Are you married to someone who doesn’t seem to care about you?

• They don’t ask how your day was

• They don’t acknowledge your presence in the room

• They don’t appreciate the things you do for them

• They don’t value your opinion

• And when you try to express that you want to feel seen they say your expectations are too high

And maybe it’s not even that they’re a bad person, they’re just not doing their part and the relationship doesn’t feel mutual.

Usually, people try to fix this by talking to their spouse, trying to make them aware of how they feel. Talking is a good first step. The formula for a conversation might look like this:

“I feel (insert a feeling/emotion that names how you feel) when you (insert your spouse’s behavior). I need (insert what you would like to have happen). If that can happen, then (insert positive result). If that doesn’t happen, then (insert negative result).”

If your spouse accepts what you have to say and changes, then as Scripture says, you have won them over (Matthew 18:15). If they reject what you have to say and they use any of these tactics to avoid having to change, then they have just told you who they aren’t (they aren’t motivated) and what they don’t value (you), and you will have to do some real work to figure out what you are going to do with that information. Here is an article of mine that may help.

Sometimes what you’ll get, though, is that they accept what you have to say and they put forth some effort for a few days, but then things go back to the way they were. If this happens, you should read my article on what to do if you think your spouse is changing but the changes don’t persist or aren’t pervasive.

Options for Navigating The Relationship When Your Spouse Won’t Change

1.  Take Care of Your Emotional Wellbeing

If you get any response other than a healthy acknowledgement and sincere changes, then talking didn’t work. It didn’t bring the sting of conviction that can make something painful enough to motivate a person to change - because we change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. For some people, this pain is felt in the context of a simple conversation or someone bringing something to our attention. For others, that isn’t painful enough to elicit change.

If talking hasn’t made it better, then you have to take steps to protect your emotional wellbeing. Here’s what I mean: if you feel unseen and you’re recognizing that it’s resulting in resentment, and if your spouse isn’t going to change what they do, then you have to change what you do so that you don’t do things that lead to resentment.

Resentment is a common feeling that arises when you put more effort into the relationship than your spouse does. And if you can’t get your spouse to put in more effort, your other option to protect yourself from resentment is that you put in less effort. This shouldn’t be done in a passive-aggressive, I’m-gonna-stick-it-to-them kind of way - it needs to be done in a matter-of-fact way, knowing that it’s a reasonable resolution to feelings of resentment - because you can’t just make resentment go away by ignoring it or trying to focus on being positive. Resentment is the natural result of a real problem, so you have to fix the problem - either your spouse does more or you do less. In essence, you are resetting the expectations that you have of your spouse and of yourself.

Sometimes when you start doing less your spouse will become aware that you aren’t pulling as much of the weight as you used to. This is an opportunity to clarify to your spouse that a person isn’t entitled to the benefits of a relationship without putting in the effort it takes to maintain it, so in order to make the relationship more mutual and to protect your emotional wellbeing you have made adjustments to what you do in order to match your spouse’s efforts so that the relationship is more mutual. This doesn’t need to turn into a discussion. Your spouse doesn’t need to agree with what you are doing. They don’t even have to understand it. So don’t READ (Reason with them, Explain yourself, Argue, or Defend your decision). You have a responsibility to guard your heart, and this is how you are doing that. If your spouse doesn’t like it, they can make the changes they feel they need to make, but they can’t control you.

2.  Reset your expectations of your spouse

Another option (other than stepping down your efforts) is to decide you’re just going to keep doing what you’ve always done and putting forth the same amount of effort. Sometimes a person doesn’t feel good about doing less because of the beliefs you hold about what you should be like as a wife or husband. If this is the case, you will have to reset your expectations of your spouse, conceding that they won’t do more than what they’ve been doing and accepting that as the status quo.

However, without filling yourself up while you’re continuing to pour yourself out, you will run dry and be vulnerable to resentment again. Therefore, in order to keep a balance in your emotional tank, you may find that increasing your attention to yourself and inviting God into your activities can provide for your emotional needs to be met. A healthy person would do this, anyway, so a more concerted focus on God’s love, care, attention, affirmation, validation, encouragement, comfort, and companionship can fill you up so that you have the positive energy (and not the resentment) to give to your spouse. You can read more about how God can meet your emotional needs in my article on the perfect man (spoiler alert: the perfect man is Jesus!)

While the option to reset your expectations of your spouse while keeping the same expectations of yourself may work temporarily, know that you may find that you can’t ignore the natural result (resentment, for example) of ungodly dynamics (especially sin) in a marriage and, eventually, you will again get to a point that you have to do something differently, knowing that you can’t keep going on as you have been. [Read my article on how to stay well in an unsatisfying marriage]

3. Observe their behavior and use it as information

A third option for navigating the relationship when your spouse won’t change is to observe your spouse’s response to your concerns, observe their behavior afterward over the following days, weeks, or months, and decide whether you want that in your life or not. You may observe that they begin to show signs of growth and true repentance, and that will make a big difference as to the quality of your relationship. Or they may continue to forget about you and your awareness of that begins to shine a light on a pattern that has always been there but is now becoming unacceptable as you have matured and, perhaps, your spouse has not.

We are designed to continually grow and be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and when you have done that and your spouse has not, you may find that the relationship is no longer mutual or enjoyable. In some cases, you may even find that your spouse’s behavior is such that they are no longer even keeping their vows to love, honor, and cherish you. Is this what God intended for your marriage? If not, what will be your response? You can continue to pursue your spouse, hoping that they will turn and see you chasing after them and appreciate the effort you’re putting in and reciprocate. You can dig into the question of “what really is God’s will for my marriage at this point?” Or you may decide that you are going to stop trying to create something that turns out to be an “Ishmael.”

Wherever this leads you, if you need some clarity along the way, schedule a breakthrough session and garner another perspective. After all, God’s word says that “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed” (Proverbs 15:22). And, when you’re doing it the right way, you will find that….. Hope is not found in our situation changing; it’s found in our situation…..

Wondering whether you’re creating an Ishmael? Schedule a Breakthrough Session below.

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