Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Although some spouses are very clear about wanting to keep in close contact with their separated spouse, there are some who want precisely the opposite. Some spouses have decided that it would be best to keep their distance during the separation. Sometimes, this is a matter of strategy – they want their spouse to miss them. Other times, both spouses agree that things are so volatile between them that it might benefit everyone to cut off contact so that things calm down. And the reasoning behind these decisions can be very valid. But there can be concern about whether or not this “no contact” is going to jeopardize your ability to reconcile later.

Someone might explain: “during the first week or so of my marital separation, I did not want to see my husband. At all. And I doubt he yearned to see me all that much. No one actually said ‘no contact’ and no one said that we weren’t going to see or talk to each other, but that is just the way that it ended up because there was nothing really to say at that point. Then, as time went by, I got kind of angry and hurt that my husband hadn’t tried to call or contact me in any way. So then I decided, on my own, that I was not going to contact him. I figured this would let him see how the silence felt and that perhaps he would miss me. Well, now this has been going on for over two weeks. My coworker told me that this strategy was crazy. She said that no one is going to want to reconcile or to come home after ‘no contact.’ Is she right? I’m not sure I intended for this silence to go on for so long. I never intended to end my marriage for good when my husband and I decided on a separation. But now I worry that this might be exactly what I have done.”

The Pitfalls Of Prolonged No Contact: As you have seen, no contact can be tricky. I used a sort of a variation on it during my own separation – however, I didn’t do this on purpose and I didn’t even know that there was an official name to this strategy. All I knew was that what I was doing before wasn’t working. I wanted LOTS of contact during my separation, but my husband wanted to limit it – because the whole reason he wanted to separate in the first place was that he wanted space. The more I tried to push contact, the more he resisted. So I stopped trying to contact him. I would have been more than happy if he had contacted me, but he did not. However, after a bit of silence, he eventually  DID reach out to me with an entirely new attitude, although this took a while.  So for me, no contact was effective – even though it wasn’t strategic. It was just that I felt like I was out of options and ideas.

However, it was always very clear that I was receptive to my husband. And there wasn’t really enough time that went by for him to think that I didn’t care or to assume that I had moved on with my life at that point. And I think that this is one of the biggest drawbacks of no contact. When the couple isn’t in touch at all for long periods of time, people do make assumptions. People can think that their spouse doesn’t care, isn’t interested in a reconciliation, or is perhaps pursuing something else.

If you think that any of these misunderstandings are possible in your case, I think that it wouldn’t hurt to reach out in an unobtrusive way. Perhaps you could text just to see how he is doing. Or you could place a quick phone call. His tone of voice and reaction could lead the way from there.

One text or phone call does not mean that you have to be in constant contact from that point on. You may not want or be ready for that. But unless you’re sure that you want to take the separation to the next level or you have no interest in communicating with your spouse and don’t care about the consequences, then I think that there is a risk with taking no contact too far and for too long.

Striking A Balance: Sometimes, something that was intended to be temporary can linger on and can cause your spouse to assume things that just aren’t true. And sometimes, the longer no contact goes on, the more awkward it becomes to try to pick up where you left off. You don’t need to talk every day or even very regularly if you don’t want to. But, at least in my opinion and observation, you don’t want too much time to go by before you just touch base. And you want it to be clear that your spouse is always welcome to call you at any time. At least if you want to save your marriage, you don’t want to close yourself off to that possibility.

But to answer the original question, my own husband was willing to come back after a short period of no contact. But the lack of contact wasn’t really the reason that we reconnected. Once we were both open to it, we did the work. And we moved very gradually. He didn’t move back in until we had several trial runs and were absolutely sure that it would work. I think no contact can help to cool things off sometimes, but I also think that you have to be careful with it. You can read more about how I very gradually got my husband back at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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