Men Who Secretly Regret Marrying Their Wives Show These 8 Signs - Olubunmi Mabel

As beautiful as marriage may be, it could feel like a trap for some men.

While other couples around you seem to be thriving in their marriages, it may seem like yours is in an uncontrollable downward spiral.

If you are asked, your sincere answer would be that your husband acts like a weapon fashioned against the marriage.

You look at the man you married, and he bears only facial resemblance to the man who took the marriage vows with you.

He has become a stranger to you, and you are really wondering how you got here.

Well, you may have considered many causes, but one really doesn’t come to mind.

You haven’t considered the fact that he may secretly regret marrying you, and all the changes you are seeing in him are a result of this regret.

It is sad, but it is not uncommon for people to regret getting married, especially if they feel like they married the wrong person.

However, they may try to hide their regrets for many reasons.

Regardless of how well they hide their regrets, the signs will still show if you are observant enough to recognize them.

This article will explore the signs displayed by men who secretly regret marrying their wives.

Let’s get started.

1. He avoids spending time with his wife

Spending quality time with your partner is a pleasurable necessity in marriage for couples who are in love.

While they do it because it is important, they also do it because they enjoy it.

A man who loves his wife will want to spend time with her.

It’s that simple.

This doesn’t mean he doesn’t give her space or is all over her – a man can spend quality time with his wife while still respecting her privacy.

So, that shouldn’t be mistaken as avoiding quality time with you.

When a man secretly regrets marrying his wife, he avoids spending quality time with her altogether.

For him, it is not about giving her space occasionally.

It looks like a total boycott of his wife.

He always wants to be left alone.

He will make excuses to avoid you and sometimes even sound angry when avoiding your attempts to spend time with him.

A few years back, I shared a house with a married couple.

I had my apartment, but sometimes, you could hear conversations from the neighbor’s apartment, especially at night when it was really quiet.

They usually had quarrels, and the starting point of most of their issues was the man wanting to be left alone.

He once shouted, “Allow me to think o. Things are hard enough in this country without you disturbing me unnecessarily.”

When a man secretly regrets marrying you, he will use anything as an excuse to avoid spending quality time with you- Anything!

2. He is bitter

I had a conversation about marriage with my lecturer and came away feeling like marriage was a prison to the free spirit.

In that short conversation, he painted such a bleak picture of marriage that I almost decided to spend the rest of my life single.

Do you want to know the craziest part?

He is married!!

My married lecturer has a bleak view of marriage yet remains married.

That was a mystery to me.

Why would he remain married if marriage made him feel the way he described it to me?

I realized that many reasons and responsibilities may have kept him in a marriage he clearly regrets.

However, he spoke to me about marriage through the lenses of his bitterness and regret.

My point is that when you sometimes hear married people speak about marriage bleakly, it could be a sign that they regret being married.

I am sure my lecturer didn’t mean to give me such insight into the probable state of his marriage.

However, when a man secretly regrets his marriage, his bitterness about marriage will show, regardless of how much he tries to hide it.

A major sign that a man secretly regrets his marriage is his skeptical view of happy marriages online.

He may say, “People just pretend to be what they are not on social media.”

While it is true that social media is full of pretense, his default stance about happy marriages is that they don’t exist, which tells you a lot about his marriage.

3. He remembers his bachelor days fondly

“The days of freedom!”

A friend’s father had this to say about his bachelor days, and even though I laughed, I wondered if he was no longer free.

He didn’t seem to be in bondage, but some bonds are not physically seen.

Now, don’t get me wrong, and start thinking every man who remembers his bachelor days with nostalgia regrets his marriage.

It is normal to feel nostalgic when looking back on the past, especially when you had a lot of fun.

However, if it is all that he talks about happily, then there is a problem.

A happily married man can speak of his single days fondly but he will also have a lot of good things to say about marriage.

He will speak fondly about his marriage and show enthusiasm for the future of the marriage.

Life is not lived backward.

So, while we remember the past, we should also look forward to the future.

However, if he secretly regrets ever marrying his wife, he won’t be able to contemplate the future enthusiastically.

Rather, he will speak so fondly of his single days that you may get the feeling that he would prefer going back to being a bachelor.

4. Sex is routine

When a man secretly regrets marrying his wife, it is evident in his attitude to sex.

When a man is in love, he doesn’t view sex as just another activity.

Rather, he approaches it with the devotion of an ardent worshipper who is worshipping at the temple.

For a man in love, sex is not just an activity.

He doesn’t just have sex with you; he makes love to you.

And this is one obvious way to know when your husband secretly regrets marrying you because he won’t be able to make love to you anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean he will stop having sex with you.

Actually, he may reduce the frequency with which he has sex with you.

And when he finally has sex with you, it is mechanical, at best.

He goes about it with the efficiency of a man who knows his duty and just wants to get it done quickly.

Sex becomes another routine activity.

It’s just something to stop you from requesting it.

Or perhaps, something to make babies.

The fact is that when a man secretly regrets marrying his wife, he stops participating in sex actively.

You get the feeling that he is just going through the motions with you.

5. He mentions it indirectly

One of my favorite quotes comes from the Bible, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

This verse is a reminder that when people say things jokingly, they may actually mean it.

Hence, you shouldn’t just discount everything a person says jokingly.

When a man secretly regrets marrying you, he may mention it in passing.

He may not explicitly say he regrets marrying you, but he may imply it in some of his statements and jokes.

One time, I was talking to a married friend about marriage.

I teased him and said I was also ready to get married.

He replied, “Don’t get married if you want to enjoy life,” and laughed like he had just made a joke.

Maybe it was a sorry attempt at a joke but I felt that he was actually indirectly saying he wasn’t enjoying his marriage.

If your husband constantly states how different his life would have been if he hadn’t married, it may be a sign that he secretly regrets marrying you.

6. He is critical of his wife

I used to hate criticism.

It always made me feel like I didn’t know what I was doing.

However, I soon realized that my aversion to criticism was a byproduct of pride.

There and then, I made it a point of duty to encourage criticism – constructive ones.

Although I sometimes still chafe under the weight of some criticisms, I believe I am getting better.

My point is that criticism is necessary for improvement.

So, I am not even talking about those occasional criticisms from your husband when you are obviously wrong.

The kind I speak of is better described as nitpicking.

This is when your husband always seems to find something you did wrong despite the many other positive things you have done.

He literally ignores your good qualities and looks for flaws just because he wants to complain.

Really, when a man secretly regrets marrying you, he may turn a blind eye to your efforts and good qualities.

You could do all the good things in this life, and he wouldn’t notice, but the moment you just do something slightly wrong, he will pounce on that mistake like a lion pouncing on his prey.

It doesn’t always end with criticism: he also compares you to other women.

He compares you with them so much that you may get the distinct impression that he would rather be married to them than to you.

7. He says negative about you in your absence

When a man is happily married, he usually displays a tendency to talk about his wife all the time.

I remember when my sister had just gotten married, and I got tired of hearing phrases that started with “my husband.”

“Choi! How did he enter this conversation?” I would wonder, but she was always talking about him positively.

Men are no different.

They love to talk about the people they love.

When a man secretly regrets marrying his wife, he may display marked reluctance to talk about her.

He may avoid questions about his wife, and whenever he finally speaks about her, he will probably have nothing good to say.

Sometimes, I hear some married men talking about their wives, and I pity the poor women.

What they say about their wives usually makes me wonder why they are still married if she is that bad.

8. He stops sharing personal details

Happily married couples know that marriage is all about sharing.

They have learned to share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences with each other.

This is what boosts intimacy in relationships: the ability to share all of you with your partner.

But when a man secretly regrets marrying his wife, he begins to share less of his personal life with her.

If your husband secretly regrets marrying you, you may notice that he doesn’t really talk to you about his day.

His thoughts and feelings are like valuable gems stored in a vault.

You have no idea of what he is thinking or feeling.

It begins to feel like you are with a stranger.

When you start feeling like you don’t know anything about your husband, it may just be a sign that he secretly regrets marrying you.

Seeing these signs in your marriage can be a scary thing.

However, you should view recognizing the signs as the first step to addressing the underlying issues in the marriage.

Honestly communicating your feelings to your husband and listening to the reason he acts this way may also help you understand why a man who used to be so in love suddenly regrets marrying you.

You may need to consider looking at yourself closely.

Perhaps he may be reacting to something you have done.

This is not an attempt to blame you for his behavior.

It’s just an attempt to understand and explain it.

You may also consider seeking professional counseling to deal with these issues and achieve a healthier marriage.

The fact that your husband secretly regrets the marriage doesn’t have to be the end of the marriage.

Regret can be turned into happiness once again.

All that’s needed is the determination to put in the work and patience because the changes won’t happen in one day.