3 Critical Indicators of Emotional Neglect in a Marriage

My marriage counselor explained why my marriage felt lonely.

“It feels lonely being married to you,” I say. “Sometimes I dream about being with someone who would really care about me.”

My husband is disinterested and has no response to my words.

I have ignited an intense battle.

I just don’t know that yet. He is simmering with anger.

I meet alone with our marriage counselor. It’s the second time we’ve been to counseling. The first time, years earlier, it was because I was tired of the way my husband treated me.

This time it’s because my aforementioned words have started a war.

“I know this is about me,” I say to our marriage counselor who’s a psychologist.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“What is it about me that attracted me to a man like this?” I say.

“Oh, Colleen,” he says. “Not everything is textbook but you had a father who physically abandoned you and you married a man who emotionally abandoned you.”

At that moment, I understood why I felt lonely despite being married.

My husband and I lived together and played together.

But my day-to-day, hopes, my dreams, my interests, my worries, my fears, my stresses, my joys, and my happiness were left to me alone. I had no one to share them with.

My husband cared about his own world.

He cared nothing about mine.

I was now in marriage counseling for one.

My own personal oxymoron because my husband refused to return. It’s the reason I have spent more than a decade in the counseling and research of love, relationships, marriage, and divorce.

Emotional Neglect is exactly what the term implies.

It’s being ignored and neglected by your spouse.

1. Emotional Neglect — A lack of concern, warmth, and involvement

I can cite numerous times I felt alone with worry.

The weeks before my Mother passed away when I expressed concern about going away on my husband’s business trip. He angrily told me my Mom had been dying for years and flew off without me.

When our baby had surgery I begged him to go to the hospital with me. He told me he was a busy man and had work to do.

The time I told him the oral surgeon said I needed to be picked up because of the anesthesia. He said I was a big girl and he was a big boy. He didn’t ask anything of me and I shouldn’t ask anything of him. He threw in that he was a busy man.

When the OB/GYN told him he would have to take off work for the delivery of our son he refused to pick me up from the hospital. He was retaliating for being told what to do and again said he was a busy man.

When I went to the hospital for surgery a high risk for blood clots and he never showed up.

When I was rear-ended with our three children in the car and he didn’t even bother to leave work early.

I can cite numerous times I felt alone with joy.

When I got my first article published in Washingtonian Magazine and he sat in a corner staring at his cell phone while everyone else in the restaurant celebrated my achievement.

When people would comment on an annual charitable fundraiser I organized each year and he would dismiss them and remain quiet.

When I got us into investment properties and he would act as if he were the one who had the real estate knowledge.

There are too many examples to cite.

I was alone when I needed my husband.

I was emotionally neglected.

2. Emotional Neglect — A lack of interest and validation

My husband’s lack of interest and validation was universal.

He had zero interest in anything that had to do with me.

He ignored what I accomplished professionally.

I wrote for years before I was published and my husband never read a word. Once I was published, he still never read an article sans one or two. He didn’t ask me about my passion. He didn’t tell anyone his wife was a business columnist and features writer.

He didn’t tell people his wife was a marketing and PR consultant who successfully placed people in major outlets like Good Morning America and was herself a source in Advertising Age, The Wall Street Journal, Prevention Magazine, and other outlets.

He ignored what concerned me personally.

He didn’t ask me why I felt dedicated to the community and charitable work I did. He didn’t offer to pitch in and help me when I took on the larger projects.

Instead, he complained that I did the volunteer version of working.

The night I cried myself to sleep when my Mother died my husband fell asleep immediately. Six months later, he asked when I was going to be fun again despite having lost both my Mother and my Father within six months.

When I told him he ruined holidays and special days for me, he said I was overreacting and needy. When I told him I was stressed or worried he would say I worry too much.

It wasn’t uncommon for my husband to fall asleep while I was talking to him. He said I shouldn’t talk to him at night. When I spoke to him during the day he would either stare at his computer or the television. There were other times he appeared to be listening but the objective was to listen long enough for me to shut up.

My feelings meant nothing to my husband.

The personal conversation could vary but one clear message was sent.

I was alone when I needed my husband.

He couldn’t hear me, engage me, help me problem solve or empathize.

I was emotionally neglected.

3. Emotional Neglect — A lack of connection

My marriage was two individuals living together as parallel play.

Toddlers do what is known as parallel play.

They occupy the same space but they often play independently of one another. They are influencing one another’s behavior but doing their own thing.

My husband and I lived together, went to games, parties, school events, traveled, and other things together. We were influenced by one another but we were also independent of one another.

I intertwined myself in his world but he did not involve himself in mine.

We had zero emotional intimacy.

My husband was passive-aggressive. As long as he could ignore me and I stayed out of his way things were fine. Again, this emphasizes a sense of parallel play. Two people in the same place doing their own thing.

In many cases, he was passive, not overtly neglecting me.

This is why our marriage was okay until I needed him for a surgery, etc.

But emotional neglect can happen either overtly or covertly. It can involve a spouse who will ignore you with the silent treatment or with words. It can be a lack of physical intimacy or some physical intimacy but still a lack of emotional intimacy.

Emotional intimacy is based on sharing yourself with another individual.

It’s a connection, conversation, secrets, feelings, and closeness.

It’s a sense of a deep connection with another individual.

You are sharing a part of another individual. You actually care what matters to them. This is why I attended events important to my husband. If it mattered to him then it mattered to me. It’s why I did some things without him or he ignored me at events that were important to me.

I had a degree of physical connection to my husband but nothing else.

I was alone and disconnected when I needed my husband.

I was emotionally neglected.

My family and friends often say the same thing to me.

“You could have stayed married,” they say. “Because as long as you didn’t get in your husband’s way he ignored you. You could come and go as you please.”

It’s a true statement.

As long as my husband agreed with how we were living life, I had freedom.

But I always say, “I was lonelier being married than I am alone in divorce.”

You would have to experience emotional neglect to understand the truth and sadness of that statement. It was agony living with someone and not feeling like they care about you.

On an intellectual level, did I know my husband loved me? Yes.

But it was a warped and abusive type of love.

There was nothing healthy about it.

My family and friends became my spousal confidantes.

This isn’t uncommon with people who experience spousal emotional neglect.

You have no one at home who is caring and sharing with you. No one at home wants to immerse themselves in your thoughts, hopes, dreams, worries, fears and stresses so you seek out others.

Emotionally grounded, empathetic, and loving people who do care about you.

It’s the only way to survive.

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