I Want My Husband Back, But He Doesn’t Seem Interested At All
By: Leslie Cane: One of the biggest challenges that separated wives face is enticing back a husband who just doesn’t seem interested in the marriage anymore. Often, your initial efforts fall on deaf ears. As a result, you can become more and more desperate to get the attention of your husband, which might lead you to do things that would not normally be typical of you. And when even this doesn’t work, you begin to wonder if it’s even possible to get him interested again.
Someone might lament: “as soon as my husband decided that he wanted a separation, it was as if I didn’t exist for him anymore. He no longer seemed to care about me. I had to hound him to take my calls and he never, ever called me. A couple of times, I offered to make him dinner or I invited him out to dinner. He always declined. I tried making family plans with his mother and father, thinking that this might bring us closer together. He declined when I was involved, but he later went on the trip with his parents anyway. When it became clear that he didn’t seem very interested in our marriage, I tried to remind him that we were indeed married by suggesting that we go to marriage counseling with the preacher who married us. Again, my husband will attend church on his own, but will not go to church counseling with me. He seems completely uninterested in anything that has to do with myself or with our marriage. A few weeks ago, I got desperate and got dressed up and went to the gym where I know that he works out. It is an understatement when I say that he was not at all happy to see me. I desperately want to save my marriage, but I can’t seem to get my husband’s attention or get him interested in me. Is there any way to get my husband back when he’s just not interested?”
I believe that there is a way, at least some of the time, because my own husband could not have been less interested for much of our separation and yet I was able to get him back eventually. It took much longer than I wanted, but I think that part of the delay was because of my ratcheting up my efforts when I perceived that I was being ignored. The more that he ignored me, the more outlandish my attempts to get his attention became. Eventually, he was just avoiding me all together. So I would to work very hard to undo the mess that I had made.
And weirdly, one way that I started to get his attention was that I stopped trying. I eventually got so discouraged that I just decided to back off for a while because I could not face the thought of more rejection. I told him where I was going, but it was clear that I would be out of touch. After a bit of this change in strategy, it was him that started reaching out to me. When I saw that this strategy might be working, I continued to hang back more. And while I certainly can’t claim that he was suddenly so interested that he wanted an immediate reconciliation, what I can say is that he began to reach out to me a little more so that gradually we talked and saw one another much more frequently.
I saw this opportunity for what it was – a chance to try to gain some ground. But I had to be very careful. Sometimes my relief and enthusiasm would get me into trouble. If I started to come on too strongly again, my husband’s interest would once again wane and then I would have to start all over again. It is much better to maintain than to have to pick up the pieces over and over again. So to the extent that you can, when you see a lack of interest, take another tactic or back off some. When you get a response and he indicates even a small amount of interest again, take full advantage of that opportunity. Make every interaction count, but don’t overdo it. You want for your interactions to be light hearted and pleasurable. Because if you can keep them that way, he will want to have more of them. Your goal should be to slowly build upon each interaction so that they are happening regularly and, by default, he has interest without your needing to act desperate or having to do over-the-top things.
This whole process may take a while. I can’t promise that he will immediately show an interest when you change tactics. But in my experience, it can get to the point where you have no other choice. If your current strategy is getting you nothing but a lack of interest or worse, him avoiding you, then it makes sense to try something new. In my own case, I just stopped trying to force his interest in me. And that made all of the difference. You can read the rest of the story at http://isavedmymarriage.com
Filed under: Uncategorized by admin
