Is your husband becoming defensive, inflexible? Is he overly critical of you? Does he often give the silent treatment (e.g. stopping calling you, and not replying to your texts) to you now? Is he unwilling or reluctant to share his true feelings? Do you feel that he takes more and more from the marriage but meanwhile he gives less and less in return? Are you having a difficult time connecting with your husband emotionally? His emotional distancing is a heartbreaking thing, and don’t expect it to go away on its own. When your husband always refuses to connect with you emotionally, you can’t have a thriving and vibrant relationship; and it will only lead to a lifeless and sterile marriage life.
If you do not know what to do when your husband is emotionally distant, the following offers a reasonable explanation for his emotional distancing, and then it gives you some practical suggestions:
First of all, gain an in-depth understanding of his emotional distancing:
Emotional distancing is a negative pattern of interactions; it can be thought as an emotional response to a perceived threat, this kind of response occurs without conflict; in other words, your husband emotionally distances himself from you in an attempt to avoid facing potential conflict or avoiding feeling rejected or hurt.
Almost all married couples can become emotionally distant at some point as their married life goes on. Most people are not aware that emotional distance is co-created, and hence they only attempt to work on their partners’ distancing without reflecting on themselves first. Probably, you also do that way when your husband is emotionally distant from you; if you only attempt to get him to understand your thoughts without admitting to your problems or shortcomings, he will pull further away.
If you have an attachment style, probably you will keep your husband at an emotional distance: although there can be a variety of reasons why a man becomes emotionally distant, many times his distancing is a reflection of his wife’s attachment style.
And probably you have also one of the attachment styles below that you developed during early childhood:
- Secure attachment style:
If your parents always cared about you and emotionally bonded with you without overwhelming you, most likely you had already developed a secure attachment style in this environment. Therefore, when you were a child, probably you could go out into the world more confidently than many other children, believing help was available for you if you stumbled.
- Avoidant attachment style:
If your parents always controlled or smothered you, most likely you pulled back in front of them. Surely, you still wanted their love, but you would rather gain more control over how and when closeness occurred. Therefore, you were prone to develop an avoidant attachment style.
- Anxious attachment style:
If your parents were often inconsistent (e.g. being emotionally volatile, and not always being there for you), probably you were tempted to seek ways to keep them near you, because you were afraid of losing their attention or love. Over time, you tended to develop an anxious attachment style.
Then let’s talk about how to deal with an emotionally distant husband:
(1) Initiate an effective conversation:
(1-1) Pick a topic that may interest him:
When you want to tell your man that you don’t want to feel emotionally disconnected, it is important to take the right approach. The “we should talk” conversation starter only makes an emotionally distant husband continue to avoid his woman; therefore, before you start to talk to him, think about carefully what sort of topics can resonate with him the most or make him open up to you;
To initiate an intimate conversation with your husband, actually, you can raise a wide range of topics that may interest him; for example, you may think back to when you were truly impressed by him in the beginning, when you fell in love with him, what you ever said to him that amazed him, what things made him “show off”, and what he ever did made you feel loved and special; usually, he likes to hear his past glory days even though those events may have already happened a long time ago because your doing so makes him feel that you are still appreciating him. Therefore, that can motivate him to thrive on responding to you.
(1-2) Pick a good time to talk:
Moreover, it is also important to pick a good time when he is more likely willing to open up to you; in other words, if the timing is wrong, your husband will probably feel bored to engage in a conversation with you.
And the following are some practical tips on when to talk:
- Usually, you will not get a good response from your man when he just comes back home from work, because probably his thoughts are still on his work; if you talk to him at that time, he will easily feel ambushed and overburdened.
- The best time to talk should be when you are alone with your husband and you are both settled, like the time when you are on a date night, and the time when you are sleeping in bed.
- As a rule of thumb, men are more inclined to have deeper conversations while they are doing an activity side-by-side with other people, as opposed to face-to-face. Therefore, it is more possible that you will get a sympathetic ear from him if you talk about his emotional distancing while you and he are walking in the park, or while your man is driving you to somewhere.
(2) Meet his sexual needs:
Actually many times your husband also wants to be close to you, but you and he may differ in the primary way that enables both sides to feel close to each other: for most men, when it comes to a quick way to feel the closeness to their women, they think of sex first; by contrast, for most women, their primary way to feel the closeness to their husbands is through conversations. Surely, in a marital relationship, emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy are also often interwoven. Think hard, you can find that the emotional intimacy that you feel through conversations often leads you to want more physical intimacy as well. Likewise, the physical intimacy your husband feels in sex often encourages him to increase emotional intimacy with you.
No matter how emotionally distant your husband is, he still wants sex from you from time to time. When he wants to connect with you sexually, it is better to cooperate with him rather than turn him down as revenge. In short, when your husband is emotionally distant, try to catch any chance to deepen your sexual connection with him.
(3) Let him keep the spotlight during your conversation:
An emotionally distant husband often complains that his wife doesn’t meet his need for validation and closeness; thus he badly wants his wife to be more concerned about what he feels and what he wants in the marriage.
So you might make the first move to understand your man’s feelings and share with him your understanding. While you are expressing your understanding, make a point to let him keep the spotlight all along. In other words, don’t shift the focus from him to you during conversations. For example, after you hear him out, don’t blurt out a judgmental statement like “I think you …” and “My experience is …” Because if your judgment is not sound about a matter, or if your critical statement shows that you and he hold a conflicting opinion on a matter, the emotional distance between you two can be further increased. Therefore, it is better to simply tell him that you can feel how he feels, or tell him that you could imagine why he could feel that way.
Anyway, remember to act as an attentive listener while he is speaking, and try your best to be empathetic and understanding without interruption, discrimination, and judgment; in doing so, he will feel that you are trying to understand him better, therefore he will be more likely to open up to you.
(4) Don’t speak in an angry or accusatory tone:
For a lot of wives, their first reaction to an emotionally distant husband is to lash out. However, if you want to stop him from being distant, you should avoid acting out your bad feelings when you respond to him. After he has been emotionally distant for a long time, probably you have already harbored resentment towards him; therefore, you often speak to him in an angry or accusatory tone; no doubt, you should try to resist this temptation.
When you are tempted to lay the blame on him, you might put yourself in his shoes: he is acting distant and cold towards you because he has had strong negative feelings for you (such as discontent, insecurity, or fear). And your negative emotions will only make things worse. Especially when you are arguing about a controversial issue with your husband at this stage, you had better stick to the current issue, and persist speaking in a matter-of-fact voice (in particular, you should remember not to call him out on his obvious mistakes/faults); otherwise, he will feel more emotionally distant.
Your resentment and anger can contribute to the negative cycle of withdrawal and criticism that can lead to an erosion of the marriage. And if you become accusatory, he will be inclined to react defensively without even thinking about an issue itself, and then the situation will get worse. Surely, that is not to say you should not hold him accountable for not being emotionally available, and that you do not deserve to be loved. It just means that you should keep communicating with him in a calm, respectful, and kind manner.
(5) Call off the pursuit mode:
When you are upset by your husband’s emotional distancing, you may feel insecure and have bouts of anxiety, and thereby enter the “pursuit mode” unconsciously; but that will only backfire. If you feel the urgent need to pursue your man when he is emotionally distant, you must feel very lonely in the relationship. The problem with the pursuit mode is that you become the only one who is putting great effort into the relationship. Meanwhile, this establishes a comfort zone for him – he feels that he does not need to work hard to maintain the marriage, because he thinks that you are always there anyway. The more you chase him, the more he distances himself from you. It accords with the law of physics.
Hence, you had better get out of the “pursuit mode” when he is emotionally distant; this means trying to stop your anxious behavior, such as interrupting, nagging him to talk, offering extra help, giving him advice that he does not ask for, and speaking fast and loudly. Surely, it does not refer to anything wrong with your personality. You can understand it better when you put yourself in his shoes: as an emotionally distant husband, he is viscerally allergic to his wife’s anxious behavior towards him, and he becomes even more so if you always pester him. I bet you have had a similar experience: sometimes when he just does not want to speak to you, not only do the edge of sharpness in your voice and the sheer number of your sentences not make him turn around, but he walks further away from you.
The final word on his emotional distancing:
Emotional distance can be a source of marital conflict, stress, and unhappiness. If left unchecked, over time the feelings of insecurity, mistrust, anger, and loneliness caused by his emotional distancing will only intensify, thereby precipitating a marital crisis. Hence, the long-term lack of emotional disconnection should be viewed as an underlying issue that leads to marital infidelity and separation.
If your husband has been emotionally distant for a long time, you should not settle for the status quo; this should be perceived as a warning sign of a failing marriage. And if he becomes reluctant to sustain the relationship with you but you want to go through this marital crisis, you might go on to read the page below that aims to help you rebuild an emotional connection with your man:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
Signs your husband is pulling away – Why he seems distant.
Why your husband is distant – How to stop him from being distant.
What to do when your husband is not affectionate towards you.
Why your husband is unhappy with you – Understand him better.
7 tips on how to get back emotional intimacy in marriage.
how to survive an emotionally disconnected marriage.
4 matters you should pay attention to when your husband hates you.
What a man wants most from a woman – A man needs to feel respected.
What should you do when your husband says he hates you.
What does it mean when you feel like your husband hates you?