Where is your husband in his walk with God? Is it his position that he is offering love as a Christian husband should and that you are just not recognizing it, or is he not accepting that as his responsibility at all? There are some men who can feel love, but have absolutely no idea how to express it. Unfortunately, there are also some men who are just selfish jerks who can't be bothered. The real problem is that we can never really know the exact state of another person's heart - not even our spouses. We think that we do. We want to believe we do. We become good at predicting our spouses responses to different situations because we come to know them so well, but none of us can ever really know another's heart as completely as God does, because we can never even know our own hearts as completely as God does:
Psalms 139 said:
[1] O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
[2] You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
[3] You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
[4] Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
That's really scary because we're probably more vulnerable to our spouses than any other person in the world; the idea that unbeknownst to us therein may be contained some unshared weakness or shame or fear or any issue which at any time, may affect our spouses in a way which would render their treatment of us unpredictable to us, is frankly terrifying. We should be able to love and trust our spouses, but not to the same extent as we love and trust God, because even he most worthy of husbands and wives are human and will ultimately fall short of God's perfection.
You often hear it said that God is necessarily the third person in any marriage - I think that's very true, but unfortunately often forgotten. As strong as two together may be a chord of three is always stronger:
Ecclesiastes 4 (NIV) said:
[12] Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
and with God as the third strand in the cord, there may be no other stronger. But we get swept up in this Hollywood notion that our love for one and other as husband and wife will on its own be sufficient to weather any hardship which may come our way in a marriage. John Wayne swoops up Maureen O'Hara and they supposedly begin their destiny of living happily ever after as the closing credits start to roll. The problem is that the movie always ends there. We don't get to see what happens after that and what does happen after that is that John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, having each fulfilled their contractual obligations, shake hands and go their separate ways and then, outside of our view, this created image of perfect marital love to which we now all have subscribed as we walk out of the theater, dissolves as quickly as it was fabricated. I love the Quiet Man, but it is not how a Christian marriage works. I've written about this many times before, so many in fact that I can't remember if it's something I've written myself or something which should be attributed elsewhere that I have chosen to embellish, but I think it's cool and I like to share it with folks who are having a tough time in their marriages. I may cut and paste a little here from other posts on this and and other message boards and from a blog that I used to keep:
We tend to think it is but, to a Christian, marriage is not like two people in the same boat, struggling against the world together and fighting of each of life's hardships with a strength that is fueled solely by their love for each other alone. It's rather more like two people in their own boats, hopelessly lost at sea on a stormy night, struggling desperately to find one and other. The look for each other, but the fog is to thick to see; call to each other, but the din of the storm to loud to hear; they each row their boats frantically hoping to cross paths, but never really even know if they are moving toward or away from each other. The lightning flashes and you think you catch a glimpse of her; "Is that her? She seems so far.", you think, but row frantically in that direction anyway. She is gone.
Then, through the fog, you see a light from a distant lighthouse, dim and distant at first, but steady, immovable. It seems at first as though the light is spinning in circles around you but then you realize that it is actually your own boat which is spinning aimlessly at sea. The light seems so far away, distant, out of reach, unobtainable, but something therein gives you peace - if only at first it is the knowledge that someone, something is responsible for turning it on and keeping it lit. The light, though still so far away tells you that you are not alone. It gives you hope. In that moment you resolve that no matter what happens, no matter how bad the storm, no matter how rough the waves, no matter how strong the wind attempts to push you backward, no matter how frightening the journey becomes, that you will continue to row your boat toward the light and if you also know, know in your heart, that no matter what, your wife will always choose do the same then something wonderful happens. You see in this way it doesn't matter how far apart your boats have become from each other, as long as you each move toward the light you're also moving toward each other.
God is and must be the third person in any Christian marriage. He is that fixed, immovable point to which both participants of a marriage must draw near. If your husband has lost sight of that light then you must remain open to the idea of allowing God to use you in order to extent that light to him. Not that you yourself become the light but that you allow God's light to be amplified through you. We can't control our spouse's behavior, not in a health loving manner anyway, but God can and does change hearts everyday and will often use us as spouses to be tools in the implementation of that change. I think the most important thing for someone in your situation to do is to focus on the things over which you actually do have control. Where are you in your walk? Have you been in prayer about this? Are you staying in his word? Do you have access to a strong group of Christian women who will be able to support, encourage and guide you through this?
I'll be praying for both of you.
