Leslie Cane Articles

Many separated wives are hoping that their husbands will miss them during the separation and therefore experience some important revelations. For example, many wives hope that he realizes that he has taken her for granted. Instead, some find that their husband seems to care less than ever.

A wife might say, “we’ve been separated for six weeks. This is long enough for my husband to realize what he is missing. I definitely began to miss him very early in the process. However, he seems to not care about me at all. He cares about his friends and his new hobbies more than me. He now makes plans without consulting with or thinking about me at all. Last week, I got a promotion at work. He knows how long I have waited for it and how much it means to me. But when I told him about it, he had a very unemotional reaction. Normally, he would have taken me out to dinner. He would want to celebrate with me. Now, he could barely pretend to be excited for me. His mother fell a couple of weeks ago, and he didn’t even tell me about it. My sister-in-law mentioned it in passing because she assumed that I already knew. I desperately want to reconcile my marriage. But I don’t think this will be possible because my husband pretends I don’t exist. If I were to rate the important people in his life, I don’t think I’d even make the list. I am the least important person in his life, and I am devastated.”

I completely understand why you feel frustrated and hurt. When I was separated, my husband treated me as less than an acquaintance sometimes, and the distance hurt deeply. And yet, my husband and I are still married today. So how did I go from him treating me with indifference to him wanting to reconcile with me? Very gradually. And with many starts and stops because of the mistakes I made. However, I learned from those mistakes. Because of them, I now believe that there are steps you can take to regain control of this situation. I’ll outline them below.

Understand That There Might Be A Reason Behind His Behavior: Your husband’s feelings for you may not reflect how he will feel in the future. Marital separations are emotionally difficult for most people, even if it doesn’t always look that way. As a result, your husband may be pushing down his emotions. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care. It just means that right now, he doesn’t want to feel. I know that it may be tempting to try to engage to inspire him to show any feelings at all, even a feeling like anger. But that tactic usually backfires. Worse, he may start to avoid you if you make pushing a habit. Instead, understand that his behaviors may be in part due to the difficulty of your situation and know that he may need a little more time.

When He Doesn’t Make You Feel Important, Prioritize Yourself: Even if your husband is not making you a priority, nothing says you can’t make yourself one. Know that you matter. Conduct yourself as if you are still a priority. Act as if you still have a place in his life, even if he is temporarily not himself. In the meantime, make yourself as strong as you possibly can. If you approach him as if your status is diminished, he will treat you that way. Don’t allow that downgrade. Make sure that you are staying busy and that he is well aware of this.

Watch And Wait: It may not feel as if you have much control over his attitude right now, but sometimes waiting is actually a decisive action. Since pushing often results in him treating you with even more indifference or downright avoidance, you’re sometimes better off hitting the pause button. I don’t mean that you need to pretend like you don’t care or that the separation isn’t happening. I mean that you accept that this entire process from start to finish might take some time. Sometimes, this pause piques his curiosity.

When men first separate, many shut down their emotions so that they can wait to see how they truly feel. There is every possibility that your husband is in this phase right now. What else is there but to wait for it to pass? If you engage or challenge, he may retreat even further. But if you wait without giving him any reason to back away, he may prioritize you again.

Know That His Perceptions May Change In Time: Sometimes it takes time for men to realize that life is not so wonderful when you are alone and living single. When that time comes, many men realize that they miss the stability and warmth of their marriage. And the person who made that marriage run was you, which is why this realization is likely when he’ll treat you as if you’re extremely important again.

Know When To Nudge: I know it may feel as if that day when you are once again a priority can’t come soon enough. I thought it would never come for me. It did, but I had to nudge it along very, very carefully. When things stabilize some, you can try gentle nudges to get your husband interacting with you again, but this is a delicate process which must be done with care. I actually made things worse before I learned to use more finesse and before I took advantage of a deep history with and understanding of my husband and his psychology.  You can read about how I finally learned to nudge on my blog here.

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