When a spouse withdraws love due to stress, mental health concerns, sickness, or trauma, he or she becomes inwardly absorbed and stops paying attention to you. According to Brian Jory, relationship expert and author of Cupid on Trial: What We Learn About Love When Loving Gets Tough, this is how attraction begins to fade. The problem is that when your mate doesn't pay attention to you, he's actually giving his attention to something else. He's thinking about what he needs to do, who else he has to take care of, or whether he'll be able to handle his problems by himself. In other words, he's preoccupied with something else. In order to get your boyfriend back, you have to learn to accept his absence. You need to stop waiting for him to change and start changing yourself. Love is not just a feeling but an action word. It requires us to put others' needs before our own. Your boyfriend may not feel like hugging you right now, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't love you. He may be too focused on his issues to pay attention to you, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't care. All men are different. Some spend more time focusing on their feelings while others don't show their emotions much. Some men may even believe that if they don't care about you then it means that they don't love you.