What Are The Chances My Spouse Will Come Back Six Months After Moving Out?
By: Leslie Cane: Unfortunately, there is often not any way to predict how long a marital or trial separation will last. Most couples leave the time frame open-ended because they have no idea how they are going to feel while apart from each other. Most are waiting to see what will happen and what changes in perception might take place. This can be frustrating when you really want to reconcile as soon as possible. Plus, it can feel like the longer you are separated, the less chance you have for a reconciliation. People can start to panic with each week and then month that passes.
I hear from some folks who have a certain time frame in their head where they’ll assume that they’ve reached the point of no return. A common example is six months. You might hear from someone who says: “I never in my wildest dreams would have guessed that we would still be separated after half a year. I honestly thought that the separation might last for a month at the most. Admittedly, the separation was not my decision. When to reconcile won’t be my decision, either. But I figured that my husband would quickly see that being separated isn’t a picnic. Although he doesn’t seem all that happy being separated either, he has made no attempts to reconcile. It is going on six months now. We talk semi-regularly. We are cordial. Neither of us is seeing anyone else. So it doesn’t seem that a reconciliation would be out of the question. However, some of my friends say that it has just been too long to believe that my husband will ever come back. Are they right? Does it get to the point where too much time has passed during the separation?”
Why The Circumstances Matter: In my opinion, your friends might have a more valid point if you were not in contact with your husband at all. When contact is very limited, that can be more of a concern because in order to reconcile, you need to be in contact. However, in this case, regular communication is still taking place. My separation felt pretty lengthy to me. In fact, many of my friends had the same concerns – that it had dragged on to the point where I needed to just give it up. And yet, I’m still married today. I think that part of the delay was due to the fact that I tried to pressure and push my husband before he was ready, so he resisted me. But I’m not the only person I know who was separated for a while and then eventually got back together.
What Contributes To A Longer Time Frame: There are many valid reasons that the separation can take so long. People want to give themselves enough time to see how they are feeling. They don’t want to rush into a decision as serious as a divorce or reconciliation. If they are in counseling, they want to give it time to work. A longer separation does not necessarily mean that no one is interested in ever reconciling.
With that said, it never hurts to look around and see if you are doing anything that might be delaying your chance at a reconciliation. Sometimes, the very things that you think are helping might actually be hurting. In my case, I thought that being in constant contact and repeatedly pressuring my husband to come back was going to bring about a faster reconciliation, but this only turned my husband off and delayed any progress. So, ask yourself if there’s any issue that might be the fly in the ointment. Because sometimes, by taking an honest look at things, you can make an adjustment that will change everything.
Beyond this, in my experience the best thing that you can do is to position yourself in a way where you’re doing everything that you can to contribute to a reconciliation. This may mean open communication, patience, a positive attitude, counseling, regular contact, and an attempt to reconnect. If you’ve done all of these things and the time frame is still up in the air, then I found it helpful to keep myself as busy as possible so that I wouldn’t dwell on the timing and I would not pressure my husband. I thought that this might hurt my situation, but it actually helped. My husband actually took more interest in the whole process. It was actually backing away that allowed a reconciliation to even be possible. You can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com
Filed under: Uncategorized by admin
