Your spouse may be there in your home physically (at least sometimes) but how about emotionally? Do you feel like you are on your own without a marital partner emotionally?

That’s NOT why you married the person who you once thought was the “love of your life.” But now you find that your spouse is closed off emotionally to you and you feel emotionally abandoned because he/she is uncommunicative.

The following are a few insights and a few questions that might help you that Dr Gary Chapman brings out in his book, “Loving Solutions”:

There are many reasons why some spouses become uncommunicative. Their unwillingness to share verbally finds its root in what is going on inside of them. Often it is unmet needs in the marital relationship that have stimulated resentment in the spirit of the silent spouse. His silence is a way of expressing this resentment. It is his/her way of saying, “I don’t like you, so I will treat you as a non-person.”

I don’t mean that the silent partner is consciously thinking these thoughts; I mean these are the inner emotional reasons why he or she is not talking. If we can discover the emotions inside the person and the factors that give rise to these emotions, we are well on the way to helping the non-communicating spouse to break his/her silence. The spouse who seeks to be a positive change agent would do well to ask this question: “Does my spouse have an unmet emotional need that may be causing him to resent me?” …Each of ourselves can ask ourselves the following:

• Does my spouse genuinely feel my unconditional love or has my love been conditional—I will love you if…

• Have I done anything to infringe upon my spouse’s freedom? Does he feel that I am trying to control his life?

• Has my speech or behavior struck at her efforts to gain significance? Does she see me as condemning something that she values as being significant?

• Does he see me as a barrier to the fulfillment of his need for recreation and relaxation?

• Is my spouse struggling with the spiritual dimension of life? Does she see me as interfering with her search for peace with God?

Anyone of these questions may uncover the source of your spouse’s silence. The challenge then is to find a way to help him or her meet that emotional need at the same time maintain your own integrity and get your own needs met.

That’s quite the challenge —one that our Wonderful Counselor can help you to work through. To help you on this mission we recommend that you read the following articles, for which we are supplying links to web sites where they are posted. Read them carefully and prayerfully, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal truths to you concerning your marriage. Then glean the information you can use and apply it to your situation.

From the magazine, “Christian Women Today” please click onto the link below:

• EMOTIONAL ABANDONMENT: WHEN YOUR SPOUSE SHUTS YOU OUT

From “Christianity Today” please click onto the following link:

• MY SPOUSE IS EMOTIONALLY DISTANT

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