It must not have been easy for you to admit that.
The thought that your husband hates you is intense.
It’s connected with pain and shame – two very powerful emotions.
That’s why it’s not something you discuss casually at the next girls’ night out.
You probably feel paralyzed and helpless, and it’s hard to even think about.
Your husband may have never told it to your face.
But you feel it.
- He is constantly annoyed by you.
- Sees everything you do negatively.
- You (almost) never touch each other.
You feel the power of rejection every day.
On top of that, you fear losing him.
So you try to make everything right for him, but nothing changes.
I have good news for you:
A separation is unlikely at this point.
It becomes a lot more likely when you decide you can’t take the rejection anymore.
Because:
Statistically, 69% of the time, the wife initiates divorce.
In this article, I’m going to show you the different reasons your husband hates you and why it’s not as bad as it might seem.
Is hate the opposite of love?
No, it’s not.
Hate and love are very close to each other.
Because in both emotions, the center of attention is a thing or a person (in this case, you).
And that’s another piece of good news for you:
Because just as love can turn into hate, hate can turn into love.
The problem with this is our perception:
We perceive negative feelings 2 – 7x more intense than positive ones.
From an evolutionary point of view, this makes sense:
Lion -> wants to eat me. “Don’t touch Lion”
So, what is the opposite of love?
Carelessness.
It will be tough to turn things around if he doesn’t care about anything you say or do anymore.
How does Hate develop in relationships?
If you understand how hate develops in a long-term relationship, you can start to do something about it.
And that’s what I’m going to show you now:
What many people don’t know is that hate is a heightened form of anger.
Think of it on a scale of 1 to 10.
1 is being annoyed.
10 is hate.
But everything in between is a variation of anger.
A simple trick to change your perspective
His beard stubble in the sink didn’t bother you much at the beginning of your relationship.
But after you’ve told him 10,000 times to clean them up, and he’s still unable to do such a simple task properly, you might freak out at every little hair you find.
A supposedly tiny thing can make you go from being annoyed to angry over time.
The exact process happens from anger to hate:
You feel helpless and hurt by a specific situation over and over again.
And this happens over months/years.
Then anger turns into hate.
So, “Why does my husband hate me?” might be the wrong question
If you look at it from your perspective, asking if or why your husband hates you may be the wrong question.
Instead, you might need to ask yourself:
- Is my husband deeply hurt?
- Does he not know how to deal with it?
Spoiler: he is, and he can’t.
And the problem with hurt people is:
They hurt people.
Why does my husband hurt me in his hate? Is he doing it consciously?
It’s almost never the case that we hurt people consciously.
Especially not those who are close to us.
Most of the time, we hurt our loved ones for two reasons:
- We try to protect ourselves (We can’t handle the emotions and try to push the other away so we don’t have to be vulnerable. Or blame them for everything because it’s the easier way).
- We want to meet our needs and don’t think about our partner.
Don’t get me wrong:
All of us are sometimes selfish and inconsiderate.
That’s perfectly normal.
But consciously deciding to hurt someone else?
That happens very rarely.
Ask yourself: Do you keep hurting your husband without realizing it?
Our life is stressful.
And we all try to overcome small and big hurdles every day.
The issue:
We don’t see and forget our partner’s problems.
After all, we have enough to do and on our minds.
So, is it possible that you hurt your husband every day in some way (without realizing it)?
Very likely.
The law of reciprocity
You are in a vicious circle:
Your man keeps hurting you, and you’re hurting him back.
Because in relationships, we always want to give back what we get.
If your man feels you’re constantly criticizing or neglecting him, he won’t behave lovingly.
Makes sense, right?
But that’s also the hardest part:
You have to criticize, reflect and be honest with yourself.
Only then you’ll be able to take responsibility for your actions and change them.
Most people can’t do that.
The fact that you are still here and reading this article speaks highly of the fact that you can.
2 types of husbands where you’re not responsible for his hate
1. The toxic husband
Some men mistreat their wives on purpose.
These men make their wives feel small by telling them they hate them.
To make themselves feel bigger.
If you have such a man, you can do nothing to make his hate disappear.
His hate has and never had anything to do with you.
If you divorced, he would treat his next wife like he treats you.
2. He feels like a failure
- Is your husband fundamentally dissatisfied with himself?
- Does he feel like he can’t get anything done?
- Does he make himself smaller than he is?
- Does he hold you responsible for his (bad) decisions?
Such men like to project their feelings onto others.
Meaning:
They abdicate responsibility for themselves and their lives to others.
You’re the one he’s lashing out at because you’re closest to him.
And also, pay attention to whether your man tends to blame everyone else in general.
For example:
- “If it weren’t for that a**hole of a superior, I would have been promoted long ago.”
- “We’re late because everyone else can’t drive.”
That’s a perpetrator-victim dynamic.
In the case of hate, you are the perpetrator, and he is the victim (from his perspective).
However, you can stop this dynamic.
And that’s what I’m going to show you next:
What can I do if my husband hates me?
That depends on where his hate comes from.
Let’s go over the two possibilities and what you can do specifically.
1. What can you do if you have not contributed to his hate?
Signal that you will not tolerate his behavior any longer.
By doing this, you stop feeding his behavior and set clear boundaries.
One thing is critical to understand:
We teach people how to treat us.
If you allow your husband to put you down and you bake him a cake in return, he will continue to do so.
He feels safe with you and is sure you will never kick him out of the house.
As safe as he feels with you (which is a good thing in itself), he does NOT have the right to throw up his emotional baggage at your feet and expect you just to take it.
Use the rubber band principle
As soon as you realize your husband is using you as an emotional garbage can again, tell him clearly and walk away.
You can choose who you don’t want to spend time with – even if it’s your husband.
This is not about not spending time with him in general (reconnecting is the most important thing in a broken relationship).
But exactly when he mistreats you.
For example:
- If he gets personal when arguing and generalizes his phrases (“you never do,” “you always are,” etc.).
- He compares you to someone you don’t like yourself (“You are like your mother, father, uncle, aunt”).
Why is going away your only option in this situation?
Because you create the necessary distance from the problem.
As long as you’re both too emotional and upset, thinking clearly and acting rationally is impossible.
No matter how hard you try.
By staying and fighting, you’re pouring more gasoline into a house already burning like a torch.
What is the rubber band principle?
Imagine that there is a rubber band stretched around both of you.
When you walk away, it tightens. The tension eventually becomes too much, and has to pull again.
This means:
Your husband will start missing you.
He will have to think about what he did and learn that he should not repeat his behavior if he doesn’t want you to leave again.
2. What can you do if you contributed to his hate?
Let’s put it this way:
From my experience, you’re likely a major contributor.
Taking responsibility is harder because you have to be honest with yourself and admit that it’s not all on him.
Meaning:
You’re not just the victim (which would be more comfortable).
Fortunately, it also means:
You can change the dynamic much easier because you’re already exerting influence.
And you can always decide how to use that influence.
You can remind your husband why he loves you (he still does).
If he didn’t love you anymore, he would be long gone or with someone else.
This also means that you are not in such a big crisis as you might think right now.
And if you find out what is making your husband so unhappy, you can take your relationship to an even deeper level.
So, try to not look at your situation as a crisis.
It’s a new beginning.
Why do I have to tackle the problem alone?
Wouldn’t it be much easier if you and your husband worked on it together?
If he would just say, what is bothering him?
Absolutely.
The problem is:
Your husband will not recognize it as his problem but as yours (because he blames you for everything).
That’s why you won’t be able to convince him to work with you on it.
It’s unfair, I know.
But you can’t change that right now.
The magic words are “right now”.
Because when you start taking responsibility for your part, you can change the dynamic.
This will inevitably affect your husband because you are not two individuals who happen to live together.
You are a system that is intertwined.
If you change a gear’s rotation direction, the whole dynamic changes.
You can stop the downward spiral and influence your husband to help you.
I promise you that.
You can’t change anything except your behavior
There is no other way, anyway.
Therefore:
Focus on your share of responsibility.
How did you hurt him that he hates you now?
Either it’s something serious (an affair, for example) or, more likely, a drip-feed of behavior that you’ve been repeating for years.
As a suggestion, you can ask yourself these questions:
- Does your husband feel unfairly criticized by you?
- Do you like to pick on him?
- Are you quick to get personal in arguments (instead of sticking to the behavior)?
- Can he never please you? Does he often tell you that?
- Do you make him feel like everything is more important than him?
- What gets your attention on a day-to-day basis? Your cell phone? Your job? Your children? Is your husband even on your priority list?
- Do you like to overreact to little things?
- Are you quick to take things your husband says personally? Could it be that he doesn’t mean it that way?
Of course, I can’t tell you what it is.
Only you and your husband can answer that.
So, try to figure out what the right question is.
If you can’t think of anything, there’s an easy way:
Ask your husband what’s bothering him.
What not to do when your husband tells you what’s bothering him
Respond defensively.
The accusations will be harsh.
In part, they will be unfair.
That’s for sure.
But under no circumstances justify yourself or attack him.
You would ruin everything.
At this moment, it’s not about clarifying the whole situation but about gathering information.
From your side, only this is important:
- Listen attentively.
- Apologize if necessary.
- If you do not believe his statements are accurate, tell him you need to think about it.
And don’t let the conversation escalate into an argument.
Because it’s all about you recognizing how he feels and why.
Now comes the simple part:
Once you know what you’ve done to trigger his hate, stop that behavior.
Sounds simple, right?
Because it is.
Solutions are always simple, in theory.
Implementing them is not easy.
Because it requires discipline and renunciation.
Discipline to change your behavior in the long run and not fall back into old patterns.
And renunciation because you have to renounce to “win” and to want to be right and, at the same time, put your husband first on your priority list.
Because if you want to win or be right, you will both lose.
“My husband hates me” – when is it time to divorce?
Many people believe that divorce is inevitable if their partner hates them.
Even necessary.
I find it dramatic how inflationary people deal with divorces – especially after building up a life and a family laboriously.
Such people often don’t want to deal with themselves, their relationship and their partner.
They prefer to run away because “it can only be better with everyone else.”
That’s the biggest nonsense you can tell yourself.
If you don’t change, you will repeat the same mistakes.
Which in turn means:
Things won’t get better with your next husband.
Therefore:
Don’t think about divorce. It’s unnecessary.
Hate in the relationship happens more often than you think (we don’t realize it because nobody talks about it).
What’s important for you now:
Realize what connects the two of you and why you want to save your marriage.
Why shouldn’t you overcome this crisis after all you’ve been through together?
Even if your husband only sees the bad right now and pounces on everything you do wrong, resist the urge to do the same and stay confident.
It’s impossible to fight hate with hate successfully.
A little warning:
It will probably get worse before it can get better.
By this, I mean that the feelings will become more intense first.
Because you start to deal with them effectively now (probably for the first time).
But don’t let that make you feel insecure.
All the anger and frustration your husband has swallowed over the years must surface first before they can evaporate (whether you are partly responsible or not).
Of course, he should not mistreat you because of this.
Keep your distance if he does.
Because you shouldn’t reward negative behavior with attention.
