When you’re separated and desperately want to reconcile, you want hope every time you see encouraging behavior from your spouse. So whenever he calls or sees you and things are going well, it’s natural to hope that this means you’re on your way to a reconciliation. But often, your hopes and feelings are so delicate that as soon as there’s a comment or event that you don’t understand or isn’t going your way, then you can start to wonder if you’re only seeing reality through the veil. of hope. And this is when you can start to fear that you are being deceived.
A wife might explain, “I did everything wrong at the beginning of my separation. I was calling multiple times a day and picking fights. It wasn’t until my husband threatened to cut me out of his life completely that I stopped. For the past five weeks, the Things have improved a lot. He has started to come regularly. We watch movies, hug each other and laugh. Last weekend, he asked me if I wanted to sleep over at his place, but unfortunately I couldn’t say yes because I live quite far from him and there was no one to let my pets out. They couldn’t stay overnight without being let out to use the bathroom, so I had to leave late at night for that reason. Lately though, I’ve been asking my husband come over to our house for the night or a weekend. His response is that he’s just not ready for it. This confuses me. It’s okay for me to spend the night with him, but he’s not coming home. Spend the night? I guess he sees me staying at his house while we sleep together while he watches him come home as a possible reconciliation. I can only speculate that he is not ready to take that leap. But this hurts and confuses me. Sometimes he talks about our future. He has asked me to go on a family trip with his parents and this gives me hope. But then I start to doubt everything and wonder if he only asked because he knows that his mother loves me and he just wants to hide appearances. And that’s when I start to wonder if he’s just cheating on me. Maybe he likes having me around to have a good time and help boost his ego, but he has no intention of reconciling with me. What if he’s just cheating on me?”
I can understand why you fear this. I think every wife in this situation has these doubts. I had them. But, you have to ask yourself if these thoughts are serving you or just making things worse.
Why you should focus on progress instead of the immediate future: Think of it this way. If you follow that line of thinking and decide that he’s just cheating on you, then you might be tempted to start pushing him or you might walk away out of fear of getting hurt. Will any of these things get you closer to your goal of reconciliation? Probably not. In fact, they would probably take you further away from the target of him.
But what if you faced your fears and instead looked at how far you’ve come and how much progress you’ve made? You’ve gone from being frustrated and angry with yourself to being very willing to watch you for long periods of time while you talk about the future.
I don’t want to be insensitive, but many estranged wives would absolutely love this scenario. Plus, you’ve already set it up where you have additional opportunities to bond in the future. You have the family trip you are looking forward to, where hopefully you will be able to progress even further.
Why it’s vital not to let your fears rush you: What I mean is, unless he says he’d like to come home right away, your situation is as good as it can be. You have exceeded his reservations. You see him regularly and have plans for the future. And he is showing you affection on a regular basis.
Now, I know that you would like to feel more secure about your situation. I know you would like more reassurance from him. But honestly, for me, the best course of action would be to keep doing what you’re doing. And he continues to be patient.
I know from experience that I ask for a lot. Once my husband started giving me positive feedback and our relationship started to heat up again, I took everything in my power not to come over and beg him to come home. But I knew this was a risk. And considering how long it took me to get to the point I was at, it was a risk I didn’t want to take.
I know it may be hard to watch right now, but it looks like you’ve found your grove and are making real progress. My suggestion would be to stay the course. I see too many people doing the right thing, but then they can’t resist pushing their husbands once they establish that progress. And most end up regretting it because they either start to avoid them or accuse them of not giving them their space.