My husband says he's not in love with me and now he's going out partying and drinking with his friends who are single and have no kids. In the last year we bought a bigger house and I'm a stay at home mom but i have just found a part-time job . We are selling the house we live in and moving back to the town where are family is but my husband is still going to live in the basment and all the bills will be 50 ,50 . I wait on him hand and foot I may nag at times because he doesn't do what I ask within a week. The kids are loud and do fight but they are kids. When he comes home from work he wants no noise.

VAL'S ANSWER

Solving marital issues is not an overnight thing. In order to have a change within marriage, we ourselves will need to change from the inside. We would need to make some adjustment in our thought processes and how we respond to situations. Right now, he's already separated himself from you and the kids by living in the basement. So the issue is winning him back. But winning him back start with winning him back in his mind. In his mind he's already separated himself.

Before I can start giving you counsel about what to do, we need to look at the root cause of this separation. You know if you want to get rid of weeds, you need to pluck them out from the roots and not just cut off the part showing outside the soil. Going to the root may not be pleasant because it may reveal things we don't want to see. But honest examination leads to honest change.

Men respond to things differently from women and sometimes we find it difficult to understand this. Men and women see things differently. For most men, when they come back from work, they simply want to unwind with some peace and quiet. In most cases, they don't want to talk and they don't want noise at least for the first one hour. This may sound selfish and probably is. But that's how they're made.

The typical man would think that he's been at work all day because of his family and when he comes home, he wants to be appreciated and feel at peace. Taking care of 3 kids is not an easy task and is full time work even though many don't see it that way, particularly our husbands. So we sometimes become frustrated with the lack of appreciation we get. Especially if we want some help around the house. But how we communicate it may resolve the issue or cause further problems.

You say you wait on him hand and foot and he may say that by going to work everyday is equivalent to waiting on his family hand and foot. When you ask him to do something and he doesn't do it, nagging is probably the way to get him NOT to do it. There's something that nagging does to a man, it makes him want to leave the environment it comes from. He may still love his wife, but he can't stand to be with her because of the nagging.

King Solomon said several things about this:

1The contentions of a wife are a continual dripping (Proverbs 19:13)
2It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop than with a brawling
woman in a wide house (Proverbs 25:24)

One the synonyms of brawling is wrangling which means to to obtain by persistent arguing or maneuvering. This means getting what you want by persistent talking or maneuvering. When a man is confronted by this, as you can see from the above quotations, he just wants to go where there's peace and quiet. He doesn't want to deal with it by responding, he wants to escape to a quiet place.

Please don't take any of the things I've said above as casting blame, it's just us looking at what may have caused him to separate himself so that we can now look at how we can restore the relationship. Remember that I said, it's not an overnight thing, but there are some things that can be done:

1You need to change the atmosphere of the house.

Did you know that words can create an aura or forcefield in a house? Bitter, angry words will make a house uncomfortable to live in. Of course bitter
angry words come from a bitter angry heart. How do you deal with this? Start by learning to forgive people for the wrong actions done against you and
then bitterness will not fester in the heart. Some times our bitterness against other people (not even our spouses) affect our relationship negatively with others because bitterness is an emotion that has the power to defile many people.

2Help the children make adjustments

I know kids will be kids. I have a 7- and a 2-year old myself. They're both boys and can be quite boisterous. But they can be guided in their behaviour.
I don't know how many bedrooms your present or future house has. But getting them to play somewhere else in the house at certain times of the day would help. Call the 2 olders ones and ask them why they fight all the time. When they give you their answers, find a way of helping them to resolve it. Tell them that you want them to fight less. You can't say that because they're kids it's OK for them to fight and make a lot of noise. They need to be guided and shown how to do better. If they do fight, send them to separate parts of the house to cool off and ensure they stay there till you say. You need to do this consistently for it to be effective.

3Your communication

Don't try to get him to do anything by asking repeatedly, shouting, crying, or using various forms of emotional blackmail. If you don't get what you
need for the kids or yourself when you ask him, don't keep asking, don't respond according to your natural impulse. Don't say the first thing that comes to your head, and don't look for words that will express how you "feel". Don't tell him that you need to work on the marriage to make it work.

Learn to practise the following. I said practise because it doesn't come naturally, but as you learn to do it, you will get better at it:

1Be slow to speak. Even when he says something hurtful don't respond immediately. Process your thoughts and plan out your response.
2Be quick to listen to what he has to say. Don't interrupt when he's talking.
3Be slow to anger. If you're getting angry. Go to the bathroom or somewhere you can be alone. Do what you need to do to relieve the anger e.g taking
deep breaths, counting to 10, etc.

4Keep a good appearance

This is probably something that you're already doing. But I'd like to remind you of it. Don't this just because of him. Do it for yourself. Make sure you
always look well presented. If you can't go to the hairdressers much because of your schedule, make sure your hair is neat, or go for a good low maintenance haircut that will enhance your features. Get some new clothes.
Since you've recently had a baby, your clothes would be at in between state. But get some nice clothes that suit your current size.

5Get on with your life

I'm glad that you've started a part time job that will take you out of the house for periods of time. I think you need it. You can also try other things like taking the kids to church and meeting new people. Going out during the day and associating with people puts more colour into your life. It gives you other things to think and talk about. It makes you a more
interesting person and that's important to a relationship whether present or future.

Putting these things in place will take time and commitment on your part because it requires quite a bit of change. But try putting them in place and lets see how things turn out.

PS. All the bills shouldn't be 50-50 since he most likely has a higher earning power than you do. And because you're part time for the sake of the kids, he needs to bear more financial responsibility for the kids. 50-50 would be an unfair arrangement. For now he wants his space so wait for a suitable time to talk to him about it.