In the Spring of 2018, I deployed to the middle east for 6 months. During that deployment, I was inspired to begin writing and publishing my pieces which is how A Faithful Step came about. 

As I began writing and publishing posts, I received encouraging feedback. Friends and family enjoyed reading what I had to say and oftentimes sent me messages of how they felt encouraged (< seriously, this means so much to a writer).

Despite those messages, I still felt naive, inferior,  for pursuing this calling. I had everyone’s support except for the one person I thought I needed—my husband. His lack of support acted as a barrier for me hindering my ability to give this endeavor a shot.

If my husband didn’t think it was a good, worthy cause, what was the point? I had never felt so unsupported in my life. 

Are you trying something new and have found yourself in the same situation with an unsupportive spouse?

Or maybe you struggle with infertility or an illness and your husband is clueless/not present. You are not alone. So many women are weighed down by feeling unsupported in their relationship. But why?

Is it true that women are more supportive than men? It is simply a gender difference or is there something more causing so many women to feel unsupported by their husbands?

What is support in marriage?

How we receive support is different for everyone. It depends on our personalities, preferences and circumstances. Some would even say how we receive support depends on our gender, but we won’t get into that…

Ultimately, recognizing the different types of support can open our eyes in our own situations and help us see whether or not we truly are dealing with an unsupportive husband or if we are receiving a different kind of support than we want or need.

Types of Support

Social Support is having the community to help you in times of needs. This help can come in 4 different ways, emotional, instrumental, informational and appraisal, although for the point of this post, we will only talk about the first three.

While all types of support are necessary, the core of our frustrations may often come from receiving the wrong kind of support and/or receiving support at the wrong time. 

1. Emotional support looks like expressing empathy, love, trust and care. Emotional support is crucial in any relationship, but especially marriage because the very foundation of marriage rests on our love and trust. 

2. Instrumental support is tangible. It comes in the form of actual service. For example, when our spouses work so we can stay home they are financially supporting us. For most marriages, this is probably the main form of support but shouldn’t be the only form of support. 

3. Informational support looks like advice, suggestions, or information and typically ends up being unwanted. Have you ever watched the youtube video, It’s not about the nail? If you haven’t, go check it out, seriously, I’ll wait.

Gender differences in Support

According to Lisa Neff, a psychologist at the University of Toledo, women are quicker to respond to support needs than men. Men, typically offer support differently, at the wrong time, or clouded in frustration or anger.

Studies have also shown that women are more empathetic (shocker) and better at reading emotions which leads to quicker reactions of support. This doesn’t mean that men are incapable of showing support. Men are fully capable of supporting their spouses.

Why is emotional support important?

The very foundation of marriage rests on the fulfilment of love and the ability to trust our spouses. Emotional support is how we understand and receive our spouses love and care. If our spouses aren’t emotionally supporting us, we can confuse that with a lack of love, and what marriage can exist, in today’s world, without love?

From the moment I created AFS, my husband had been very hands-off/disinterested.  It wasn’t that he discouraged me from writing, but he didn’t see the value in it. I think he just thought this was my online diary where I would “air our dirty laundry.” Eventually, I got up the courage to ask why he had been disinterested and his response hit me at the core. He felt it was a fad.

A fad. 

My initial reaction was to allow myself to be swallowed up in anger and wish to punch him in the throat. How dare he call it a fad? Clearly, he didn’t care about me or my dreams and if he didn’t care about me, how could he actually love me? 

Yet, a sense of peace washed over me and I knew that anger wasn’t the answer. Instead, I reflected on what he had just voiced. 

A fad...

Why did he think it was a fad? 

Was it because he bought me a $400 BOB stroller to go running and I only used it a few times to actually go running? 

Or was it because I never finished making the quilt whose fabric I spent over a pretty penny on? 

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had plenty of “fads.”

I felt a knot in my gut as I realized he had a point. I had plenty of dreams/goals, and yet I had barely followed through with many of them. 

Although it hurt, my husband was speaking the truth to me. He wasn’t going to be invested in a fad that wouldn’t last very long. Not when we work long hours, are raising a child and barely have personal time to decompress. 

As much as I thought I needed my husband to be my #1 fan, I realized his support was different than I wanted, but it was still present. I wanted him to emotionally support me, when in actuality he was giving me everything else but emotional support. At the time I had no idea there was a difference which resulted in feeling unloved, uncared for, and unsupported.

Tips when you feel unsupported

You may think that my examples are trivial. Perhaps you are struggling with a spouse whose unsupportive in your sickness, or pregnancy, or home management. There are still areas I feel unsupported.

I have struggled for years with wanting to lose weight but felt like my husband was completely unsupportive. What I wanted from him was to cut out the junk food so I wouldn’t be tempted… Did he? Nope.

The way he chose to support me on this weight loss journey was commenting on my late night snack choices or offering weight loss advice. His way to “support” me was informational support, and I bet I don’t have to tell you how much I did not want or need that kind of support.

My point: I thought my husband was being unsupportive.

I wanted him to challenge me to grow and be involved in this dream I had of writing, but it was my dream, not his, and support didn’t have to look like interest or being a cheerleader.

I wanted him to switch to eating whole grains, cut out all junk food and stop bringing donuts into the house!

I had it all wrong, my husband did support me, it just looked differently. So, in your own situation, can you see any ways your spouse may be supporting you?

If you have an unsupportive husband. How do you know? What does an unsupportive husband look like? 

Signs of an unsupportive Husband:

• Disappears during hard times

• Dismiss all of your concerns

• Never offer encouragement

• Indifferent about your successes

• Contributes nothing to the home (chores, financially, child rearing etc…)

You may be pregnant and feel alone and unsupported. He never asks how you are doing, he never goes out and buys the foods you are craving, he never asks questions about the baby. 

You may be struggling with infertility and your spouse is emotionally distant through it all. You are the one constantly injecting yourself and you don’t even know how he feels. He always runs away when life gets hard.

Maybe it’s a chronic illness, and your husband provides financially, but everything else rests on your shoulders. Or he may not provide financially.

Because our world is broken, unsupportive husbands exist. So what do we do?

How to get support from your partner

1. Have the hard conversation. As difficult as it is, you need to have that conversation with your spouse. How do you feel unsupported? The point of communication is to ensure everyone understands the point.

   The end result should always be to come together as one team, not to get your desires met. Having the hard conversation doesn’t mean listing all the ways your spouse doesn’t support you. It’s to express how you are feeling, why you are feeling this way, and to help your spouse understand your actual needs.

   It’s possible he thinks he is supporting you and it’s different than you expected or the support comes too late.

   *PRO TIP - Use “I” statements versus “you” statements. EX: I feel like you aren’t interested verses “You aren’t interested”

   Use the 10 Conversation Starters to help you communicate with your spouse regarding the topic of support. Fill out the form above or signup for our exclusive resource library and gain access to the various resources available to the AFS community.

   Related: Clueless Men and Angry Women

2. Communicate often. It’s not enough to have the hard conversation once. You should make it a regular habit to communicate often. Praise the times you have felt supported. Highlight the good, and express the areas of improvement. This isn’t an invitation to nag, but an invitation to grow your marriage by evaluating strengths and weaknesses. 

3. Acknowledge the support you are getting. Your husband may not give you emotional support, but is he giving you support in different areas?

   Acknowledge the ways he does support you. Acknowledge the support you get from outside your marriage and allow that to fuel you. I had people rooting me on, and I was treating them as if they weren’t enough.

   If you look, I am sure you will find a network of support.

4. Understand Your Needs vs. Your Wants. I thought I needed my husband’s support, but really I just wanted a different kind of support.  It’s not wrong for me to want him to emotionally support me, but I can’t change him. You need support, but how that support is displayed may not be within your realm of control.

5. Be the example. Even if your husband doesn’t support you in the ways you wish, be the example. Show him what it looks like to emotionally support you. Show him how to love when it’s not easy.

   Your husband will likely grow more from how you display support than how you communicate your wishes. It won’t happen overnight, and it may not change in a week or even a month. But you get to choose how important your vows are to you.

   If you truly meant for better or for worse, then be the example, pray often, and allow growth to happen. 

Related: 4 Tips When You Don’t Feel Like Loving Your Spouse

*If you are in a situation where your needs are not being met, or there is a form of abuse or neglect, then please seek professional help. Counseling makes a difference, even if you’re the only one going. 

As much as I want to give your husband tips on how to be supportive, he isn’t going to read this post. And arming you with ideas for how he can support you won’t help you either. If anything, it will probably turn you into a nag, and nobody likes to be a nag. 

Your husband may not provide you with the support you want or need, but it doesn’t excuse you from providing the support he needs. So here is an opportunity to grow your marriage and to lay down your own wants and desires for the sake of your spouse. And who knows, maybe this very act of selflessness becomes the solution to your problem? It’s worth a shot, isn't it?

“The next time you want to withhold your help, or your love, or your support for another for whatever the reason, ask yourself a simple question: do the reasons you want to withhold it reflect more on them or on you? And which reasons do you want defining you forevermore?” - Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing