What To Do If Your Spouse Has Checked Out

Does it feel like you are living with a ghost? Your spouse comes home, eats dinner, and sleeps in the same bed, but they aren't really there. If you are dealing with a spouse who is indifferent, numb, or emotionally walled off, you are likely asking yourself: "Can a marriage like this be saved when I'm the only one trying?"

In this video, Coach Nathan from Marriage Helper explains exactly why your spouse has checked out and how to get them to check back in—without forcing them.

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IN THIS VIDEO: You will learn the difference between "Push Behaviors" (which drive your spouse further away) and "Pull Behaviors" (which invite them back in). We break down the psychology of the "emotional callus"—how your spouse became numb over time—and introduce you to the S.M.A.R.T. Contact method to begin dismantling their walls.

KEY CONCEPTS EXPLAINED:

Why has my spouse checked out? Rarely does a spouse check out overnight. Just like playing a guitar builds calluses on fingertips to resist pain, your spouse has built emotional calluses to shield themselves from negative emotions, feeling unheard, or shame. To save the marriage, you must stop pressing on the "bruise" and start changing the environment.

What is SMART Contact? If you want to save your marriage, you need to stop "Push Behaviors" (begging, pleading, forcing relationship talks) and start using SMART Contact.

• S - Stop Push Behaviors: Stop doing things that elicit negative emotions in your spouse (crying, begging, arguing about the relationship).
• M - Manage Business Items: Only discuss necessary logistics (kids, finances, schedule) without letting emotion bleed into the conversation.
• A - Allow for Conversation: Don't go "No Contact" (that is manipulation). Be open to talking if they initiate, but let them lead.
• R - Respond Strongly, Calmly, & Gently: Watch your tone and body language. Be a safe place for them.
• T - Take it One Day at a Time: Consistency and patience are key. You cannot fix years of damage in a few days.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Living With An Emotionally Absent Spouse
• 2:21 Why Indifference Builds Walls
• 3:28 How Calluses Form In Marriage
• 5:03 Push Behaviors That Backfire
• 6:24 Introducing SMART Contact
• 7:30 Manage Business Items Only
• 8:41 Allow Conversation Without Control
• 9:36 Respond Strong, Calm, And Gentle
• 10:28 Patience, Consistency, And Small Wins
• 12:28 Create The Right Environment
• 14:16 Free Resource And Closing Hope

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:28

Does it feel like you're living with a ghost? Sure, your spouse comes home, they eat dinner with you, maybe they even sleep in the same bed with you, but they're not really there. They've checked out. And you're asking yourself, can a marriage like this be saved when I'm the only one trying? The good news is, yes, it can. But if it's going to be saved, it's not going to be by forcing your spouse to check back in. Hi, my name is Nathan. I'm one of the coaches here at Marriage Helper. And if you feel like what I just described, I want you to know you're not alone. We've helped lots of people like you, and I want to show you what exactly this looks like, this checking out looks like. I want to explain to you how you got here, and I also want to show you what you can do to begin to save your marriage. Sometimes checking out is even scarier than fights and arguments. I've worked with people who wish that their spouse would come home and start a fight with them because at least they'd be giving them attention. Checking out is about indifference, and that indifference is scary. Your spouse has basically established a wall. Those walls that they establish do a great job of shielding them from negative emotion, pain, shame, embarrassment, whatever it may be, some of the things you may be aware of in your marriage and some of the things you may not. The good news is that walls can be dismantled. And in this video, I'd like to show you how. Make sure you stick around to the end of the video where we offer a free resource that will help you make these principles come alive for you so you can begin to save your marriage. So where do we even begin? Well, perhaps the best place to start in trying to figure out where we're going is to understand how we got here. And what we've come to learn is that checking out rarely happens overnight. Typically, checking out happens little by little, slowly over time. Your spouse has told themselves, probably without you realizing it, that they can't talk, that their feelings won't be validated, that they don't feel understood, and so slowly over time they've become numb or calloused. Years ago, when I was learning how to play the guitar, I learned a thing or two about numbness. Because when you first learn to play the guitar, you have to press your fingers deep into the strings, which can cause your fingertips to experience some pain. What you have to do in order to become proficient is you have to push through the pain. Over time, repetitive movement, pushing those fingers into the strings, can build a resistance on the edges of your fingertip known as calluses. That's maybe a little bit of what's gone on in your dynamic, but maybe in the negative way. Over time, your spouse has come to learn by pressing their fingers into those strings over and over again, I don't feel heard, I don't feel understood, my feelings don't matter, I feel shame, I feel some kind of negative emotion. And for whatever reason, they haven't felt like they could share it. Or if they did, they didn't feel like it was received in a way that that honored their emotions. So what happened? They became calloused. They became numb. They started checking out. It's important to recognize then that if your spouse has become calloused or numb, it doesn't mean they're a bad person. It's part of their defense mechanism. Okay, so now you're thinking, great, so tell me what I can do to make a difference. And I'll get there. But first, let me tell you what not to do. See if any of this may sound familiar to you. Typically, when a spouse recognizes that their partner has checked out, they try to wake them up to get them to check back in. This typically involves what we call push behaviors, certain behaviors that elicit negative emotions within your spouse, the kinds of behaviors that actually have the opposite effect. Rather than getting them to come closer to you, you end up pushing them away. Like begging for their attention, pleading with them, talking about the relationship nonstop, trying to force them to go on date nights, to get them to re-engage. I want to check you back in. And your spouse is saying, you're reinforcing exactly what I've been feeling time and time again. I'm finished. I'm done. I'm numb. I'm checked out. So let's establish a rule as we continue, which is pushes aren't gonna work. They're only going to work against you. Instead, could I recommend something we call pull behaviors? So if these pushes aren't going to be the thing that cause your spouse to come back, then what might work instead? Well, there's a lot of resources we have to help you with this, but I'd like to introduce something we call smart contact. Again, we have toolkits and video series that teach you the in-depth principles here. I'd like just to give you a brief overview. What kind of contact should I be having with my spouse? We would say you should be having SMART contact. It's an acronym we use to help you understand what it looks like. The S stands for stop push behaviors. What we need to be doing, friends, is we need to be paying attention to how our behavior causes our spouses to feel. If it's eliciting a negative emotion, it's a push. And we say we've got to start by stopping those push behaviors. What about the M? Well, you should be managing business items. Business items, what exactly do you mean? Well, there are lots of different things you can talk about in the marriage. Typically, a spouse who wants to save the marriage wants to talk about the relationship. These are in-depth emotional conversations that require a lot of emotional fortitude, the kind of fortitude and strength that your spouse right now probably doesn't have. So let's stay away right now from the relationship talk, but we do need to manage business items. Do you have kids together? Great, then manage that. Do you have taxes to pay? Do you own an actual business? Is there some kind of family event or engagement that we need to be a part of? Awesome. All of that falls under manage business items, but be careful. Don't allow your business conversations to bleed into the kind of conversations that would end up being a push. In other words, if you've got a birthday party to plan with your son, then make the discussions about the birthday, not about your family. You know, this may be the last party we have with little Johnny if things keep going the way they're going. No, no, no, no, no, no. Those are push behaviors. We stopped those. Let's just make it about what kind of cake, what kind of balloons, what should the candles look like. This is business items. Keep it shallow and trust the process. Stop push behaviors. Manage business items. A allow for conversation. Sometimes we hear people who claim to be experts say that if you really want your spouse to come back, you should go no contact with them and make them miss you. My friends, that is manipulation and that is not going to work. So allow for conversation. If they want to talk to you, hey, go talk with them. If they begin to bring up certain things like the relationship, then maybe it means they actually feel safe to discuss it. Maybe they're beginning to warm up. Don't go no contact. Let's go smart contact and allow them to talk with you. But the idea should be that primarily they are leading the discussions, because if they are leading the discussions, it means they're wanting to. We're not trapping them into conversations. We're not forcing them to share their emotions. We're allowing them to come to us when they feel ready. What about the R? The R stands for respond in a way that is strong, calm, and gentle. You guys know this, right? So much of how we communicate is not the words we say, but the way in which we say it. So everything, whether you're talking about the heavy, deep stuff or you're just talking about the business items, which is mostly what you should be discussing when you're starting this process, make sure you're always responding in a way that is strong, calm, and gentle. Pay attention to your body posture, pay attention to your tone of voice, pay attention to your facial expressions. And if you feel like you cannot respond in ways that are strong, calm, and gentle, then go do some work to get yourself to that place. And we have a million resources to help you with that. All right, what's the T? The T stands for take it one day at a time. What did I tell you at the beginning of this video? You didn't get here overnight. Typically, calluses are developed by consistent behaviors done time and time and time again that cause a spouse to grow weary and numb. Just like you didn't get here overnight, you're not gonna get out of here overnight. This, my friends, is gonna require patience. So make sure you take it one day at a time. Let's practice smart contact, right? Stop push behaviors, manage business items, allow for conversation, respond in a way that's strong, calm, and gentle, and take it one day at a time. Can I say just one more thing about that last point in smart contact? What did I tell you at the end there to take it one day at a time, right? So much of saving a marriage requires two important elements patience and consistency. Patience and consistency. And why are those two things so important? Because many times a spouse who is kind of checked out of the marriage will recognize and notice the changes that you are beginning to make. But typically it's initially met with skepticism. Why are you doing this? What is your angle here? This is not the way you typically act and behave. They many times will be suspicious and will perceive your changes to be a manipulation tactic. My friends, we're not interested in helping you manipulate anyone. In fact, if you're only going to do these principles to force your spouse to get back, then maybe you should check your motivations, even from the start. What we want to teach you is ways to actually build relationships that last. So make sure you stay patient. Make sure you stay consistent. Let's manage our expectations. Let's not believe that if we start practicing smart contact, that two weeks our spouses will come crawling back to us. We don't believe that. Your spouse has the right to make whatever decisions they want to make. Instead, as you begin to practice smart contact, as you begin to consistently over time make changes that requires patience, see if you don't start noticing a little bit of warmth. It might be more eye contact. It might be a friendly text. Maybe your spouse begins sending you emojis. Maybe they're open to playing a game with you or going on a date. Maybe there's more physical touch. Be paying attention to the tiny little wins. And when you notice a bit of warmth happening between the dynamic, let that be a sign that things are heading in the right direction. Does that mean we're about to save this thing? It could be. But typically putting a marriage back on track takes more than that. And it may take a little bit more than just practicing smart contact. But we know that this kind of thing works. So if you're living with a spouse who's checked out of the marriage, could I just remind you that if they're going to check back in, it's not going to be through your control. In fact, let's just make control a thing of the past. Let's not control our spouse. If we're going to control something, could it be that we need to control the environment? What do you mean? Let's use the tools I've already offered you, like smart contacts, stopping push behaviors, and all the rest, to create the right kind of environment where your spouse, on their own accord, can begin to slowly but surely warm up to you and make moves back towards you. If you need some help with this, we've got a free resource for you. So just as promised, I wanted to let you know of a resource we call the 10 texts to reconnect without pressure. You can find it in a link in the description. We want to make that available to you because we want to help you save your marriage. If you'd like to see more content like this, make sure you subscribe to our channel. Make sure you like this video, leave us a comment, and remember there is always hope. We'll see you in the next one.