Sometimes I hear from wives who feel very alone, isolated and vulnerable during their trial or marital separation. Often the husband had assured the wife that the separation was going to work out one way, but the wife is realizing that now it works out in a completely different way.
I heard from one wife who said, “My husband and I separated about five weeks ago. He gave me the excuse that he felt he needed some time to himself. He assured me that he would let me know where he was and that from time to time when. He asked me to respect his need for space and I told him I would. After he had been gone for a couple of days, I called him and realized he wasn’t happy to hear from “He told me he was busy and who would call me He never did. So the next day I came. Every time I want to talk to or see my husband, I have to be the one to initiate it. The “Another day, I stopped by his apartment and he invited people over. He was obviously mad to see me. He finally blurted out that he just wanted me to leave him alone for a while. He was so upset that I turned around and ran out and we haven’t been in contact ever since. I’m so hurt about this. He’s made it clear to me that he wants me to leave him alone. But I don’t know if I can. I miss him. He’s my husband. He’s out to save my marriage and I don’t know if I can do that if we don’t even talk Or we communicate.
I know firsthand how painful this is. And I also understand that the further away it goes, the more fear invades you and the more you may feel that you have to hold on even tighter. But it is my opinion and experience that you often get to the point where continuing to push even harder will only damage your marriage that much more.
I remember thinking that if I could just see my husband and make him understand, then I could make him change his mind. But what I didn’t understand at the time was that the more I kept trying to get him to listen to me, the more he thought I was unstable and a pest and the more he wanted to get away from me. This made it less likely that he would objectively listen to everything he had to say.
I’m not saying this marriage has reached that point. I honestly didn’t know if I had it. But I do know that often continuing with something that no longer works will make things worse. That’s why I think sometimes it’s worth trying another strategy which I’ll discuss now.
Understand that for now, he is not asking you to leave him alone forever: Often when a woman hears her husband ask to be alone, her mind goes to the worst possible place. She may start to fear that he wants to be alone forever. This is not necessarily true. Sometimes you really just need some time. And there are also times when you give him that time he’s asked for, and he finds that it’s lonely instead of liberating.
Sometimes what we don’t realize is that we haven’t allowed this process to work for us yet. He hasn’t had time to miss us because there hasn’t been a real separation yet. I know letting him out of your sight is hard. I know when you don’t hear from him you wonder if he’s forgetting you or seeing someone else. These fears are difficult to overcome. But it becomes easier to do this if you realize that not doing it only makes him want more freedom from you.
So sometimes you have to turn the tables a little bit. You have to give him precisely what he asked for, his own time, and then allow him to see that it is not what he assumed.
This will not always happen right away. And it certainly isn’t always easy. But when you consider that the alternative is to continue to push him when he’s made it clear that he’s not receptive to it, then the choice becomes a little easier to make.
How to start giving it more space while staying hopeful: Some wives ask me if they should make an announcement that they are now backing down or if they should just let their silence do the talking. This is really up to you and often depends on the state of your relationship at the time. In my case, I told my husband because I chose to go out of town for a while and I didn’t want him to wonder where I had gone.
So I told her that I was going home to visit family and friends and that she wouldn’t hear from me for a while because I was taking time for myself too. I’m sure you thought something along the lines of “bon voyage” at first. But in the end, the space actually worked for me instead of against me. And he actually took the initiative the next time he approached me.
I know it hurts to hear him tell you to leave him alone for a while. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be forever, and if you don’t do it willingly, he can forcibly take his space, which means he’ll start limiting your access to it. And this is probably not what you want.