Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from folks who aren’t sure how to best communicate with their spouse when they are separated. Often, they intuitively know that reaching out too much can cause their spouse to pull away. So, they are understandably afraid of coming on too strong. But they worry that their texts or emails are sometimes misinterpreted or not taken in the way that was intended.

A common comment that you might hear in this situation is something like: “my husband and I have only been separated for a week, but I already feel him pulling away from me. I went by his apartment last night and it was so awkward. He was literally blocking my way in at the door. It was obvious that he didn’t want for me to come inside. So I didn’t push it. It’s sort of becoming clear to me that I need to give my husband a little more space. One of the biggest reasons that my husband wanted this separation was his need for space. So I am going to try to honor that more. My concern is what is the best way to contact my husband at this point. Should I just call him? Or is texting better because it’s less of an interruption to him and he can ignore it if he wants to? My hesitation with texting is that it’s very impersonal and he may take what I am saying in the wrong way if he can not hear my voice. This whole separation etiquette is very foreign to me. What’s the best way to communicate with your separated husband when he’s showing some resistance to you?”

I understand this dilemma as I had it myself. It’s very common to realize that you need to be able to keep in contact with your husband while also understanding that the way that you contact him may become quite important. Unfortunately, I don’t think that there is one answer for every situation here. Sometimes, you have to sort of feel your way and go with what is working at the time with the understanding that this may change. I’ll explain this more below.

First, Try To Agree With Him On The Timing And The Method Of Communicating: I believe that it’s optimal that you and your spouse come to agreement about how often (and by what method) you will communicate. And this can happen even if you did not have this discussion in the early days of your separation. If things start to get awkward, you can always have a new conversation. A suggestion might be something like: “I’m trying to avoid things becoming awkward when we’re uncertain about how to communicate. What makes you most comfortable? Do you want to schedule an agreed upon day that we will get together or call? Is it OK for me to text you regularly? I think it’s important that we communicate regularly, but I’m completely open as to how and when we communicate. What do you feel is best right now?”

It’s my experience that it’s much better to have this awkward conversation once than to struggle every time you try to communicate or to risk things go wrong. Don’t be shy about asking him what he prefers and then be open to being flexible, which leads me to my next point.

Sometimes, You Have To Change Methods Of Communication As The Occasion Calls For It: It’s very common to find that on some days, your spouse may be more receptive to you than others. And you’ll often have to adjust accordingly. One day you may call him up and find him very receptive to talk to you on the phone. The next day, he may be hurried and cold. And there may not be any huge reason for this, other than the fact that he’s having a bad day. It can be important to be flexible in these situations. If you call and you meet with resistance, you might say something like: “I can tell that this is a bad time. I’ll just call you a little later. Hope things get better.” Keeping things light and easy is better than trying to continue to talk and then to watch the conversation deteriorate.

If you choose to text, try to keep things light hearted. It’s very difficult to have a serious conversation via text message. In my own mind, text messages are best for just conveying a quick thought. You might text him something funny that one of the kids did or just tell him about something that made you think of him. But you wouldn’t want to try to solve your problems or have a serious discussion via text message because it’s so easy for the written word to be misunderstood.

But to answer the question posed, I used a combination of both phone calls and texts messages when I was separated. (I even emailed sometimes.)  When my husband was resistant to me and it was clear that he didn’t want to talk, I would use texting very sparingly until it become obvious that he was receptive again. When things were clicking well between us, then I’d try face to face meetings or phone conversations. I believe that all communication methods have their place and can be very useful. But sometimes you have to adjust depending upon the reaction that you get from your spouse.

There were some times during our separation where I truly had to back away and give my husband some time. This was a hard lesson for me to learn but over time, it just became obvious that if I continued to push, my husband was going to limit my access to him.  Over time, I became much better at gaging when to move forward and when to hang back. If it helps, you can read the whole story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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