Should We Take Things Slow During Our Marital Separation?
By: Leslie Cane: To be honest, when you are newly separated, everything feels immediate. You feel as if you are on the verge of a major and irrevocable loss. So, the idea of being deliberate and slowly methodical does not appeal to many separated spouses who miss their significant other and who would do just about anything to get them back as quickly as is possible. Sometimes, though, this slower movement is the strategy that gets the best results. I will explain this more below.
To demonstrate, I might hear from a wife who describes it this way: “we have been separated for about three weeks because it was what my husband wanted. He has been going through some very heavy stuff personally. He wants time away from me. This breaks my heart, but he didn’t give me much of a choice in this matter. I try to call him every day. Some days, we have good conversations and other days, he seems to brush me off. I try to initiate getting together every weekend so far and he has been relatively receptive to this, although sometimes he seems to be more enthusiastic than others. My birthday is coming up. We always go to this bed and breakfast for my birthday. I would like to ask my husband to go with me and if we reconnect there, I would like to then ask him to come home. I have talked about this plan with my husband’s sister, with whom I am a very close friend. She said that this is a horrible plan and that she thinks that my best bet is to take it slowly. She says that rushing her brother is not going to get a good result. She is a good friend to me and usually gives good advice, but I don’t think that my husband is confiding in her so I have my doubts as to whether or not she is right. To me, you can and should go at the pace the separated spouse allows. Is it a good idea to take it slowly and to hold back?”
My answer to that truly does depend upon the situation. To be frank, if I had not slowed down the pace during my own separation, then I might not be still married today. When my husband and I started to make progress and he started to be receptive to me again after a very long time of pushing me away, I was so happy. Words can not describe my joy and relief when the tide turned in that way. And of course, I allowed my relief to push me to push him. Unfortunately, he saw this gentle pushing as pressure and he pushed me away once again. This was horrible news, made worse by the fact that I now had to start completely over. I wasn’t at square one. No, I was at less than zero. It took me a very long time to make up that lost ground, which could have been avoided if I had moved much more slowly.
Striking A Balance: My best advice is that, if your spouse has shown reluctance or resistance to you in the past, then it is best to let them set the pace if it is at all possible. That doesn’t mean that you don’t ever call them or ask them to do anything. But it is a good idea that if you are doing that, you make sure that for every time you initiate something, you wait for your spouse to do the same before you take the lead again.
In this case, I don’t think it would be horrible to mention that you will miss your trip to the bed and breakfast and that you wish things were different. In this way, you are able to feel out his response. If he were to say “well let’s go anyway,” then there is nothing wrong with going if he is enthusiastic about it.
Understanding The Risk: The real risk in moving too quickly is him pulling away completely because he feels too pressured. That’s why instead of out and out asking him, you’re better off putting feelers out to see how he might respond. If he doesn’t indicate that he’d still like to go or that he’s going to miss the trip too, then it’s my opinion that you are better off moving much more slowly.
And asking for a reconciliation when he hasn’t even been initiating anything at all is probably extremely premature. I am not saying this to discourage you. I am saying it because I’d like for you to have to avoid a set back that is hard and painful to overcome. Sometimes, it becomes very obvious that your separated spouse wants to take things to the next level and is pursuing you. When this happens and he is the one pushing the contact, then there’s no need to hold back unless you feel that resistance.
But that was not the case here. The wife was doing all the communicating and all the initiating and she herself admitted that her husband wasn’t always receptive. That reluctance is usually a good indicator that it is time to slow down. I know that it’s tough. But it is better to slow down and reconcile at a later time than to push and risk the entire reconciliation.
I wish that I had followed this advice during my own separation. But I did not. And before I knew it, my husband felt pressured and he backed away completely. Moving slowly would have been best, but I didn’t. And I had to start all over. I was eventually successful, but I delayed my own progress by pushing. You’re welcome to read the whole story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com
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