My Separated Spouse Says I Have To Earn His Affection
By: Leslie Cane: When you’re going through a separation, you often think that if you could get your spouse to love you just a little bit more, then you might be able to inspire a reconciliation. Some of us become so desperate that we will come right out and ask our spouse what it will take for him to love us again, only to be told that he still loves us, but that love is not enough to keep us together right now. Some separated spouses are honest about the fact that not only is the love not quite there, but it is not just going to magically reappear unless something happens first.
Someone might explain: “I will admit that I have not been the greatest wife in the world – especially over the past year or so. But my husband hasn’t been so perfect, either. I have taken my husband for granted and it turns out that he’s been having a hard time emotionally. He didn’t tell me, but I should have taken an interest and I should have known. When he finally did tell me, I only took it seriously when it was too late to really do anything about it. He had already gotten tired of waiting and he left and declared that we were separated. Of course I’m trying to make this up to him, but now he is started to hint that it is too little too late. And I am starting to panic. In frustration, I asked him if he even felt a little bit of love for me any more and his response was that I am going to have to ‘earn his love back.’ I don’t even know what this means. In my opinion, you either love someone or you do not. I can’t get over the connotation of ‘earning’ being clocking in at a job and doing labor. How do you earn someone’s love? And should you really have to do this if you are married to someone? I mean, I know that we are separated, but we are still married.”
Read Between The Lines To See What He Is Really Saying: I am not sure that it’s best to think of this in literal terms right now. I think that what your husband is trying to tell you is that he feels that you let him down in terms of being there for him and giving him support. And now that you are wanting reassurance from him, he is finding it hard to provide that without getting something in return. Instead, he wants to see certain behaviors from you. This is very common. And the reason that you might be seeing this hesitation is that he felt rejected and disappointed before, so he is reluctant to leave himself vulnerable again. By asking you to “earn” the love, he’s really asking you to “prove” that he can trust you or that it’s “safe” to depend on you again. What he is really saying is that he is afraid of feeling rejected and alone again so he wants you to show him that he does not need to worry about this. In fact, I’d be willing to be that his pursuing the separation was motivated by the same set of fears.
Addressing His Fears While Overcoming The Challenges Of Separation: You have a unique challenge here. It is hard enough to earn back a spouse’s love after a rough patch in your marriage or after a disappointment. It is doubly hard when you are living under different roofs. But it is not impossible. I have done it and many other couples have done it. You do it by demonstrating the behaviors that your spouse is looking for and by making every interaction count. You know that you let him down when you didn’t support him while he was struggling. So now, at every opportunity, you want to check in with him emotionally and make sure he knows that you genuinely care about what he is going through and are willing to listen. You also want to demonstrate someone who is invested, who is present, and who has the time and patience to hang around as long as it takes to restore what was lost.
This may take a while. Your spouse may even give you little tests along the way to see if you are willing to try to overcome them. And I know that this is frustrating and may seem to be unfair. But you have to ask yourself what is most important – semantics and keeping score – or your marriage and getting your husband and life partner back. He may be going overboard here, but he is reacting to pain and fear. The antidote to pain and fear is patience and reassurance. It can be a challenge to provide these things when you are hurt and fearful yourself. But he sees himself as the wronged party right now, so it would be prudent to put in some effort and do what you can to make things right as soon as possible. The sooner that he feels heard, cared for, and understood, the sooner he will feel that you’ve “earned” his love and the sooner that you can start to make real progress toward reconciliation. It may help to not think of it as “earning” but to just think of it as re-gaining the ground that you lost when you admittedly took him for granted and took your eye off of your marriage for a while. Now is the time to get it back. By no means is it impossible and in my experience, it is more than worth it. There’s more about our reconciliation on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com
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