Every afternoon, you arrive home from work excited to see your spouse and share your day with her. You get home about an hour before she does, so you routinely start dinner. That way, there will be plenty of time to connect and catch up while you share a meal.
The problem is, your spouse gets home and collapses on the couch. She switches on the TV and zones out. Rather than sharing dinner together, you end up eating it in front of your favorite show. This might be fine once in a while, if only you didn’t feel so disconnected all the time.
After dinner, she’s still disengaged. She seems preoccupied with whatever she needs to accomplish tomorrow, and doesn’t talk much about the workday. You want a glimpse into her world, yet she seems walled off and difficult to reach. When you ask questions, you get short answers, and you can never quite get to the depth you’re really craving.
What’s going on with your spouse? Is there anything you can do to regain the connection you used to have? Is your marriage in trouble, or is this just a symptom of a stressful situation? Let’s talk about it.
How Does Your Spouse Express Intimacy?
For some people, great conversations are the key to intimacy. Maybe that’s how you best connect with your spouse. When they feel distant and disconnected, you start to panic; you want deep, meaningful communication. Maybe you got that in the past, but things have changed, and you’re afraid you’ll never have it again.
Maybe you’ve tried bringing up the issue to your spouse: “Why don’t we talk like we used to anymore?” “Don’t you enjoy talking to me?” “Why won’t you tell me more about your day?” But broaching the topic and addressing it as a problem could actually make them feel more withdrawn.
Try Sharing Experiences Instead
You might not realize it, but shared experiences could help your spouse relax and feel more connected. Taking the emphasis off talking and instead doing something fun or meaningful together might just be what unlocks their desire to have a conversation. A shared experience can feel like you’re in this together.
Planning experiences, rather than approaching your spouse to say, “We need more intimacy,” or “Our conversations aren’t deep enough,” shifts the conversation. Going to a movie, taking a walk, or engaging in a sport or active pastime will help your spouse feel that deeper connection. Even if you don’t talk during the activity you select, it’s what happens afterward that counts.
What conversations might a movie spark on the way home? What memories could you unlock on the tennis court or the park trail? Just doing things in one another’s presence becomes the backdrop for great conversations that happen more spontaneously when you’re relaxed and feel connected.
Shared experiences have the added bonus of distracting you from life or work stress, if only for a little while. Maybe your spouse doesn’t want to talk about work after work, because they’re under stress at the office. But they might feel like talking after they unwind.
Think your spouse might respond to a different kind of conversation? Our book, Love Talk Starters, is filled with conversation starters to inspire you. Pick up a copy here and use it as a guide to break the current routine and introduce fresh topics.
Have you and your spouse ever dealt with disconnection like this? How did you overcome it? Tell us about your experiences in the comments.
