How Does A Separated Husband Feel When His Wife Finally Leaves Him Alone?
By: Leslie Cane: Many husbands who initiated a separation are not completely receptive to their wives’ attempts at regular communication. Often, the wife who was reluctant to separate will have to fight the urge to overwhelm her husband with almost constant attempts at communication and reassurance. This is understandable. No one wants to just sit by helplessly while their marriage threatens to go up in smoke.
In fact, it’s quite easy for scared wives to panic in this situation and to cling even tighter – which of course, can make things even worse. Sometimes, it becomes fairly obvious that the wife truly does need to back away and give her husband that space he’s been seeking, but she will often second guess herself and wonder if she made the right call. She also may wonder what her husband is feeling or thinking when all of a sudden, she has decided to leave him alone as he has asked.
She might say, “I’ve been separated for the past eight weeks. The only reason that this has occurred is that my husband believed that he needed a break from myself and our marriage. He assured me that he wouldn’t abandon me, but that’s exactly how it feels. I call him regularly, but he keeps conversations short. I try to initiate face-to-face contact with him, but he turns me down. Many of my friends say that I should give him exactly what he wants – to be left alone. And deep in my heart, I know that they are right. Because things just continue to deteriorate the more I try to get him to pay attention to me. So I know that I need to back away, but I worry that he will think that I’ve abandoned him and that I don’t care. And likewise, I’m also worried that he will rejoice and begin the process of moving on without me. How do most separated men feel when they want space and their wife finally leaves them alone?”
It really does depend on the man and the situation. I can’t speak for anyone, but I can tell you what happened to me and what my husband shared with me later, after we began the process of reconciliation.
A Husband’s Perceptions: My husband knew that I wasn’t going to abandon him. He knew that I cared. I had made all of that very clear when I was pretty much stalking him during our own separation. I also knew that it was going to be difficult for me to keep to my word and give him space. So I went out of town for a while. This meant that I would have a more difficult time reaching out. I told my husband where I was going. I told him that he could contact me at any time, if he needed anything at all.
And then, I took a deep breath and I finally did give him space and I left him alone. At first, he felt relief. I had finally respected his wishes. He was finally going to get the time he needed to evaluate what he wanted to do with his life. And, I’m actually sure that he enjoyed this for a little while. I also think that this enabled him to think more kindly of me, since I finally gave him what he was asking for. This meant that he could stop seeing me as a pest or as someone who, at least at the time, was impeding his growth and contemplation.
However, after some time passed, he began to wonder about how I was. He knew that I worried and cared about his well being and, despite his posturing and frustration, I truly believe that somewhere, deep down, he felt the same. As a result, he reached out to me to see how my trip and my progress was going. At this point, I limited things to light small-talk. This was very difficult for me, but my husband’s reaching out confirmed what I already suspected – giving space or leaving things alone can turn the tide.
The Aftermath: I tried to either keep conversations short or allow my husband to come to me. And then a funny thing happened. He began to miss me. He began to realize that things would happen with his life and he would want to share them with me or commiserate with me, but I wasn’t reaching out as much because this is what he asked for. So we renegotiated our communication.
And slowly, regularly, we began to communicate. It was very superficial at first and not at all meaningful. It literally was just touching base or just quickly reaching out. But very gradually, things became a little deeper. We began to slowly make progress. His feelings toward me softened considerably. I am not sure if this would have happened had I not momentarily left him alone.
Can I promise that all husbands will react this way? Definitely not. Some husbands may just feel relief for a longer period of time. But, for myself, I began to feel as if I had no choice. Things were only getting worse the more I clung to my idea of what communication should have been. So I respected my husband’s wishes and this gave him the space to miss me, to view me favorably, and to be open to seeing what might happen between us if he opened himself up. (I do think that it is important to make it clear that you’re not angry, that you’re not retaliating, and that you are not punishing your husband. You are simply respecting his wishes and he can reach out to you at any time if he wants or needs to.)
Our total reconciliation took some time. I would have liked the reassurance of things moving much more quickly but, again, if I had pushed, I may have jeopardized any chance I had of making improvements. Of course, I think that the chance I took (although anxiety-inducing at the time) was more than worth it. You can read more about how we made it work after our separation at http://isavedmymarriage.com
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