Navigating Emotional Withdrawal: Strategies for Reconnecting with Your Husband

One of the most common issues I see in relationships is when the husband withdraws or stonewalls their wife. This can be a challenging relationship dynamic because it is a nonverbal way of communicating which requires the wife to read between the lines. When left unaddressed, this emotional withdrawal can lead to resentment on the wife’s end because she feels shut down and disconnected from her husband. The husband then gets even more withdrawn and the vicious cycle repeats. This is very painful for the wife and is often attributed to the man’s avoidant attachment style. And while a lot of men do have an avoidant attachment style, this usually isn’t the full story. While insight is important, I often see women labeling their partner as avoidant and this can be a form of criticism which only makes the problem worse. Here are some ways to effectively work with your partner’s tendency to withdraw.

1)  Remove yourself from the behavior.

It’s easy to feel personally attacked when your partner doesn’t want to speak to you. It may feel like he’s intentionally trying to hurt you or it may feel like he’s trying to silently punish you by withdrawing. Especially if you’re someone with an anxious attachment style, it’s easy to feel triggered by this behavior. Reminding yourself that his unwillingness to communicate may not be about you at all. Oftentimes, men are not raised to be verbal about their feelings which is why they often show their emotions nonverbally in the form of irritability or shutting down. Keeping this in mind will help you recognize that him shutting down may not be a personal thing.

2)  Approach him with compassion Approach him with compassion.

While in some cases the shutting down/withdrawing may not be a response to the relational dynamic, sometimes it can be a result of the communication pattern in the relationship. A lot of times I hear women trying to communicate with their husbands in an unproductive way,  especially if it's a chronic issue and there's a lot of pain on the woman's part, this pain can come out as aggressiveness. If you are communicating from a place of pain, your message will likely get lost in translation. Your husband will interpret your communication as criticism and will only further shut down which is not what you want. Saying something like I’m  noticing that you're withdrawing from the conversation or you're not wanting to talk right now I'm wondering why that might be? Also reiterating your intention of understanding is really important. Depending on how much built up tension there is in the relationship it's easy for the question to be Interpreted as criticism. So maybe in addition to the question you state that you're really trying to understand him, the point of the conversation is to understand rather than to criticize.

3) Be open to feedback

Another factor that contributes to shutting down in the male partner is when he tries to communicate and the wife gets upset or anxious about what the husband's response is. Women need to be ready to hear what their husband’s have to say, regardless if it hurts their feelings or makes them feel insecure. I so often see this dynamic in my work with couples. A wife will initiate couples therapy and the husband begrudgingly attends. When I finally get the husband to open up, I see a lot of defensiveness from the wife’s end. For example, if a husband is communicating that they feel disrespected when their wife pays attention to the children more than the husband, a common reaction I see from wife is something like this: “well if you would do the dishes more or clean up around the house more then maybe I would pay attention to you.” While it may be true that there is more weight placed on the wife in regard to household duties, it still is dismissing the husband’s feelings. When you approach your husband it’s important to check in with yourself and ask “am I ready to hear the real answer to this question.” I often find that ground exercises such as deep breathing can help put you in the mindset of feeling secure enough to be open to feedback.

If you’re looking for help navigating relationship issues you can reach out to me here to see if therapy could benefit you.