Sometimes I hear of wives who have been trying all kinds of tactics to get their husband to commit and interest in their marriage once again. They could threaten to leave. They may try to become more independent so that their attention does not focus solely on their husband. They may threaten a separation or divorce in the hope that this will motivate you to do something. But when these efforts fail, the wife wonders what, if anything, could really work. Or, if maybe nothing will, especially when your husband says he doesn’t care what they do.
You may hear a comment like: “For the past year my husband has been very distant and cold. I can’t pinpoint why he is so unhappy. It started at work. But then the work situation was finally resolved and he remained unhappy from Anyway. He started to get more and more selfish with his time and affection. He doesn’t always come home after work and has started spending more and more time at the gym. I suspect him of an affair, but it doesn’t seem like interested in anyone or anything, so it’s hard for me to believe that he could really put in the time and effort for another woman. Last week, he forgot about our anniversary and when I confronted him about it, he acted like he was completely exaggerating. It didn’t seem to faze him that he was angry. I was infuriated by this for a while and then decided that I was going to tell him if he didn’t start to show me the slightest respect and dedicate a little time and effort to our marriage. , then I was going to quit. His response to me was, ‘I don’t care what you do. If you really need to go, go ahead. This made me stop in my tracks. Because now I don’t know what to do. I really didn’t want to leave. I wanted him to act well. And now I am in a situation where I have to either carry out my threat or I just have to accept being treated this way. Now what? “
Determine the source of their unhappiness if you can: I’m not sure you have to accept him treating you like this, although that may be his hope and strategy. There are several reasons why you might be acting this way. In the first place, he could be trying to take a position so that you accept less. In short, he may actually be quite concerned about your departure, but he doesn’t want to show you this because doing so would mean that he would actually have to make a change. So to avoid this, you can try to back off a bit. To put it bluntly, he’s lying.
Why I think leaving should be a last resort and a very honest conversation should come first: Secondly, you may feel like, for whatever reason, you are not that involved in the marriage, so you may genuinely think that you don’t care which way to go, and this might only change once you really see how it feels to you. be forced to do so. he lives his life without you. Of course, most people see that as a last resort and I agree. There is always the risk that one of the spouses will leave the home. I think it makes sense to try other things before doing something so drastic.
I would suggest at least trying to clear the air before having to revisit the game. You can try something like: “It was wrong of me to threaten you the way I did and I apologize for that. It was not fair of me to threaten to leave. I take our marriage very seriously and give you an ultimatum. the right way to handle it. I hope my mishandling of this is at least one of the reasons you said you don’t care what I do. Because I hope it’s not true. It hurts to hear it. And it will hurt even more if I know. becomes our reality. It’s obvious to me that you haven’t been fully involved in our marriage in the last year. It seems like something is bothering you, but I haven’t been able to get to the bottom of what it is. I can’t help it, and I can’t make adjustments, if you don’t share with me what’s wrong. I can say you’re not. I’m not happy. And I’m not happy to see you dissatisfied. We both deserve happiness, so I ask you to work with me to discover the source of what you really are. bad with us. If you can e share with me what is wrong, I would like to work with you to correct it, without threats or ultimatums. Just two adults working together to make things better. We can do that? “
I cannot guarantee that it will open immediately. But I can tell you that it is my experience that you will get more cooperation from him if you approach him from a place of wanting to help him rather than a place of wanting to threaten him. It is possible that he did not mean what he said about not caring and that he only responded negatively because of your threat. Now is the time to test that theory by trying to communicate openly.