...go back to treating him like he’s the love of my life.
He and I fought so much since about May 2016 and even before that but 2016 was when he found out something terrible from our breakup in 2012 before we were married... a secret I kept... and he flipped out. Instead of embracing trauma I went through and trying to nurture me, he treated me like I was some kind of horrible person.
I fell out of love with him that fall and even told him so when he asked why I was acting so wonky at the beginning of this year. Then being apart helped me remember some of the good stuff and I moved back in May of this year (gone 3 months). But my feelings of being “in love” were never restored.
Guilt? Yes. Lots of guilt.
Do I want to try to honor the vows I made? Yes.
Is it worth staying with a person I’m not in love with? My parents do that.
They are more like good roommates.
Is it worth trying to rekindle the love? Sometimes I feel it is, but then we have a fight and he’s mean and I feel like it’s not.
Do I always care about him and want him to heal and get over his ptsd and eventually go and start a business and be happy and make friends? Yes. Always.
One time I heard of a concept where if you’re unhappy pretend you’re happy and eventually you think you’re happy.
I wonder if I start saying and doing all the things that I did when I was madly in love with him if I would go back to believing I am madly in love with him.
I do know for a fact half our fights would go away.
I haven't been on the forum much recently, so I apologize if you have shared more backstory and i do not know about it.
What are you expecting for feelings? If you had butterflies in your stomach so intensely that you couldn't eat or sleep, and you felt wonderful like some kind of drug high part of the time, and then nauseous when you were around him, you may not get that back. I've read that sort of thing wears off, and it's probably a good thing. I wonder if it continued for years and years if it would give you a heart attack.
I had feelings like that at times going through puberty. By the time I met my wife, I had wonderful strong feelings for her, without the nausea or drug high. I'd sit around happily thinking about her staring into space at times, that sort of thing. I still love my wife now, but I probably don't have the same rush of emotions in the same way I had early on.
Movies and TV and other people teach us to think of marital love as some sort of great feeling. Foolishly written movie scripts teach people that when you feel a certain way you'll know. And so some short-sighted gullible people out there fall for drug addicts, drug dealers, con men, inappropriate content addicts, gold diggers, etc. because they think if they feel a certain way, that makes it real.
The Bible says, 'Husbands love your wives.' It does
not say, 'Husbands, have a feeling of butterflies in your stomach for your wife, and feel like you are floating on the clouds whenever you are around her." Proverbs 5 does speak of always being enraptured by her love. That's in the context of sexual love. Some of these kinds of feelings are desirable in marriage. But some emotions kick in early in a relationship and can be replaced with something more mature, something that won't give you stomach ulcers in the long run.
In your case, it sounds like your husband upset you and you lose respect for him. The Bible says to respect your husband. One translation says 'reverence' there in Ephesians 5. It could literally be translated 'fear.' Christians are to have the fear of the Lord, also. I don't think it is saying be afraid that your husband is going to hit you with the newspaper or something like that, but rather talking about the deep sense of reverential respect you should have for your husband, which you should have as a Christian wife out of reverence for the Lord.
And if he is going to be enraptured with your love, you need to love him, too.
So if you have some realistic expectations about what kinds of feelings you want to have, how do you get those feelings if you are upset with him? This is something you should pray about, but you need to consider if you have any kind of bitterness or unforgiveness toward him. Those are things to pray about. It might also help to consider his perspective on this traumatic experience. If something happened that he thought you should have told him before you got married, as if it was almost being deceptive accepting a proposal without telling him first, he could have reacted that way. But sometimes people just act in irrational bad ways when they hear news they do not want to hear, instead of being supportive to the other person. That's not good, but it can happen.
If he handled it totally the wrong way and he was just wrong, and you did everything right that you could, you still need to forgive him. Jesus taught His disciples to forgive others or the Father would not forgive them.
There have been times when my wife and I have gotten out of sync, where it seemed like conversations turned into arguments. A new conversation carries the emotional baggage of yesterday's conversation and puts it on the trajectory of an argument. Usually, when this happened, my wife was going through a time in which she did not have the best feelings about me. It seems like times of stress-- moving, being around in-laws, post-partum, etc. when I was unemployed were difficult for her. And when she got like that, I didn't always have the greatest feelings toward her.
What I learned is one way to get out of the cycle. We'd just pray and humble ourselves and ask God to help, then confess sin to one another. It's good if you can do this without accusing. Then you forgive each other and pray to God and ask him to get into your hearts and heal them and restore them, including feelings. I can think of two or three times we've gone through these experiences in our marriage restored through prayer.
There was another time when my wife was pregnant where she had a negative attitude toward me and treated me with disrespect. I prayed about it, a long list of things related to how my wife treated to me, and asked God to speak to her about it. Within a number of days she sat me down for a conversation-- but it didn't look like she wanted to argue. She acted nice. She started telling me I was a good husband, and then took me through a list of things she said God spoke to her about-- walking me through my prayer list, but in much greater detail. It was quite incredible actually. And her attitude totally changed. In terms of feelings and how we got along, it was like we went through a newly wed stage. Not totally the same since she was about 8 or 9 months pregnant, but it was really good for our relationship. She's had times when she's prayed about me, too.
Anyway, my point is that you can see great success in this area of your life by praying to God in faith and doing the things Jesus taught, like forgiving.