I Want To Meet My Separated Husband To Talk But He Doesn’t Seem Very Receptive
By: Leslie Cane: Some people do very little talking in the time frame before their actual marital separation. The reason for this is that emotions are running high and it can seem that there is very little to say that might make any difference. Plus you can be so angry, hurt, and upset that you don’t want to say something that you might regret.
But things have a way of calming down some once you are actually are living apart. And after some time has passed, you can begin to miss your spouse and want to talk things out. After all, if you can lay your cards on the table, then maybe you can start to heal, and this may put you toward the first step of reconciliation. However, like many separated wives, you may find that your husband avoids you when you try to have this “talk.” He may not out and out refuse to have the conversation. Instead, you may find that he gives vague excuses or just puts you off. But however he acts, it may become quite obvious that he’s just not ready to talk about your marriage yet, which can make you question where you stand.
A wife might say: “When my husband and I separated, everything happened very quickly. He became furious with me and he left the house abruptly. We didn’t make anything legal. We just had the understanding that we were going to be separated for a while. Due to his anger, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be married to me anymore. I knew that it was best to give him time to cool off. And I think that I was right about this because things have seemed to be a bit better. He’s now taking my calls and we’ve had some decent phone calls. But I want to take this to the next level. I’d like to meet and talk about “us.” I didn’t want to just spring this on him and I wanted to be honest about it. So I offered to make him dinner if he’d give me a few minutes to talk about our marriage and what I see for the future. He told me almost immediately that he did not feel ready to do that, which really hurt me. What harm can it do to talk about us and about our marriage? Are we just going to tap dance around the subject and stay separated forever? Does this means that he wants a divorce? Why would he not agree when I want to meet and talk?”
He May Be Merely Stalling: There are a few potential reasons. Of course, I can only guess at them. Your husband would be the best person to ask, (although I suspect that you might not get a straight answer.) Much of the time, when separated husbands try to dodge your conversations about the separation or the marriage, it is because that they think that it is too soon to have this type of conversation. Perhaps in their minds, not enough time has passed to really evaluate where you are, what you want, and what would need to happen in order for things to change. In short, they might think that things are just too fresh to have any meaningful conversation right now.
He May Be Doubting Or Evaluating His Feelings: Another possibility is that he is isn’t sure how he is feeling about things. Perhaps the separation and the anger is still a little fresh and while things are definitely improving, he’s still not at a point where he has a firm handle on his feelings. As such, he doesn’t feel like he’s in the place where he can have deep discussions about them. This doesn’t mean that he will never want to discuss his feelings or that he wants a divorce or continued separation. It might just mean that he’s not ready to talk right his second.
Moving Forward: So where does that leave you for now? Well, as tempting as it might be to want to push, in my experience, that’s the worst thing that you can do. You’ve said yourself that things have improved, so pushing might mean that you take a step backward. Instead, you probably want to continue to build on the progress that you are making. That way, your husband will not feel pressured and you can continue to be more and more comfortable talking about the small things that don’t seem to matter, but actually are building a foundation.
In my own experience, I had to work up to a level of comfort where we could talk about our problems. And quite frankly, looking back now, it was probably better that way. Our marriage was just too fragile during our separation . If I had pushed things, we may have talked our way into more problems. We would have been defensive and nothing productive would have come from these conversations. Instead, our light hearted banter (where we didn’t discuss our marriage at all) allowed us to bond and to connect again. That allowed a strong base from which we could later build – and then (when we were stronger) – to hash out our issues. (There’s more of the story at http://isavedmymarriage.com
But I wouldn’t think you’d want to put the cart before the horse in this case. It’s better to be comfortable and connecting and ONLY THEN to discuss the hard topics. I’d suggest allowing your husband to shelf the hard conversations for now. Continue on with the path that allows you to make progress and then to gradually shoot for more. There is a far greater risk to reward ratio this way and everyone is more comfortable.
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