London - Three little words. They’re all I really want to hear. Yet it doesn’t matter how much I beg, plead (and, on occasion, whimper), my husband Martin never tells me that he loves me.
In fact, in the 25 years we have been married, the only time those words crossed his lips was on our wedding day.
We could be in the throes of passion or snuggled in front of the TV, but he never succumbs. Every night, before I turn off the bedroom light, I turn to him and say: “Love you. Do you love me?” And every time he replies: “No. Sleep well, doll.” (Perhaps he thinks calling me “doll” is the consolation prize.)
In fact, our nightly ritual is, to him, something of a joke, albeit one only he thinks is funny. To me, it can be at best annoying and at worst, truly hurtful.
Through all our emotional milestones — including the births of our children, Sam, 23, Max, 20, Aaron, 17, and Sophie, 11 — I’ve never been told something other women hear on a daily basis.
I suppose by now I’ve come to accept the status quo. As my late mother so wisely told me: “Don’t marry someone thinking you can change them.” Yet a part of me is screaming with need to hear those words. And I don’t especially like how that makes me feel.
I suppose innate arrogance tells me that I am a prize any man would love: at 48, attractive for my age (I think), professionally respected and, so I’m told, sparkling company. In fact, men constantly flirt with me. I like to think of myself as a good mother, consummate home maker . . . blimey, what more could a man want?
And yet even with this tick-list of virtues, it doesn’t seem to be enough to get Martin, 51, to utter the phrase I am desperate to hear. All of which crushes (well, at least a little) the confidence I have about who I am.
The closest declaration I’ve had was when we recently escaped to the Lake District for a romantic weekend away. Asking me to lock up our picture perfect cottage as we set out for a walk, Martin called over his shoulder: “Don’t forget to bring the valuables with you. I suppose you can include yourself in that.”
Being so starved of verbal affection, I lived on this throwaway comment for days.
I have no doubt Martin does love me. He is caring and shows affection in his deeds. He has surprised me by buying me a dress I happened to mention I liked.
He has covertly arranged “help” from a cleaning agency to wash up after seeing me sweat over preparations for a large dinner party. And he has whisked me away on lovely holidays.
But whether we are sat at home in Manchester or on top of the Eiffel Tower, Martin will not say he loves me — in conversation or in print.
His message on my gorgeous bouquet of Valentine’s Day roses read: “From your secret admirer. PS: These are not from a garage.”
Why his silence on this subject? Well, Martin, a chartered accountant, whom I met when I was 18, says that he simply doesn’t think it’s important. “I don’t understand the need,” he says.
“We have, thank God, a happy life together. We’ve raised four children together. I love to be with you. But to have to spell it out in words? It’s just meaningless.”
Unlike me, Martin is all about practicality. After all, he files receipts for a living. But love? Forget it. It doesn’t have a tax code.
Not that he can’t be deeply empathetic or understanding when I’m feeling low. When my mum passed away two years ago, he was incredibly attentive. I remember him insisting that we go away to a beautiful hotel in the Lake District about a week after the funeral, so that I could have time to regroup and reflect on what had happened.
I didn’t ask him then to tell me he loved me, I suppose it was implicit in his actions, but how I would have relished to hear those words then. At least I discover I’m not alone. Ruth Shearn, 54, from Hale in Cheshire, says that despite spending 27 years with her partner, Rick, with whom she has a daughter, Alexis, 14, he still refuses to say he loves her.
“I’ll never forget when Rick threw me a surprise 40th birthday party, even going to the trouble of arranging for friends from hundreds of miles away to be there on the night.
“When he stood up to speak, I fully expected him to say something affectionate and loving and finish with the words ‘I love you’, the way I’ve heard other men do for their wives or partners.
“Instead he said: ‘Well, Ruth, you’re nearer 50 now than 40.’ It was meant to be a huge joke, but inside, I was so disappointed — and quite embarrassed, too.
“I wouldn’t row about it. After all, he’d gone to all this trouble for me, but it would have meant so much more if he had expressed himself this way.”
Despite all this, Ruth, who runs a digital marketing company, says she knows Rick is her soulmate, bringing her tea and hot buttered toast in bed every morning and making loving gestures when she least expects them.
“On one occasion, he arranged for us to go away for the weekend to a fabulous hotel in Pembrokeshire, a five-hour drive away, that he knew I was dying to visit.
“When a work meeting came up for the Saturday morning in Lincoln a few hundred miles away, he didn’t want to disappoint me, so instead of us wasting time spending hours on the road, he hired a small plane to take us there and back. You can’t get more romantic than that.
“Yet in romantic situations, however intimate, he clearly doesn’t feel the need to say he loves me.”
There is, perhaps, a deeply rooted and emotionally traumatic reason for Rick’s reluctance. Eighteen years ago, the couple’s eldest child died in an accident when he was just two years old.
“It was the most terrible, horrible experience, the worst thing parents can go through,” says Rick.
“During that time, Ruth needed constant confirmation of my love for her and I must have said ‘I love you’ all the time. We both needed something to cling to.
“That set the benchmark; when you go through something like that, you realise how important the words are, but, in my mind, it has consolidated how meaningless that phrase is in everyday situations. I said it when it really counted. I don’t need to say it now.
“Some couples say ‘I love you’ when they nip to the supermarket. It’s pointless. I don’t feel the need to give that reassurance, even when she wants me to. I love Ruth for her vigour, her vitality, her kindness, but I can’t do it. She shouldn’t need reassurance in that way.”
But as every woman knows, reassurance is something even the strongest of us need now and again.
When I put this to Louise Tyler, a counsellor who runs the Personal Resilience clinic in Cheshire, she says that when it comes to expressing love, women prefer to express their feelings through sentiment, while men use the action-speaks-louder-than-words approach.
“Perhaps it’s evolutionary,” she says. “When males were out hunting and gathering, there would have been little time for emotion, yet bringing food back would have been seen as a clear signal of love and devotion to their families, as would a physical relationship leading to reproduction.
“In modern times, therefore, a man is likely to convey love through such things as helping a partner in a practical sense or initiating sex.
“Women, on the other hand, enjoy the expression of love through emotions and words, perhaps harking back to the days when they were the innate nurturers of the family unit.”
Certainly, many of these reluctant men are quick to deploy the gestures of “love”, rather than expressing it verbally.
Russell Phillips, 43, an IT consultant from Eastbourne, East Sussex, even went as far as proposing to his girlfriend, Michelle, 30, in the middle of the arena at the Roller Derby world cup in Dallas, Texas, last December. It won them the title of Britain’s sweetest proposal, but he still won’t say “I love you”.
“Perhaps it’s because we were friends for a couple of years before we got together that he doesn’t feel the need to say it,” says Michelle.
“There have been times when I’ve longed to hear him say it, at moments of intimacy or when we’re just having a lovely time.
“I don’t know why it would be so nice to hear it, when I know how he feels about me, but I would.”
Not that Michelle would dispatch her husband to the spare room. Nor does she feel it’s because he holds the power in the relationship.
“You could say it’s more about me than him. He doesn’t feel the need to say it. I could make a fuss, but I’m not sure what that would achieve except arguments. That would be a recipe for making him love me less.”
Russell admits there have been moments when he has been tempted, such as the time they were on holiday in Portugal a few months ago and went for a romantic dinner at a restaurant overlooking a river.
“Michelle looked beautiful, the evening was warm. But I thought it would just spoil the moment if I said ‘I love you’. It would just make it all sound a bit trite.”
Maybe he’s right. Maybe saying “I love you” is nothing more than a cliche best left to the big, soppy messages found in the middle of satin-embossed greetings cards.
But I would weather the risk of those three little words sounding hackneyed, just to hear them said by the man I love. Even just once.
And I promise I wouldn’t ever ask to hear them again.
Daily Mail