Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: When you are separated, often one of your short term goals is getting your separated spouse to miss you. This is a short term goal that you are often hoping will lead to the long term goal of getting him back home or pursuing a reconciliation. Many people hope and assume that this is going to be automatic. After all, when you’ve been with your spouse for a very long time, it just makes sense that you would miss one another simply out of habit. When this doesn’t happen or when one of the spouses indicates that it takes effort, then worries can take hold.

A wife might say: “my husband left me for reasons that seem pretty obscure and selfish to me. He’s suddenly just not happy and he ‘wants to be selfish for a while and just focus on himself.’ I would never just walk out on my marriage to ‘find myself’ but I guess that’s where he and I differ. All along, my friends have been telling me that in a very short period of time, he will start missing me and he will understand how silly he is being about this whole thing. I had suspected and hoped that they would be right. My husband depends on me to take care a lot of things for him and I suspected that once I wasn’t there anymore, he might really struggle to fill that void. So I waited and I was looking for signs that he missed me. Quite frankly, I really didn’t see any. He never called me. I always had to call him. Then one day I got frustrated and I straight out asked him if he missed me. His response was: ‘I’m really trying. I think that we just have to be patient.’ Trying? He’s trying to miss me? What in the world does this mean? Why would a husband have to ‘try’ to miss his wife? Unless he just doesn’t love her anymore so that no matter what happens, he’s not going to miss her and is just going to be glad to be rid of her? Now that I’m digesting this wonderful bit of bad news, I’m starting to think that my marriage is over.”

I understand why this is so discouraging. It’s not what you’d hoped for. I know first hand that many of us who separate are hoping that the distance really does a lot of the work for us. But when this doesn’t happen, we make unfortunate assumptions about our separation and therefore about our marriage. I don’t know your husband and I am certainly no expert, but when he says ‘I’m trying,’ you could take that in a couple of different ways.

First, he might mean that not enough time has passed for him to process everything that is happening. Sometimes, especially when it is soon after the separation, what you feel is raw and sort of numb – even if you are the one who initiated the separation. Because you’re sort of just blank, you aren’t feeling longing yet which means that you can’t yet miss the person. Sometimes, all that is needed is more time. Another thing that you may want to consider is how much you are reaching out. If it is too much, this makes it more difficult for him to miss you because he hasn’t yet had that pause or that void. I don’t know how often you’re talking, but I did notice a mention that the wife was the one who always called. I don’t know how frequent this is, but if your husband doesn’t seem happy to hear from you and is always making excuses when you call, then maybe you back off on this schedule a little and see if the quiet will give him more of an opportunity to miss you.

Because when he says ‘I’m trying,’ what he might really mean is that he’s trying, but when you are calling all of the time, this really doesn’t give him the opportunity to see how he feels when he is not in constant contact. I know that it’s hard when you’re missing him and you’re wondering how he is doing and what he is feeling. I know that hanging back when you feel like calling seems counterintuitive. But sometimes, this is the best thing you can do when the contact seems to be too much, at least in his eyes.

I’m not telling you not to communicate with him at all, to ignore him, or to pretend that you no longer care. I’m just suggesting that if what you’re doing now isn’t working as you would like for it to, perhaps you try reaching out a little less to see if that makes him happier to hear from you and to miss you a little more.

I had to do this during my own separation, although I was basically just throwing up my hands in frustration rather than following any specific plan.  No one was more shocked than I was when it actually began to work.  You can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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