Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I often hear from wives who don’t understand why things suddenly went south during their marital or trial separation. Many of them truly felt that things were going as well as might be expected. Sure, things might have been moving more slowly or less decisively than hoped, but at least they were able to communicate with their separated husband and feel somewhat hopeful about the future. 

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, something seemingly changed for the husband. He’s gone silent or stopped communicating, and the wife just isn’t sure why.

She might say, “I am not going to lie and claim that we were close to reconciling or getting back together because that isn’t true. But I thought we were holding our own as far as our marriage was concerned. He was always willing to communicate with me, although it was always me who was initiating the communication. Still, he picked up when I called or responded when I texted. We weren’t having earth-shattering conversations or anything, but at least we were regularly talking. I had a loose understanding of what was going on with his life, and I at least knew that he was okay. However, as of last weekend, he cut off all communication. He just stopped answering my calls and texts. At first, I was very worried, but I reached out to a mutual friend who’d gone to a sporting event with him over the weekend and who has seen my husband multiple times since he stopped communicating. And the friend assures me that my husband is completely fine, although the friend claims my husband hasn’t said anything about me or given any indication that he’s gone silent. I don’t like to put our friends in the middle of this, so I’ve tried not to pressure my friend too much. If I’m being honest, I haven’t really taken no for an answer. I keep trying to communicate and my husband keeps just not responding. I wonder if he has blocked me. I wonder what I’ve done wrong. I keep replaying our latest conversations in my head, and nothing bad happened. He got off the phone just as cordial as he was before. He didn’t express any anger or mention anything that was bothering him. It is like he was fine one minute and just gone the next. What can be happening? What should I do? It’s clear he doesn’t want to respond to me. I’ve considered just showing up where he is, but I worry about how he would react to that.”

I would think twice about just showing up. Considering his current behavior, it’s not likely to go well, and you don’t want to get into a situation where you have a confrontation and as a result he thinks he needs to do even more to block you. The entire goal here is to eventually regain access to him. So don’t make the process harder than it already is. 

Possible Reasons for Why He Stopped Communicating: Before we talk about what to do, let’s get some perspective on why this might be happening.  

You always want to ask yourself if it’s possible that he discovered something or heard something that made him change his attitude toward you or the marriage. Since you can’t come up with anything when you think back to communications, is it possible that he discovered or heard something about which you don’t yet know?

If the answer is no, then you want to consider that perhaps he believes that he needs some time to himself. This sometimes happens, especially with spouses who were seeking space or time apart. If they perceive that there’s too much communication and not enough privacy, they will sometimes just try to take that time and privacy by force. They’ll try to give themselves the time and space that they’ve always said they needed.

Where to go from Here:  I know that it may feel like you don’t have many options. But sometimes, your own silence speaks volumes. You know that your husband is okay. If you feel the need to communicate one last time before you change strategies, you might ask your mutual friend to tell him that you hope everything is okay and that you’ll wait to hear from him. Or, you may text the same message.

After that communication, it is honestly best most of the time to just give him some space. I’m not saying that you have to accept no communication for an endless amount of time. But I am suggesting that often, when you do give him the space and time that he is trying to force, he will be able to loosen his grasp once he sees that you’re no longer making him take such a strong stance.

Some of the time, when you go silent for a while, positive things will eventually happen. He will begin to wonder why he hasn’t heard from you – much in the way you’ve wondered the same about him. Or his curiosity will increase. Or, he’ll find that he misses you more than he expected, and he will reach out to resume communication.

My point is that sometimes you don’t need to do much more than to just give it some time and follow his lead. Sometimes, he will reverse course on his own. And by just waiting, you’ve done nothing to make the situation worse. So when he does resume communication, there is no damage to clean up. 

I know that, in a sense, this is like asking you to take a leap of faith. I know that you will worry that you’re not going to ever hear from him, and by willingly going silent, you’re ensuring that once you’re out of sight, you will be out of mind.  

I had these same thoughts. And I allowed them to contribute to my continuing to try to force my husband into communication that he didn’t want. So he completely removed himself from my life for a while. It wasn’t until I had to give him space by force that things eventually changed for the better.  Once I understood that it was better to willingly give space than it have it forced upon me, everything changed.  And my new strategy meant that we eventually reconciled.  You can read about that at https://isavedmymarriage.com 

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