My husband of 21 years wrote a letter to me 3 months ago sharing over 25 statements that I have spoken over him from 2019 that has caused him great distress and hurt that he describes as me being holistically devaluing of his character. He lives in spare bedroom because he can not be near me. I did take ownership of words, he has forgiven but is still healing. He moved out of bedroom into spare bedroom in Oct 2025. We have not been intimate since then. We met with a marriage coach suggesting to start trying to rebuild friendship in hopes to restore desire for romance or intimacy again. Husband has no desire and looks at me only as a sister in christ. he is working on relationship with God in hopes to restore identity and confidence that I damaged. He is hesitant in doing so as he doe know if that will help restore any though connect or intimacy. Has anyones character been spoken poorly over by wife trying to rebuilding relationship was successful through spending time together even though you were not at a place to fully be on board with spending time together would change anything ?
May I make a few suggestions.
Why not write a letter to your husband telling him about those aspects of him that you respect and admire.
Suggest a time when you together read the bible and both pray, currently it is Ramadan so you could both pray for Christians living under Islamic rule, try open doors for information.
On a practical note, talk about planning a food menu together or seek tasks routines that the two of you could do together.
Lastly pray for him and your self.
It sounds like you have followed the biblical instructions for forgiveness. However, the aftermath of being hurt requires emotional healing. The phrase “once burned, twice shy” describes the withdrawal one has from potential pain. To regain trust and make one vulnerable again requires this sort of healing.
As already suggested writing a letter could be a good start. If there is a start to wanting to rebuild, one can establish a sort of signaling system such as using hand signals if a hurtful statement is inadvertently given. With humor this could be use even playfully.
If there is an activity such as fishing, bowling, or some other activity that he enjoys you might suggest that you both do it so he can begin to associate pleasurable sensations with you.
You can be intentionally solicitous of his mood and state of being which lets you know the “temperature of the water” as well as communicate your ongoing desire to make changes.
Satan sets the course of the world (for now and insofar as he is allowed by God) on of the ways to detect his plans is to see how he uses media. Most TV programs are designed to imprint people with an idea of how they are to interact with others. Women in general are seen to beat up men, insult them, and be demanding. This is done in general to attempt to promote selfishness. Men are also imprinted with ideas of casual fornication and self-indulgence.
Part of the reason for this is to guide us into self-destructive behaviors. Christianity offers the opposite influence. We are supposed to transition from the selfishness of the flesh to the selfless love of Christ. Here is a free booklet on how to walk by the Spirit that might have some use,
pdf - https://christianpioneer.com/ebooks/wbts.pdf
web pages - Christian Pioneer - Current blog
I am a husband in a comparable albeit less severe situation and working through my own processing right now. My wife and I have a long history (14 yrs) of having a lot of good and close times, but also are very bad negotiators or compromisers. Essentially, in almost everything, one wins and the other loses. No middle ground. My wife doesn’t see this, honestly doesn’t get or value the times she “wins” because if we had to discuss it at all it wasn’t what she calls a win. But since we can’t compromise, she also has grown to resent the times I’ve ever “won”. For the last 3 years or so, it has lead to increasingly harsh, biting words from her. Just often dripping with resentment anytime something comes up that would ordinarily, for most people, lead to a situation of discussing and compromising.
About a year ago I told her that the harsh, biting words had to stop. She was consistently tearing me down, causing me to question my grip on reality (for example having a version of conversations, my motives, my intent, etc. radically different from my memory), and injecting loaded barbs into everything from simple requests to answers to my questions. I told her it had to stop. Her response was basically “What has to stop? I don’t do that. I never do that. I don’t know what’s wrong with you but that’s not me. You need to apologize for your false accusations of me.” And the hurtful comments and barbed speech continued.
It’s reached a point where intimacy is effectively gone. I admit my fault here, because there have been so many times in the past year where in the bedroom I just can’t continue because I remember her words, what she seems to think of me, what she’s said about me, and feel overcome with a mix of anger, sadness, resentfulness, and other negative things. Of course then my “failure” there tends to lead to more negativity, creating a vicious cycle. I haven’t yet moved to the couch at night, but it’s on my mind. As it is we have been sleeping on the edges of our bed, clothed almost like daytime wear, pillows in between. I’m sure I could be trying harder. To be reaching out to her. But I have a lot of other stresses and pressures from work and more and have to be honest, after this long I don’t feel like I have it in me because I know she is just going to hurt me again.
We do talk. Often have to record conversations because they go awry and then can play back to try to identify when it went wrong. She does apologize after a blow up but I am just finding it hard to deeply forgive on the level that would let her have the access to me to do it again. She even encourages me to go see a counselor to talk about how to live patiently with her, be able to have the strength to handle what she dishes out, and to “get a better grip on truth”. I have asked her if she would go to a counselor on her own or with me and she says no, she knows herself better than anyone else, even her own mom and closest friends, and a counselor’s opinion is worthless to her. But if I’d find it helpful for me then by all means go.
We’ve also tried the approach of writing letters to the other. Personally, I’d call it fifty-fifty on if they do more help or harm. I find her letters to be sincere but incongruent with how she actually speaks and acts. She picks mine apart like a teacher with a red pen, crossing out what she disagrees with, circling things, writing margin notes, basically correcting it to fit her narrative and making me feel like I’m back in grade school.
Like your husband, I am trying to do what I can. I am trying to better my relationship with God. To better withstand these barbs and verbal darts with strength because my identity and confidence is in Christ and not in her. At times I find myself thinking, almost fantasizing if you will, about what life could be like if my wife and I could have a harmonious, happy, relationship. But I know it’s not to be right now. I wish I had the strength to just shrug off her attacks and meanness, and for many years I tried, though it was exhausting and draining. Soul-sucking, if you will.
We are trying to do what we can. Spending time together in the evening. Agreeing to just have fun so we can enjoy each other’s company. While knowing that once we head into the bedroom we’ll be as roommates who just happen to share a bed, or something like that, until morning. We are committed to each other, to not leaving, to trying. But, at the same time, the harshness, the sharp words, the cutting and biting speech, has really killed off a large part of what a Christian marriage ought to be.
I’ll be praying for you. I wish I could give you a better answer on how to move forward but don’t see the way forward out of it myself.
The Christian life is supposed to be about transitioning from the selfishness of the flesh to the selfless love of Christ-likeness found by walking by the Spirit.
Honesty may be expressing how you feel. Love may be not sharing how you feel if it causes someone else to feel bad. Consider the biblical definition of love. It is pretty much selflessness.
1Co 13:4 Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
1Co 13:5 doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil;
1Co 13:6 rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth;
1Co 13:7 beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Here is a booklet of Dying to Self that may be of some use;
pdf - https://christianpioneer.com/ebooks/dts.pdf
web pages - Christian Pioneer - Current blog