How To Talk So Your Separated Spouse Will Listen
By: Leslie Cane: Many separated wives complain that their husbands ignore or tune them out during the separation. Worse, the husbands who are willing to engage often do so in negative ways. They argue or engage in bickering and debates. Understandably, many people want tips on how to talk so that their separated spouses might actually listen and respond positively. After all, how can you save your marriage if he/she won’t even talk (or listen) to you? Below, I’ll offer some tips that I learned about positive communication during my own separation.
Understand That You May Need To Delay The Conversations You Really Want To Have: I suspect that I know the kinds of conversations that most separated spouses want to have. Because these are the conversations that I tried to begin. I wanted to know where I stood with my husband. I wanted to know what he was thinking and planning. I wanted to know what he thought about our issues. I wanted him to understand where his thinking was flawed. I wanted to convince him that he was wrong about the need for a separation.
And yet, every time I attempted (even carefully and positively) to have these conversations, I got a very negative response. If you retain anything at all from this article, please remember this: A spouse who has asked for a separation and then went so far to carry it out is a spouse who believes that his mind is made up. He also likely perceives that he made the best available decision at the time.
So when you come in with words meant to make him rethink this, you might get a polite rebuttal or an angry denouncement. But you are not likely to get a spouse who says, “Oh, you are so right. I did not think this through. Thank you for educating me on the error of my ways.”
This is true even if you are 100% correct. In the initial phases of your separation, your spouse is very invested in being correct. He is not ready to admit where he is wrong. Trying to accomplish this is often a waste of time that will only move him further away from you. So, if you can’t yet talk frankly about your marriage, issues, or reconciliation, what can you talk about?
Find Topics That Bring You Closer Together And Demonstrate Growth And Progress: I know that the above paragraph may make it seem like you have nothing important to talk about. But try to adjust this thinking. Your initial conversations are all about setting a foundation on which you will eventually build. No one is saying that you will never have the important or necessary conversations about your marriage. I am suggesting that you put them off until you are on firm ground with your spouse again.
These initial conversations are meant to do only a couple of things.
- Establish positive communication.
- Begin to restore ease and intimacy.
- Show your spouse behaviors that may begin to make him question his assumptions.
These little objectives can yield big dividends later. They are very important. Don’t underestimate them.
It’s a good idea to keep your conversations light and easy. You want any interactions to end on a positive note so that there is no reason that your spouse will not be open to you when you speak again.
So what can you talk about? Well, this depends upon your marriage, your personality, and your situation. I can only speak for myself, but I learned to talk about my personal progress. I spoke of the new classes I was taking or the experiences I had with my friends. From difficult experience, I learned that I couldn’t afford to talk about how lonely and resentful I was. My husband didn’t want to hear what he perceived as complaining or manipulation.
I also learned that if we had a pleasant conversation or had fun together, my husband was probably twice as likely to be the one to reach out to me the next time. So, it was very much in my best interest to keep things light and easy. (Understand that you already know the topics your spouse gravitates to. Stick to the conversations you already know will be winners.)
As things improved between us, my husband took me to some hockey games. So, I let him teach me about the game. Admittedly, I hadn’t been very interested before, but as I opened my mind and showed an eagerness to learn about what interested him, my husband realized that I was not as inflexible as he’d thought.
I also showed my husband someone willing to try new things and have fun. It is important to display playfulness when and if you are able.
Did these conversations have anything directly to do with our marriage? No, but these things eventually changed the way that my husband THOUGHT about our me and about marriage, and this ultimately helped us to reconcile eventually.
When You Begin To Talk About The Specifics Of Your Separation Or Your Marriage, Remain Positive: Honestly, I was probably a bit too conservative, but I became so paranoid of driving my husband away because of my previous mistakes that I often allowed him to be the one to bring up the separation, the marriage, or the state of both. Once he did, I found it important to remain positive. Although I often wanted to lament, “how much longer is this going to take?” Or “I feel like you’re dragging your feet,” I learned that my husband often only saw these types of phrases as complaints and so he would begin to back away.
I learned that you can release the feelings behind your concerns more positively, like saying, “I look forward to eventually moving forward with our lives. I’ve missed you.” Or, “I hope you’ll let me know if there’s anything that I can do to prevent delays to our progress.” Notice how I flipped conversations of loneliness and feet dragging to positive sentiments about the future. You’re basically saying similar things, but you’re tempering it so that it doesn’t make your spouse defensive or encourage him to tune you out.
Over time, you learn that there is almost always a positive way to get your point across. If you can do this, your spouse is MUCH more likely to listen to you during the separation and beyond. Once he does, THEN you can begin to whittle away at your problems. But you need a captive audience first, so choose your words carefully.
I hope that this article isn’t too cautionary. It’s just beneficial to avoid my mistakes. If you can get your spouse receptive to you again, this is half the battle. And you can’t do this if you try to have the wrong conversations at the wrong time. I learned to pick my battles. And this made all the difference. You can read the whole story of our reconciliation at http://isavedmymarriage.com
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