Marriage is a very beautiful union of two individuals.
But the truth is if we want to be realistic with ourselves, there are ups and downs that constitute this beauty.
The beauty is one that has a lot of behind-the-scenes that never make it to the public view.
It has the part of the argument that can linger for days.
It has the part of shaken trust.
It has the part of financial instability.
It has the part of divided attention.
Mention it, and you realize that everything is all involved in the beautiful marriage that you see and admire.
This blog post is about the hidden struggles in a marriage with how some men are unhappy in their marriages.
Don’t get me wrong; not all men are unhappy in their marriages.
It just happens that some type of men have lost the happiness that they once found in their marriages.
Different factors lead to this, and I will be discussing these factors alongside these men in their different categories below.
8 Types Of Married Men Who Are Unhappy in Their Marriage
1. The Distant Husband:
The first on this list is the distant husband.
This is the type of man who is so overwhelmed with everything around him that he has become so withdrawn emotionally from his own marriage.
The funny thing is that he might not even realize that he is so withdrawn from the union.
And it is sad that the major cause of this can be work stress in a case where he is taking on so much in his chosen career path.
He is probably trying to skill up or get up the ladder in his workplace, and that pressure has deprived him of the emotional intimacy he ought to have with his wife and family.
Another major player in a distant husband is a breakdown in communication.
Where there are communication issues in a marriage, the man is bound to be distant from the wife.
It will not be surprising to find out that he stays away from home because oftentimes times, these communication issues degenerate into unresolved conflicts that become too much to handle.
No matter how much one tries to rationalize these issues that cause the distance, you’ll see that the pressures are enough to make him unhappy even when he’s trying not be.
2. The Workaholic:
This kind of man is one that prioritizes his work over his marriage and his family.
He brings the pressure from work to home, and he does not know the difference between an office and a home.
He’s not available for family time, not even bonding with his own friends.
Everything and anything about him is work.
This kind of man lacks a work-life balance.
He is so ambitious to the point that he is blinded to the emotional needs of himself and his home, and as a result, the pressure can drive him into unhappiness.
This is because he has not set the boundary for work and quality time together with his family.
His priorities have been just work and not the home.
As a result, he will be missing what it means to have and experience happiness in a marriage.
3. The Unfulfilled Dreamer:
The unfulfilled dreamer is a human in a garment of frustration.
He is someone who has had his dreams conceived for so long and has not been able to actualize these dreams.
In fact, this unfulfilled dreamer can blame his unactualized dreams on the fact that he is married.
The funny thing is that he might be dealing with a midlife crisis and fail to even realize this.
Some of these unfulfilled dreamers are actually dealing with indiscipline and a lack of personal growth and development, which they have failed to realize.
At the same time, they expect magic to happen based on their wishful thinking, forgetting that castles are not built in the air except in dreamland.
This kind of man can be on the couch all day, taking out his frustration on everybody and anybody who shares the same space with him.
The fact that he has not actualized his dreams based on certain things that are not within the control of anybody will make him unhappy in his marriage
4. The Overburdened Provider:
Now, this kind of man has my empathy.
In reality, if you are the only one bearing the financial burden and strain of your immediate family and possibly your extended family, you are bound to be under pressure, and happiness might just fly out of the window when it becomes too much.
This is a result of the fact that the man might have an unstable job or have to deal with unrealistic expectations of his financial dependants who do not care about how much he puts in the work to get the financial resources.
Even if the man is financially capable, the fact that constant demands are always made of him is enough to set him on edge.
He will realize that all he ever does is give out, and nothing ever comes in except for income from the hard work he puts in.
What financial responsibilities mean is that he has to work extra hard to keep the whole clan running.
A financially exhausted man is an unhappy man.
A financially strained man will definitely keep a long face.
5. The Communication Challenged:
It will be very surprising for a communication-challenged man to actually have a happy marriage.
I’m serious here because even the people who have the communication good to a certain extent still struggle with keeping a happy home.
Communication is one non-negotiable thing that must be strong in any union whatsoever.
You cannot afford to compromise on it.
The reason unhappiness will plague this kind of marriage is the fact that poor communication will lead to a lot of misunderstandings and conflict in the marriage.
Imagine talking and you are not understanding each other because you do not know how to communicate your feelings.
Imagine talking, and the person you are addressing is not even listening to you.
All of this would accumulate into grievances that would make you frustrated and eventually unhappy in that marriage.
A man who cannot communicate will assume that his wife should have superpowers to be able to deduce the things going on in his mind or head.
Marriage is not a magic show.
Understanding is not sexually transmitted, and mind reading does not come preinstalled with a marriage certificate.
6. The Neglected Romantic:
This kind of man is actually suffering from the frustration of being neglected romantically by his wife.
I can imagine that before it got to this point of being a neglected romantic, he had all the cozy time in the world with his beloved wife.
This is the kind of man who is usually big on touch and does not want to keep his hands to himself when his wife is around him.
He probably connects with his wife better when he is in physical contact with her.
Physical contact here is not always in an intimate way.
Sometimes, it could just be him holding her hands while they talk or even when they are having dinner.
However, different realities play out in the course of a marriage as it ages.
Children can come in, thereby taking the attention of the wife from the husband and leaving him all to himself.
Sometimes, it just becomes a thing of busy schedules that are clashing, and as a result, the wife has no time for intimate moments and intense affection for the man.
At other times, it can just be a form of loss of attraction from the wife towards the husband as he is probably not looking as he used to at some point, and she is someone who is big on looks as a fuel for her attraction and intimacy.
All of these things are factors that can contribute to a lack of affection in a marriage, which will eventually lead to the man being neglected romantically and ultimately becoming unhappy.
7. The Unhappy Adventurer:
If you have met someone who loves to explore a lot or you are one yourself, you will understand this kind of man to a certain extent.
The unhappy adventurer is a married man who sees himself as being caged and trapped in the routine of married life.
He sees marriage as a chore and more of an obligation rather than a union that he can actually explore with his wife.
The fact that he sees it in this light will dampen his spirit because it is more of a job description for him.
Now, it is no longer a thing of riding the waves of time together.
It is now a thing of being trapped in a ditch forever.
He believes his hobbies are lost, and he has lost his individuality to the union.
He will feel his in a trap and always crave freedom.
Nobody in a cage is ever happy, and because he sees himself trapped there with no adventure, he is unhappy.
8. The Reluctant Husband:
So this type of husband is the one that got married, not because he wanted to really get married.
Now, the reality of marriage life is getting to him, and he is not having it.
Let’s just say he is throwing marital tantrums.
This kind of man probably got married due to external pressure that he could not resist, and he eventually caved in.
Another reason he could have gotten married was due to a rushed decision on his part.
He probably thought getting married would absolve him of certain responsibilities or challenges, forgetting the fact that marital life has its own challenges on the inside.
He might not even be so sure of the woman he married but just went on anyway, thinking he would figure it out when he eventually gets married to her.
The reluctance will begin to play out because he was never really fully committed to the marriage from the get-go, and he did it due to certain conditions that he felt were beyond him.
He didn’t look beyond the present nor had a premonition about the future so as to know if the woman is married is someone he can eventually have a happy home with.
This reluctance and the associated factors will all come together to push forward his unhappiness, which becomes a plague for him in the marriage eventually.
I totally get it that so many factors can be responsible for a man’s unhappiness in a marriage, and if he really wants to resolve this issue, it is up to him to identify the cause of that unhappiness and tackle it from its root.
If he is not dealing with it from the root, he cannot get a lasting solution to it.
And if you are a wife reading this and you perceive your husband is unhappy in your marriage or he has even shown it to your face that he is unhappy, you can try to figure out the cause of his unhappiness and find a solution to it together.