resulted in so many marital issues and broken homes today.
So when Matilda came to talk to me about the distance she’s experiencing in her marriage, seeking to know the root cause, I knew at that moment that I needed to write about it.
We spoke to some women who also had absent husbands, and we spoke to absent husbands.
By the time we gathered everything, we had come up with these seven reasons your husband doesn’t want to spend time with you.
Before you jump to conclusions, let’s walk through this together.
7 Reasons Your Husband Doesn’t Want to Spend Time with You
1. Work Stress
Work-related stress is one of the most common reasons husbands distance themselves from their wives.
You’ll ask, “Was he not working while we were dating? How come he had time for me then?”
He has probably taken up more work since getting married because he now has more responsibilities than he did when he was single.
And when you both were dating, you may not have been living with him, so he needed to make time to see you.
But now, he sees you every day and does not feel pressured to make time to spend quality time with you.
So, while you feel like your husband is avoiding you, he may just be overwhelmed at work—dealing with demanding projects or under pressure to meet deadlines.
At this point, he may not even realize how much he’s withdrawing from you, as the stress of his job is draining his mental and physical energy.
2. Routine Fatigue
I know how most men can’t stand routine.
Whatever it is, as soon as it becomes a routine, they will soon get tired of it.
And marriages can become so predictable, especially after a few years.
It doesn’t matter how exciting and productive a task is; if it is done the same way for an extended period of time, it can become boring and unproductive.
And you know what is funny?
Most of the time, they depend on their wives to bring creativity into the marriage.
So, when you come without any novelty or spontaneity, your husband might begin to feel bored and start distancing himself in search of variety.
And he might not even know it.
The man who already feels weighed down by the burdens of responsibilities does not want to be trapped in the boringness of a monotonous lifestyle.
So he’ll look for ways to escape it as much as he can.
3. Communication Breakdown
I’d like to say that this is the number one ingredient if you are looking for a marriage that will stay alive and bubbling at all times.
Man cannot afford not to communicate.
As long as there are human relations, there must be effective communication.
If communication is not going smoothly in your marriage, there’s room for misunderstandings and resentment.
What would have been quickly resolved through a simple conversation would be swept under the carpet.
When your husband feels like he cannot have a smooth conversation with you without it leading to unnecessary arguments and fights, or if he feels like you do not respect his opinions or validate his feelings, he may decide to avoid talking to you.
If he does not want to talk to you, he will also want to stay away from you to avoid anything that will cause problems.
4. Lack of Self-care
We found women who were sweet and very pretty ladies before they got married.
Then, they began to slack in their self-care.
By the time we met them, some of these women already looked like people who had dealt with life’s challenges, and their excuse was the responsibility of keeping their marriage and raising a family.
Funny, because the marriage they were losing themselves to keep was slipping right out of their hands.
Men are moved by what they see.
As a woman, you must pay attention to your physical appearance—dress well, smell nice, and take care of your skin, hair, and entire body.
You should be healthy both physically and emotionally at all times.
Once you are a happy woman, the happiness spreads through your home, and if you are a moody person, there’ll always be a cloud of sadness hovering in your home.
Your husband will stay as far away from that sadness as he can.
5. Lack of Shared Responsibility
In the past, we had the traditional family setting where the men were the sole providers, and the women were left to take care of the home by themselves.
In today’s marriages, people are adopting teamwork more.
Where both the husband and his wife contribute to the family’s finances and the keeping of the home as much as they have the ability.
You find that men are avoiding women who cannot handle any but the financial responsibilities of the marriage.
If you are a woman who keeps collecting and collecting and does not give or share in the responsibility, your husband will soon start avoiding you.
Every time he is near you, there is one debit alert or another.
6. Parenting Pressures
Parents can relate to this one the most.
Parenting is not a walk in the park; it is real work.
We found that couples who did not build real friendships with each other before the children came struggled the most in their marriage when they became parents.
Parenting will try to break you.
The constant demands, the lack of personal time, and the stress that comes with parenting are unmatched.
Many times, parents get so overwhelmed that they are unable to relate with anyone else except their friends.
If you and your husband didn’t build a friendship before the kids, at this point, it won’t be you he will be coming to.
Parenting may, most times, leave your husband feeling exhausted and withdrawn.
And he might be unable to balance time between his responsibilities as a parent and his role as your husband.
7. Infidelity Concerns
I think this is another very popular reason a husband will refuse to spend time with his wife.
However, we discovered that in our interview, this was one of the most difficult topics to address.
No man was going to willingly admit that he was cheating on his wife.
But we know quite alright that if someone else has caught your husband’s interest and he is investing time in pursuing his new lover, he will definitely not have any extra time left to spend with you.
He will distance himself from you emotionally and physically because he is investing himself somewhere else.
I had to bring this discussion all the way down because many women usually suspect that their husbands are cheating on them immediately after they begin to avoid them.
There are several other reasons, but we cannot act like infidelity is not a probability, especially if there are signs pointing towards it.
It’s natural for relationships to go through phases, and not every moment will be filled with the same excitement and closeness you experienced at the beginning.
But when you realize that your husband is avoiding you, start first by checking if you are the cause of your own problem.
If you have discovered that you are living up to expectations, you can decide to talk to him about your needs.
Tell him how much you miss him and how much you’d like to spend more time with him.
You must not always address situations in your marriage from the standpoint of what is wrong.
Sometimes, look at ways you can make the situation better and address the situation from that angle.
With patience and intentionality, you should be able to rebuild your connection with your husband and bring back the joy of spending time together.