Understanding why your partner doesn’t feel loved isn’t about guesswork. It’s about learning how they receive care, and how both of you can stay connected. Our relationship experts, Matt and Carina, tell us more.
Ask 10 different people what makes them feel loved and you’ll get 10 different answers. For sure there will be overlapping themes, like thoughtfulness and kindness. But how is that thoughtfulness being expressed?
It’s this next level down, of action and gesture, where love is expressed and how it’s received, that really matters, and where a lot of people stumble.
And they stumble because of one key misunderstanding – we think people understand and receive love in the exact way we do.
Perhaps for you, waking up to find a hot, perfect cup of coffee on your bedside table would feel like pure love. You’d feel the care and thoughtfulness and effort of your partner in your heart and it’s just mwah!
And you want your partner to feel loved too, so it’s just obvious that you’d lovingly place a cup of coffee on their side of the bed so they’d feel as loved as you do. Makes sense, right?
But for your partner, what actually feels loving is being woken up with a sleepy hug, a kiss and a “good morning.” A cup of coffee is nice but no biggie, they could just as easily make it themselves later. So what do you do to show how much you care?
Why your efforts aren't landing the way you expect
The Five Love Languages are helpful (quick recap: acts of service, touch, gift giving, words of affirmation and quality time). For me (Matt here), my main love language by far is touch, and everything else is a distant second. If I could only pick one for the rest of my life, I know exactly what it would be.
Carina likes to say her love language is whichever one is missing—a bit tongue in cheek, but it’s also a reminder that your love language is allowed to be yours even if it doesn’t fit neatly into a textbook list.
So unless you have a conversation about what feels loving to each of you (if it’s touch, what kind of touch or, if it’s acts of service, what kind of service, etc. or something else entirely), you're shooting in the dark.
And we get it. Having this conversation can feel vulnerable (which means it’s tempting to put it off for, like, forever), and even kind of a failure. Because if we’re in love, aren’t we just supposed to know what our partner needs?
If only. Time to let that go.
Talk about the way you need to receive love
Most of us didn’t grow up seeing our caregivers calmly talk about what helped them feel loved, so it’s no surprise it feels awkward or even embarrassing. Without this conversation, and without paying attention to what really lands for your partner, you’re going to continue to end up guessing and trying to read their mind, which can lead to feeling disconnected and even lonely. Maybe you give up doing anything at all, or maybe you double-down on what you think will make them feel loved.
Carina here. The other piece is to take a look at how you are feeling with your spouse and your “come from” energy. This type of self-awareness is a game-changer. I’ll explain what I mean.
I can imagine how frustrated, rejected, worried and unappreciated you’ve been feeling. And that would make sense. Of course it hurts when your partner tells you they don’t feel loved—especially when you’re trying so hard.
The unexpected kickback that happens when we’re “trying so hard” is that there’s a hidden energy of push. For me, this shows up when I get tight and panicky trying to manage my fears by controlling Matt or myself, and I’ve noticed over and over that my controlling energy actually makes things worse.
What works much better is to stay open, keep love in my heart and take the action I see to take while trusting that everything is going to work out.
There’s a wildly wonderful shift that can happen when you let go of worry and decide to step into acceptance and trust. That can look like acceptance of your partner, acceptance of the situation, and acceptance of yourself, at the same time as trusting that things are going to work out somehow and trusting yourself and your love.
But how you might be asking? How can you let go and trust when there is so much at stake?
Here are three steps that we recommend. They aren’t easy, but they’re definitely worth it:
Take the lead in your emotional experience
Your feelings are yours. They want to be felt and heard by you. Feelings and emotions are how your body and subconscious talk to you, and the more you practice listening to them and having calm and curious conversations with them, the more you can have them be your wise advisors instead of panicking chickens. We highly recommend starting some kind of meditation practice to strengthen your internal observer and to practice seeing your emotions as valuable information that help you learn about yourself and what you need.
Have beautiful boundaries and decide your if/thens
Boundaries are an art and an ongoing discovery. Some boundaries you will create and keep for your whole life, and some you will experiment with and iterate over and over. The opportunity with an unloved-feeling partner is to create a plan for yourself that has room for your growth and pleasure no matter how they are doing. This might sound unfeeling but in fact it’s just the opposite—you will have more capacity to love them where they are when you aren’t desperate for your own validation through their experience. For example, if they pull away for days at a time, decide you’ll check in once and spend the rest of the evening doing something nourishing for yourself.
It is also important to make some if/then decisions about yourself and your relationship. For example, you have decided to stay together and accept them as they are forever, or if things don’t change in 12 months you are going to reconsider the relationship. Your decisions are yours and can change of course, and having an answer to any anxious questions will be a relief and bring calm presence to the fearful parts of your brain.
Take wonderful care of yourself—body, mind and soul
When someone we love is struggling, it can feel terrible in our own bodies, like their struggle has become our struggle. Your brilliant brain has something called mirror neurons that are part of how you absorb, understand and learn from the world, and they are part of your empathic experience of another person. It is important to practice grounding yourself in your own care and loving self-talk so you can better know what is actually you, and what is you taking on your partner’s discomfort. When you tend to yourself, you’re also calming the mirror-neuron “echo” inside you which helps you feel what’s yours and what’s not.
It’s a humbling realization that you can’t be everything to your partner. Humbling and hopefully liberating. We highly recommend them getting their own support like coaching or therapy as another step to you not being responsible for their experience. It gives them space to look at what’s going on for them, what they want, what they wish for and what they believe about themselves.
Love in long-term relationships isn’t about performing the “right” gestures or guessing what your partner needs. It’s a mix of honest conversations, nervous-system calm, personal boundaries, and the courage to stay soft while you figure things out together. When both partners feel safe to be themselves, and loved in the ways that matter to them, connection has room to grow again.
About Matt and Carina
Meet Carina Reeves and Matt Hilliard—your go-to relationship experts who’ve cracked the code to thriving partnerships. As partners, parents and certified coaches, they've been there, done that, and now they're here to help you transform your relationship with yourself, your partner and your kids.
Struggling to connect? Losing yourself? Their proven blend of practical strategies, mindset shifts, and embodiment practices creates immediate results—even in the busiest lives. They believe small, intentional shifts can revolutionize even the most challenging relationships (even the one with yourself).
Connect with us on Instagram @itsmattandcarina, reach out via email at [email protected] or visit mattandcarina.com.
