My Separated Spouse Has Told Our Friends Where He Lives, But He Won’t Tell Me. He Says He Loves Me But Trying To Save Our Marriage Is A Waste Of Time
By: Leslie Cane: A marriage or trial separation is painful and frustrating to begin with, but it can be doubly so when you don’t have enough information about your spouse to feel informed. An example is when you aren’t sure where your spouse lives because he won’t share this information with you.
A wife might explain: “the last three weeks have been awful for me. My husband told me about a month ago that he was going to leave and that he wanted to separate. I didn’t think that he would ever go this far. I knew we had our problems, but I didn’t think that they were as serious as all of this. I begged him to reconsider and told him that I know he still loves me. He confirmed that he still loves me, but said that he feels our marriage has become beyond repair. I begged him to let me try and save our marriage, but he said he feels that this is a waste of time. And he says that he doesn’t want me to get my hopes up for something that will probably never be. To make matters worse, I just have to wait to hear from him because he changed his phone number and he will not tell me where he is living. He told some mutual friends of ours. They know where he is. But he has instructed them not to share this information with me. How do I even begin to save my marriage when I have no idea where he lives? How can I get our friends to tell me?”
There’s a lot of questions here. And it might seem that you are a long way from a reconciliation. But I suggest that you try very hard not to get overwhelmed by this. You can break down any large or difficult task into smaller chunks. And you can place your focus on those smaller things – one at a time – so that they don’t seem so insurmountable.
Why Pushing Often Backfires: I know that you want to save your marriage. I’ve been there. But when a separated husband is resistant, as your husband is now, pushing isn’t always the best thing to do. I also don’t think that leaning on your mutual friends to find out his whereabouts is a great idea either. Not only will it make things awkward, but what happens when they tell you? Do you then go over to his place unannounced and just hope that he will be glad to see you? Because he may be just the opposite, especially when it’s obvious that you’ve ignored his wishes and proceeded anyway. This might only make things worse.
Resort Back To Baby Steps: Sometimes, when things are this volatile, you have to try to save your marriage in small stages. Right now, at least in my mind, the immediate goal should be to reestablish positive communication again. And in order to do that, sometimes you have to put your plan to save your marriage aside – just right now. Not forever. I had to do this also and it wasn’t until I backed off of the reconciliation aspect of our separation that I gained more access to my husband.
I know that this might feel like you are going backward. But if this backing off strategy makes your husband less guarded and secretive, then it would have been more than worth it. Right now, I would think it would make sense to back off of the issue of his residence even if you are dying to know. The next time he calls you, consider not even mentioning it. Try to make it clear that you are keeping busy and working on yourself – and having faith that the rest will work itself out eventually.
You want to make it clear that you’ve toned down the pressure and that you’re taking things day by day. Once he sees that every conversation isn’t going to be centered around where he lives or what is going to happen with the separation, he may well call you much more. When this happens, know that the goal is just to improve communications between you. For now, that is probably the best place to put your focus.
Why? Because only when you establish a stable and regular communication pattern can you safely and effectively address your marriage. If you aren’t even talking regularly or if it goes badly every time you attempt this, then it’s unrealistic to even focus on your marriage until this can happen.
However, once you’re talking regularly and things are going well, then it’s appropriate to look at that issue again. I know that it’s frustrating to know that you might be looking at a gradual process. But sometimes, that’s the situation that you find yourself in. And you have to keep the end goal in mind – while settling for less at first.
At least this was the case with me. I would have loved to have reconciled very quickly. But the more I pushed for this, the more clear it was that my husband was never going to let this happen. So I had to take the reconciliation off the table for a little while. This allowed me more access to him and eventually I was able to put it back on the table at a later time. We did reconcile, but not in the time frame I would have liked. However, the gradual approach gave us time to build a strong foundation that has held firm. You can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com
Filed under: Uncategorized by admin
