Clinical Psychologist Reveals One Of The Most Common Complaints She See From Wives In Couples Therapy
Paying attention to your wife sounds simple, but it can be fairly complex.
Jacob Lund | Shutterstock One of the most common complaints I see in couples therapy is that the woman feels she never has the man’s full focus, except in bed.
Even then, guys who struggle with inattention are often inattentive lovers and prioritize bells and whistles over a connected experience.) Some of the main reasons for men not focusing on their wives are covered in this post, as well as how to repair after a lack of focus and reprioritize your marriage.
One main reason that women say their husbands don’t pay attention to them is that they are “always on their phone.”
This is especially true for men with ADHD, who can’t resist the dopamine hit of looking stuff up, playing games, or engaging on social media or other forums. When the phone is in your partner’s hand 24/7 (or close to it), it’s difficult to compete. Often, women are also upset that the man is ignoring the kids in favor of the phone.
Men who are depressed also struggle with getting up and moving, and a big part of what they do when sitting or lying down is playing on their phones. Therapy can help men who struggle with untreated or undiagnosed depression or ADHD by clarifying what aspects of their behavior are attributable to these issues and how to cope in ways that don’t involve escaping into a screen.
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Another common complaint that I hear in therapy is that the man isn’t interested in conversation.
This is especially true if the man feels there is “no point” in talking as the woman “only wants to vent.” Couples counseling can be transformative in dynamics like this, which usually involve a man who was raised in a home without a lot of talking about feelings and a woman who is often anxious or depressed, so she truly does revisit the same topics over and over without accepting input or help (this is called a help-rejecting complainer).
Remember, it is a myth that conversations should never involve problem-solving. After empathizing, most people try to help a friend or partner by brainstorming ways to address their problems. Problem-solving can be very bonding when done within an empathic and supportive relationship. Avoidant attachment is another major cause of a husband who “doesn’t pay attention.”
When men have an avoidant attachment style, they tend to couple up with women who are preoccupied. The woman is constantly pursuing the man for the attention she never got as a child, and the man has learned from his childhood to be wholly self-sufficient and look down on closeness. These two are locked in a pursuer-distancer relationship that can benefit greatly from therapy, which helps each partner to see their contribution to the dynamic and where it started in early life.
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Other husbands are inattentive because they are resentful about the relationship dynamic itself. Generally, in this situation, the marriage has low intimacy and low affection.
While most wives who ask for more attention have preoccupied attachment and are the “pursuer,” as discussed previously, some women who want more attention are avoidant or fearful-avoidant. These women are scared of intimacy and are complaining about a lack of attention because they feel that the husband is not focusing on activities related to the kids or the home. They feel their husband is shirking his role as co-CEO of the home by focusing on his work, hobbies, or interests.
However, the husband feels that he doesn’t want a marriage that is a business partnership, and, from his perspective, he is coping with a loveless marriage by throwing himself into other fulfilling activities. This couple can often benefit tremendously from couples counseling, where a therapist can explain the role of romantic intimacy to the wife, who often considers this to be silly or unnecessary, and show how his lack of focus on the home parallels her lack of focus on the relationship.
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A final reason I’ll discuss that you may not pay attention to your wife may be that you are overfocused on your child.
Here’s an example of a woman who feels this way. More and more men that I see are matching and even outdoing their wives in the race to give their children every single bit of their attention. I discuss this phenomenon constantly, as I have seen this sabotage marriage, hurt the parents’ mental health, and create anxious and self-absorbed kids who, as adults, have negative feelings about parenting and family.
Working with a therapist can help men like this understand what they may be compensating for by over-parenting, which often involves delving into the family of origin. Often, those who are most hyper-focused on their kids are either continuing a legacy of anxiety or swinging 180 degrees away from the inattentive and even neglectful parenting that they experienced as kids.
If this post resonated with you, use it as a springboard for open and honest discussion with your partner. Couples therapy can transform this dynamic, in addition to individual work on both sides.
Don’t allow your kids to see an unhappy marriage fraught with tension and resentment! This will only teach them to replicate the same pattern in their own relationships one day; in fact, helping couples break the cycle of intergenerational dysfunction is a core reason I work with couples in therapy. End the cycle with you.
Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten, aka Dr. Psych Mom, is a clinical psychologist in private practice and the founder of DrPsychMom. She works with adults and couples in her group practice, Best Life Behavioral Health.
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