Whether it’s a peck on the cheek or the forehead, a kiss on the lip to show affection, or a deep, passionate romantic kiss, you can’t deny the excitement kissing your spouse brings.
Without mincing words, kisses are essential in every marriage; one of the best treasures married people share.
When you first got married, you probably kissed at every given opportunity, and you both loved it.
You couldn’t take your hands off each other, but now things seem to have changed.
Your husband doesn’t kiss you anymore, and you wonder what that means.
Does it mean he no longer loves you or that your marriage has become stale?
Well, let us not get ahead of ourselves.
These are the possible implications.
What Does it Mean When Your Husband Stops Kissing You?
1. Life is happening
At the beginning of your marriage, you probably did not have many responsibilities, or even if you did, you both were able to manage them well while still keeping the fire burning between you.
But as time went on, the responsibilities increased creating a gap between both.
Now, your husband has to deal with bills, appointments, deadlines, and other tasks.
These responsibilities, and sometimes even the challenges that come with life, may have pushed the kissing way down in his priority list.
All he’s doing now is trying to keep his head above water and manage all the things that he has to do well.
This is not peculiar to your marriage; it happens to a lot of people.
It just shows that life is happening, and you need to pause and assess what matters.
2. He has become complacent
Before marriage, or early in marriage, your husband may have been all over you, always trying to steal a hug, a kiss, or even just holding hands.
You probably didn’t readily give him the attention and physical connection that he wanted then, so he was always on his toes trying to get you to respond to him.
Most men enjoy this chase.
They love pursuing and enjoy the feeling they get when they eventually “catch” what they are chasing.
But now, months or years into marriage, there is no need for him to chase anymore.
You are now his wife, and he can have you any time he wants.
This somehow runs down the adrenaline your husband used to have chasing you because there is no urge to do that anymore.
He has become overfamiliar with you and isn’t as excited as he used to be at your touch.
Familiarity and complacency, if not watched, can easily do a number on the intimacy in a marriage.
3. He’s bored
If your husband has stopped kissing you, it could mean that he’s bored.
Intimacy and sex in marriage are exciting, spicy, and beautiful, but it can get boring sometimes.
Couples need to intentionally remain interested in each other and find ways to maintain their passion and fire.
Perhaps your husband feels like there’s no life in your sex life, and he doesn’t feel the excitement anymore.
This can make him unwilling to engage in activities like kissing.
4. He’s distracted
The average person in our world today has a plethora of things to distract them daily.
I have observed that to achieve any form of success in any endeavor daily, you have to be intentional about keeping distractions away and focusing on what you have to do, or else at the end of the day, you will notice that you have spent the day doing things that you didn’t set out to do.
Distractions are everywhere, and that is not about to change.
They have a magnetic pull, a magical way of taking your focus away from what truly matters to other things.
From random activities happening around to technology, social media, gadgets, and so on, your husband may have gotten trapped in the distractions of this world.
Hopefully, the distraction is not another woman, but that’s a possibility in some cases.
When distractions become excessive, they can drain the life out of your marriage and it can affect your intimacy.
5. He needs some space
Needing some space is not always a bad thing.
Depending on your husband’s personality and primary love language, he may not always want to be cuddled up, clingy, and all mushy.
He may require some space from time to time, not because anything is wrong with your marriage or because he has stopped loving you, but because he just needs some personal space for some time, and then, he will be back.
And I’m not talking about him moving out of the house or staying away for hours; that is not right.
I’m talking about him not necessarily wanting to engage in physical activities, perhaps for some days.
Hopefully, you know your husband better than anyone else and can tell what his personality is like.
If he’s the type that needs some personal space from time to time, then maybe this is just one of those moments.
6. Bad breath
Halitosis is a medical condition that simply means bad breath in simple terms,
But not every bad breath is medical.
Sometimes, it’s just poor hygiene,
As much as many people may want to shy away from this fact, bad breath can affect intimacy in a marriage, especially kissing.
It could be from either of you: if your husband feels uncomfortable about your breath and perhaps does not know the best way to communicate it to you, he may refrain from kissing you altogether.
Or if he’s not confident about his breath and feels some way about it, he may lack the confidence to draw you into a deep, passionate kiss because he’s afraid of you squeezing your nose in disgust.
As uncomfortable as this is to talk about, couples need to be open enough to discuss it and find ways out.
7. Intimacy issues
Kissing is an intimate act, and if something is wrong with the intimacy in your marriage, don’t be surprised when it affects your kissing as well.
There are so many sides to this, but I’ll try to capture them in a few sentences.
When there is no emotional bond, deep communication, quality time, vulnerability, and openness, it may reflect in intimate acts like kissing.
Furthermore, if there is an issue with the sex in the marriage, perhaps your husband feels uncomfortable with the sex, or his libido has gone down, or he’s generally unsatisfied with the sex you both have, it can significantly decrease how many kisses you both share.
8. Toxic masculinity
I’m sure not the only one who hates to hear the different stereotypes that exist everywhere in our society; “women are meant to do this, men are meant to do that.”
“Women should be this way, and men shouldn’t be that way.”
Many societal expectations and stereotypes exist, from the ones that forbid women from being sexually expressive with their spouses to the ones that mandate that men must be hard, unyielding, and unable to express emotions.
These stereotypes will not be the end of us.
If your husband subscribes to any of these, you’ll see him play it out.
Perhaps he believes that showing emotions and feelings in acts like kissing is not manly, and so, to maintain his barge of manliness, he avoids kissing you.
I wish someone would tell him how dumb those standards are and that men who shower their wives with kisses are the ones winning.
9. He no longer finds you attractive
If he were attracted to you, he would kiss you.
It’s not rocket science.
But for you to be around him many times a day for many days and he still does not make any attempts to touch you, it could signify that something is wrong with the sexual attraction between you both.
This is uncomfortable to hear, but there’s no shame in it because it happens to many people.
The reason this happens varies from one marriage to another, so I can’t point you to the exact reason why your husband may not be sexually attracted to you.
What you need to do is talk to him about it.
If you have made efforts on your end by being attractive and hygienic and even attempted to kiss him yourself to no avail, then you both need to sit down and talk.
10. Personal and health issues
Your husband’s failure to kiss you could be pointing to deeper issues such as personal issues like self-esteem, confidence issues, or even health concerns.
Contrary to what a lot of people think and say, women are not the only ones who deal with body image issues; men do, too.
If your husband is currently dealing with insecurities about how he looks, he may be reluctant to initiate any act of intimacy.
And if he’s dealing with a health issue, it could be bodily or mental; of course, you know that intimacy may not be at the top of his list right now.
The issues first need to be sorted.
11. Poor communication
Communication is the heart of every marriage, and when it suffers, many things also suffer.
If your husband has stopped kissing you, it could mean that the communication in the marriage is poor.
You are both not interacting as much as you should and so there is no connection.
It is easy for expectations not to be met this way.
12. Quarrels and arguments
Your husband not kissing you could be pointing to unresolved issues or an unhealthy amount of arguments.
While disagreements are normal in marriage, they shouldn’t be the order of the day.
Constant quarrels, fights, and disagreements can easily quench the fire between couples.
This can happen with a little day-to-day arguments, but it is even more likely to happen when the fights about more serious issues.
For instance, if infidelity has happened between you both before, perhaps your husband caught you cheating; it could be the dark cloud that stays hanging over your marriage, making intimacy difficult.
13. Children everywhere
Your husband doesn’t love you any less; maybe it’s just because the kids are around.
He knows that he can’t be as wild and free as he was when it was just you two, so he’s refraining from doing anything extra before the kids.
For some men, it’s a mindset thing; they do not think it’s necessary to still engage in acts like kissing their wives just because they now have kids or the marriage has been on for some years.
That idea needs to be thrown into the trash as soon as possible.
Having kids should not stop the fire from burning.
I admit that it makes it a bit more difficult, but with some planning and extra intentionality, it can still work.
Besides, there’s nothing wrong with the kids seeing Dad steal a kiss from Mum now and then.
It shows love and unity.
14. Your marriage needs rejuvenation
Ultimately, what it means if your husband has stopped kissing you is that your marriage needs a rejuvenation.
You and your husband need to pause and reevaluate your marriage, not to the point of dissolving it, but to identify the cause of the decreased intimacy and address it.
While some people may think it’s normal for intimacy to stop as the marriage grows in years, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.
You can still be kissing, holding hands, cuddling, and even having great sex into your old age as a couple.
It just requires two willing people ready to put in the work.