My Husband Moved Out To Get Attention. How Do I Respond?
By: Leslie Cane: Some separated wives question their husband’s motivations for moving out. Some feel as if he moved out as some desperate attempt to make some grand display in order to get some attention or response.
Someone might admit, “my husband has obviously been a little unhappy with our marriage for a while. He would always make sarcastic comments about not getting enough of my attention and not having enough “alone” time together. While I’m a little sympathetic to this, I have 3 children under the age of 5. I’m doing the best that I can but I’ve always felt like he was a grown man who needed to understand that our kids are small and need me. So I just kind of tried to reassure him and hope that he would get over it. Well, last week he left me. He left a note saying that he doesn’t know what he has to go to get my attention and to make me realize that he has needs too. I am so annoyed at this. I don’t know how to respond. I don’t want to reward him for his immaturity. He needs to learn that they are his children too and he doesn’t need to act like a 2-year-old. What now?” I will try to address this in the following article.
When He Leaves To Get Your Attention, It is Best To Acknowledge His Need For Validation: I understood this wife’s reaction. The husband did seem to be placing his needs very high on the family’s list of priorities. But, even if the wife was right that he was acting like an immature jerk, she wasn’t likely to make him realize (and then admit) he was wrong by bringing all of this to his attention. When a man is so frustrated that he feels as if he needs to leave, then his emotions are likely running so high that he’s just not going to be willing to listen to reason. He’s simply too close to the situation to be objective.
So as much as your feelings might be justified, you are more likely to bring this to an end if you validate his needs. Sometimes, all he really wants is for you to just listen and then to validate him. He needs for you to just listen calmly so that he knows that he matters. It even helps if you repeat his concerns back to him and ask for clarification (which I’ll discuss more a little later in this article.)
If He Wants Your Attention, Give It To Him, But Ask For His In Return: I know that you might feel that he’s being selfish. But, believe me when I say that it is often much easier (and much more efficient) to just hear him out and give him the attention that he’s feeling he so desperately needs. I know that you might feel as if you are rewarding his childish behavior. But I have seen this scenario play out a lot. And sometimes, if you continue to ignore or argue with him, then he feels as if he needs to keep escalating his behavior. Sometimes, this means he will do things that are worse than this, which gives you more to deal with.
You have to ask yourself what you truly want to happen. Yes, you might be incredibly frustrated with him. But, ask yourself if you really want to allow this to damage, or even to eventually end your marriage. Because often, yes you are tired and frustrated, but you really don’t want to eventually separate or divorce. What you really want is to find a way for everyone to be happy and for him to stop whining about where you are falling short. That’s why it makes sense to go ahead and deal with this right now and move on.
A suggested response might be something like: “let me see if I understand you. And stop me if and when I’m wrong, but what I am hearing is that you are very frustrated because you feel as if the kids get all of my attention. Is this how you are feeling? And if so, what can I do to address this and to reassure you that this isn’t the case? You are very important to me. I want us to all live under one roof like a true family. And I want for everyone in our house to be happy. But right now, I have an awful lot on my plate. Can we work together to find a way so that we are both happy?”
Hopefully, you see where I’m going with this. It doesn’t hurt anything to give him the response that he is looking for. You’d likely want him to do the same for you. And, at the end of the day, if your response strengthens your marriage and gets you both on the same page so that you are supporting one another rather than keeping score, then this whole process will most certainly be worth it and his leaving would actually be a positive thing because it would have been the stimulus that inspired the improvements that made you both happy.
I honestly wish I’d paid more attention to my own husband when he began to complain about not getting enough of my attention. I just hoped that the problem would go away. But it didn’t. Like this husband, he left to get my attention and I had a very hard time getting him to come back. I tried many different strategies until I found one that worked. If it helps, you can read the whole story on my blog http://isavedmymarriage.com
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