Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
Relationship Radio: Marriage, Sex, Limerence & Avoiding Divorce
How To Build An Emotional Connection With Your Spouse
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The silent treatment isn't always intentional. When your spouse emotionally checks out, it creates a painful void that can feel impossible to bridge. Dr. Joe Beam and Kimberly Holmes tackle this common marriage struggle with uncommon honesty, revealing the hidden causes behind emotional disconnection.
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So what do you do if your spouse is checked out emotionally? Do you just accept it or do you do something about it? Let's talk about that on this episode of Relationship Radio. Hi, I'm Dr Joe Beam and this is Kimberly Holmes, our CEO. Kimberly, we run into this kind of thing all the time, don't we? Where that one spouse seems to have no emotional connection with the other spouse.
Speaker 1:Now there are several different reasons for this, not that we could actually cover all of them in one episode, but let's talk about some. And let's start with the one that people aren't going to like us talking about, but it's really needed to be talked about because sometimes it's true and people don't know it.
Speaker 3:Yes, so sometimes your spouse is checked out emotionally because you are actually treating them or making them feel in such a way where they can't be open or honest with you. Maybe they've come to you and tried to share things, but in the way that you've reacted probably not meaning to you've actually shut them down and pushed them further away, to where now they feel like they can't come to you and be open and honest.
Speaker 1:Okay Now don't bail out on us just because you didn't like what Kimberly said. Let's be honest, let's act like adults. Let's really do some self-examination. Now, all the rest of the things we're going to talk about really aren't about you, but this one.
Speaker 1:If we're going to be honest, we have to start here, because there are so many spouses and we see it more often in men than women but so many spouses out there who have really shut the other person off from feeling they can be safe to open up themselves to you, because if they tell you what they feel, you tell them they should feel something differently. If they tell you what they want, you tell them it's ridiculous for them to want that. They should want something else. If they tell you what they think about something, you tell them while they're wrong, etc. And they finally get to the point where it's like I'm not going to be open and transparent to you. I'm not going to tell you what I think, what I feel, what I believe, what I do, because I know when that happens you're going to judge me. Now, kimberly, you said they may not even be aware they're doing it. So how can a person become aware?
Speaker 3:Well, one way is just by watching your spouse and their body reaction, their body language, even the look on their face when you respond to them, or even just it might not even be things that other people are saying. It could be the lack of response, the lack of looking at the other person in the eye. Brene Brown, who is a researcher, she has a great way that she talks about this when it comes to kids, and she talks about how there was a mom who, when her daughter would walk into the room, the first look on her face would be one of disgust when she didn't like what her daughter was wearing. So, instead of it being a hi, good morning, how are you today, it was a. Is that what you're wearing? And that was the first thing.
Speaker 1:Even if she didn't say it, she communicated it with her facial expression. That's right, and so the daughter felt rejected. That's right, even if mom didn't say a word.
Speaker 3:That's right. That's right, and the mom she was talking about was her. It was something that she had to learn over time that I didn't realize that's what I was bringing into it, and I needed to learn and change my own awareness. But even if she were to look at her daughter's face when she had that look, it was one of like why do you not like this? Why do you not like me? I don't feel accepted or loved right now, and so, either in the overt communication that you're having by saying you should be doing this, that and the other differently, or through just the body language, tone, look on your face or lack of responding to your spouse when they're trying to talk to you Maybe it's staying engaged in your phone when they're trying to have a conversation. If you were to just look at them, you would be able to tell more than likely that they don't feel like they're getting back from you what they're needing from you.
Speaker 1:And a person can do this because they picked up those habits from their own family of origin or because of the fact they might be distracted and thinking about something else. And so the first thing we recommend here is, if your spouse is emotionally disconnected from you, try to examine through his or her eyes whether they feel that you're actually available and whether that you're being nonjudgmental. And, as Kimberly said, it's not just in words, not just in tone of voice, it's body language, it's facial expressions. All those things matter. And so sometimes you can actually get your spouse to be more open and transparent and connect with you with a stronger emotion if they can just feel that you care and that you accept them as they are.
Speaker 1:Now that's a whole topic that we can talk about and we can get into it in great depth. Right now I'm just going to leave it at that principle. First of all, check out, be wise, pay attention to see if perhaps you're stifling your spouse and that's why he or she is not giving you the emotion that you want. But sometimes, kimberly, a person might be distant emotionally, not because they feel the spouse wouldn't care, but because of the fact that they feel like I need to be strong enough on my own to handle this without burdening my spouse with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're trying to just keep it in, push it down, deal with it, because they don't want to burden anyone else, or they feel like they would appear weak or, especially for men, may not feel like the man of the house if they were to unload whatever that they're dealing with emotionally onto their wives.
Speaker 1:And that can definitely be a cultural thing, not just in what part of the country and what country you live in, but how it was with your dad or your mom or their parents, et cetera. It could be handed down through the family. And it's a lonely, lonely path when you feel like you have to be the one to take care of everything. And it's okay for men to tell their wives I'm hurting, I'm scared, I don't know if I can handle this or not. It does not indicate that you are not a man. It doesn't indicate that you're some kind of weakling.
Speaker 1:Everybody needs it. There are three words, for example, that we use in the world in which we deal with addicts. One is that everybody wants to feel secure. I need to know that you're going to be here with me, for me, and they have to be seen. I need to know that I matter to you, that you can communicate with me, and they need to be soothed. That means everybody. I don't care who he or she is president of the United States of America or whatever position they have in life. Everybody at times just needs somebody else to be there for them and to soothe them. So we recommend strongly stop trying to handle it all by yourself. If your spouse can and will listen, share it with him or her. But then we're back to the first point, which means if your spouse does that, don't condemn, don't chastise, don't try to take over and fix it for them. Be their ally, not their adversary, and not their superhero, just their ally. But sometimes Kimberly emotions, you know, can get distracted because of just what's going on in life out there.
Speaker 3:Right, yes, so a spouse could be checked out emotionally because there's a situation at work demanding all of their attention, or there's a family of origin issue, maybe with their siblings or their parents, maybe aging parents, that they're trying to handle and trying to deal with, and so they're just emotionally drained from something else in their life and they come home unable to really connect emotionally because of how drained they are. Come home unable to really connect emotionally because of how drained they are.
Speaker 1:When we first started helping marriages and of course you know, alice and I took all the money we had to get it started and used that money up pretty quickly and so it became financially stressful to a great degree. And the worst time of year for us in the first two or three years was always around December, because a lot of people didn't come to our workshops and et cetera because it was the holidays and et cetera. And I would start singing that Merle Haggard song. If we make it through December, I'd start singing it toward the end of November and sing it the whole month of December and would be totally distracted by money?
Speaker 1:Are we going to have enough money to pay the bills? Can we pay our employees? Can we do this, can we do that? And Alice would constantly look at me when I'm at home saying are you angry with me about something? Are you upset with me? No, no, no, it's not you at all. Even though she knew I was struggling with the finances and even though I could talk to her about it, I still took it on as such a burden to me.
Speaker 1:Now the same thing can happen sometimes when somebody that you love does. You can be so focused on that loss that you're not paying any attention emotionally to your spouse or your children or others who matter. Sometimes it can be when some major event in life takes place that scares you like a recession or something I mean. I'm saying sometimes it's because the emotion is being robbed by something out there. So what would a spouse do in that case?
Speaker 3:Well, it still is very similar to points one and points two that we covered, which is it's being sensitive. If you are the one feeling cheated on, like they're not bringing their emotion, they're not connecting with you emotionally, then taking some onus on yourself to ask some non-threatening questions of what are some things going on, how can I help, help me understand why you might be overwhelmed or feeling the way that you feel, and then responding in a way that is a safe place for them to be able to come and share some of those things.
Speaker 1:And another side of that, though, would be sometimes they just don't want to talk about it right now, and so sometimes it's not a matter of you asking questions and them answering. Sometimes you'll ask questions and you can see they're just trying to avoid the subject. They don't want to talk about it right now because it's overwhelming. In that case, just be there for them.
Speaker 1:I mean just physically be there, Sit next to them on the sofa Rock, with them out on the front porch, take a walk down the alley Well, not the alley, I guess that could be a bad thing, but a walk down the old country lane and sometimes just allowed them to process without having to talk about it out loud, because some people have to process that anxiety inside for quite a while before they even know how to express it. And so it can be, yes, asking questions and listening, but it also can be okay just to let you know I'm here, period, and when you get ready to talk about it, I'm here for you In the meantime. No, I'm here, I'm here, period. And when you get ready to talk about it, I'm here for you In the meantime. No, I'm here, I'm not leaving.
Speaker 1:I'm not angry with you because you're not talking. I'm not upset with you because of the fact that you seem to be distracted. I know that something's going on, but I am with you. But then we have to talk about one more before we end this up, and this one's not pleasant either. The first one wasn't pleasant, this one's not pleasant. Sometimes the emotions are not being robbed by life or a situation in life. Sometimes they're being robbed by.
Speaker 3:Another person. That's right. They're going to another person and having deep conversations with them, sharing about their wants, their fears, their desires, and maybe at first it started at a deep emotional connection level, but either way it's signs that something not good is occurring.
Speaker 1:And therefore it could be, as you were saying, a person that they have now developed a strong emotional connection with, because they felt they could share with this person, and they did, and now they're at least having an emotional affair. But there's a separate part of that same distraction that doesn't have to do with being unfaithful. Sometimes it can be that your husband, rather than talking to you although you're there and you want him to be there for you winds up talking instead to his brother or his buddy or his dad, and you think why doesn't he trust me with what he's trusting them with? I feel that he's kind of cheating on me because of the fact that he's not letting me be part of his life, but he's got this other guy out there that's helping him, or his mom, who is the person that he goes to whenever he needs to talk and he's ignoring me. Or she is ignoring me because she goes to talk to dad, she goes to talk to mom, and so still, those emotions are robbed from you because they're given to somebody else. But it's not always out there somebody who becomes a lover. It can be somebody else that they trust a lot, and you might be saying, should I feel guilty that that bothers me. I don't think you should feel guilty, but here's what you need to understand. If they are sharing those emotions with someone right now, then this is the someone they see as being there for them to help them be secure, seen and soothed.
Speaker 1:Now, if that's a bad person or an unhealthy relationship, then something's going to have to be done to fix it. But rather than you trying to be the fixer of that, just become more and more open and transparent yourself. In other words, you model to your spouse the openness and transparency that you want them to model with you. And so if you model that consistently even if they don't share with you to begin with, even if they still continue to appear to be withholding emotion from you you give to them. Don't overwhelm them, don't drown them with it, but model to them what you want them to do with you, and then that can still come back to you.
Speaker 1:What you don't want to do is get into a situation where your spouse feels that you're trying to tell him or her they can't have a relationship with dad or mom or brother or friend, because if that's where they're going for their sustenance when you try to intervene in that they're going to react negatively to it. So don't try to intervene in that. Try to supplement that by you modeling what it is that you want and hopefully then, with time, that heads back toward you. What else should we say about that, kimberly?
Speaker 3:This is important, right?
Speaker 3:The emotional connection. In a previous episode, we talked about the importance of emotional attraction, evoking emotions. Other people feel that they like to feel, and this is a key part of that how we respond to people when they come to us with things they're struggling with or difficult things, and how we are that safe place for them to come to is a really crucial part of the marriage. And so, if you feel like your spouse has checked out emotionally, consider are there things or behaviors that you have done that may have unintentionally led them to feel that way and, if so, change those. Or maybe you have some of these other things. Maybe you're emotionally checked out and have been towards them because of work or because of another person or any of the things that we mentioned, any of the things that we mentioned. Fix the things that you can and then be the kind of person that they could come to and can come to when they experience times of need. So that's the key, and it's a really important not necessarily easy, but important thing for us to do.
Speaker 1:So you'll have to be patient, patient.
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