My Spouse Feels Emotionally Distant // Hump Day Q&A

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Hello and welcome back to Hump Day Q and A. We are Dave and Ashley Willis and we're so excited that you're joining us today. Today's question is this. Dave and Ashley, My spouse has always been emotionally distant and I've learned to cope with it over the years. However, as time goes on, this emotional unavailability is becoming more painful and isolating for me. I crave a deeper connection, but I'm afraid that pushing for more will drive a wedge between us. How can I address this need for emotional intimacy without alienating my spouse? And how do we bridge this gap? You know, I can just sense the, just the heartbreak in there, like just wanting so badly to have that emotional connection. I mean, to have the naked marriage that we always talk about, you know, naked and unashamed. And for some reason there's this block. And I want to say this real quick, like I, in, in the coaching practice that I do, I am finding that this is a common theme for people and a lot of times the reason behind it, like if you really pull back the layers, it's that. And this doesn't excuse it, but it gives you at least more understanding and perspective. Is usually that person who is holding back emotionally really grew up in a family where they held back emotionally. Like this is what they know.

That's what is normal to them.

Exactly. Or they were burned in some way where the one time they were being emotionally vulnerable, they were shut down for some reason. You know, you have a great story I would love for you to share. You may have shared it before, but I don't know if you did on Hump Day. Q and A. But about Gene Wilder and his childhood. I love that story that you have to share about that. Do you mind to share that?

Sure. Okay, sure. Well, I was watching this Netflix documentary about Gene Wilder, an actor probably best known to younger generations as the original Willy Wonka, which is the best Willy Wonka? Yeah, he was.

Well, I will, will say Timothy Chalamet.

Am I saying that? Yeah, he was really good.

He did good. He was more like the Gene Wilder.

Johnny Depp's was kind of weird, but that's Johnny Depp.

Johnny Depp's great, but I just didn't think that was.

He makes weird cool. But no, Gene Wilder, which wasn't his real name. That's a, that's a stage name. I forget his birth name. But during this documentary in his life, something, you know, stood out. When he was eight years old, he was being raised by a single mom. And his single mom had heart trouble, pretty major heart trouble. And so a doctor was visiting their house, checking on his mom. And he came over to Gene, young boy, and put his hand on Gene's shoulder and very sternly said, never, never disagree with your mom or be upset around your mom because you could kill her.

I mean, pretty.

And then he said, just, just try to make her laugh. And those words are so heavy to this young boy who really felt like him expressing emotion. What could actually kill his mother. I mean, imagine the weight of that on an eight year old child. And that stayed with him. And as he grew into adulthood, he felt like he had to keep his emotions bottled up. And the only way he could express anything was on stage or through acting because it was kind of make believe. But it was an outlet for him to express any real emotion because he grew up thinking that humor was the only emotion he could really express. Anything else he couldn't. And so of course that's a recipe for really unhealthy relationships later. Because if you feel like you can never express concern, never express disappointment, never be sad about anything, never be honest, never be honest.

Like gut level honest.

That's, that's so hard. But it's like when we're kids, I say a lot. It's, it's, it's as if there's wet cement in our mind and heart. And the words spoken to us, the experiences we, we get as children form impressions in that wet cement over time and hardens. We see ourselves in the world around us that way. And especially like Ashley said, as it relates to this emotional expression. If you grew up in a household where people screamed, then you think, well, that's what we do. You Scream that shows you care. If you grew up in a house where you just retreat and don't talk about stuff, that's what you do. You're like, well, you know, we just.

We keep it service.

Yeah. We sweep it under the rug and then eventually it goes away on its own. And that's what my parents did, and that's what we're going to do. And so you and your spouse together have to decide what is. What is healthy. And if you can't agree on that, or if you had a healthy pattern at one time, and for whatever reason, one spouse is pulled away, which sounds more like what's happening here. One spouse is.

She says they've never always been emotionally.

So he's always been emotionally distant. Well, that makes more sense because usually our MO Is to just stay the way that we've been. And then we blame our own unhealthy behavior on, well, this is my personality or it's just the way that I am and deal with it. And of course, that's a cop out most of the time. So a few things. Number one, I think talking together to a counselor to one of our marriage mediators at XO, which is, you can go to xomarriagehelp.com they do a great job helping couples bridge these divides without singling anybody out, without making the spouse in question here feel like this is all to fix you. No, Any good marriage counseling is going to be helping both spouses find common ground and see their own blind spots a little bit as well. Um, so that's. I think that that is probably what needs to happen potentially. That's what need to happen. Needs to happen first. A second thing you can do right now, though, is just modeling through your behavior, through your. Your emotional response, through your honesty, modeling the kind of behavior you hope to see from your spouse and then letting them know, like, hey, I. I'm sharing. I'm opening up. Like, I would love. I would love for you to feel safe to do this with me.

Right.

As well. And not to be a clone of me, not saying my way is perfect or my personality is the right one. That's obviously a dangerous thing to even infer. But to just express yourself and then encourage your spouse to express themselves, himself in this case and to. And to thank him and praise him.

When he does exactly. Praise behaviors, repeated behavior and. And also gratitude goes a long way. And I think it might be that again, he's. He's scared to just be really open because he's maybe afraid of judgment. But I Think you've got to help him to understand by continually being that safe place we talk about, that soft place to land, which I'm sure you've tried to be over the years, but I think really coming out with how it makes you feel by using I statements. I feel so close to you when you share these honest stories with me. When you share something that you're scared of, when you share something that is just vulnerable, I feel closer to you. And because of that, I do feel safer with you because I know you're being honest with me. And you could say, too, I think it's okay to say we've been married a long time. I know in a lot of ways, we've kept it very surface. But in this next season of our marriage, I feel like we've got to have a new chart, a new course. It can't keep going this way. I feel like I love you. I'm committed to you. I'm not going anywhere. But I think we need more. I think we're missing out on fully having a naked marriage. And I know it can be scary, but I want you to know I'm here. I'm. I want to know those things. Like, I've been with you all this time, but I want to know you more. And I know there's more that can be known, and I want you to know me more and just be really honest with him. And I do think. I mean, if you've existed this way for a long time, and she said she used to be able to cope with it, but now it feels so isolating. I think it's really important your husband knows that you feel so lonely, you know, that you feel like, yes, we've been married a long time, but because you won't share with me and let me in, I feel so lonely. And you probably don't realize that maybe you're not, like, in your mind. You don't need vulnerability from me to the level I need it. But I'm telling you, when you're not open with me and you're not even sharing your emotions, I just feel so cut off. I feel like I'm really, like, we're just business partners. I don't feel like I'm your lover and your friend and your wife. You know, I just. I don't feel like we're having the connection that we can have.

Yeah.

And I feel like that's going to. I mean, he may not even really know that. Like, he may not realize how it makes you feel. And I think you Know, like Dave said, modeling, that's one way to model it as well, because you're being honest about how you feel in a non accusatory way, but an honest way in a loving way. And you know, I think it's always good if we can present something. And I don't even. There's probably a professional word for this, but I call it the communication sandwich. Because you start with something where you're showing gratitude or praise, find something you can praise or thank him for, then you talk about the hard stuff in the middle in a loving way, and then you end with gratitude or praise.

Yeah, yeah.

And so you have this sandwich where it's a soft landing, you know, that's gonna get someone to listen because they know they see the best in me. They're not just raking on me. They're not trying to find all the bad here.

You know, they're sharing two good things for every constructive correction thing.

Exactly. I mean, and there's, I think we shared this before too. There's been studies on this, like through the Gottman Institute, that for every one negative thing, which I wouldn't even call this negative per se, it's just a concern. I mean, she's not being nitpicky, but they do say over time you need really five positive things for every negative thing. So like going out of your way to think and praise. But I, bottom line, I think it's just really focusing on, on being that safe place and really expressing what, how this makes you feel, how and why. Why you need this from him. Because I think he may not understand. Why does she need me to open up? Why can't we just exist and go on with life? We've done it this long, I think really getting to the heart of how you feel.

Yeah, yeah. And when your spouse is asking you these questions and wanting you to open up, realize they're not trying to interrogate you, they're trying to connect with you. I just did some marriage counseling this morning for a good friend of mine who was sharing some things going on in his marriage. And this was in some ways the dynamic they're facing is that he, he typically, you know, doesn't, doesn't really open up and share. He's pretty, like even tempered, level headed, hard working guy, good guy, provides for his family well. But his wife always wants to really connect with him emotionally. And then he's, he has trouble doing that. He gets kind of like defensive when she's asking him questions, even just about his day. And then she feels disconnected Emotionally, which means she doesn't feel connected to one of the. Connect physically through physical intimacy and sex. And then he gets frustrated by that, and it makes him pull away even further emotionally. And this had gone on and on in this cycle till finally last week, he had this. This emotional outburst that was way out of character where he, you know, he lost his temper, he said things that he regrets, and it's put a bigger wedge between them. And now he's having to do the repair work to really kind of get to that, because he surprised himself with that response. But when we don't express ourselves emotionally in healthy ways, then it bottles up and it can come out in ways that we don't expect it in ways we don't want it to.

And at times we don't realize, at.

Times we don't want it to.

Yeah, it just unleashes. It's like a kettle that's ready to. To blow off steam, you know, and. Yeah, you're right. And then. And then we're, you know, Dave, you use this in a sermon for. It's like toothpaste coming out of a. You know, it's the paste coming out of the toothpaste bottle. You can't put it back in there.

Right.

But you can repair. I mean, God gives us the ability to repair these things, but it takes time, and it takes also learning from it. Like, learning from what went wrong.

Yeah, you have to learn from it. When you get to moments like this, like I coached him today, you have to apologize, but also be very real about what was going on in you that led to that. Like, what's happening in your mind and your heart. Like, be vulnerable. And for him, the real route we got to was he was feeling. He was feeling rejection from her, not only with the sex, but just kind of in other parts that I'm sure she didn't mean it as rejection, but he took it that way. And at the same time, he was feeling vulnerable and feeling rejection from. From his kids in different ways. And he was feeling, you know, the squeeze of financial pressure. And there were all these things happening simultaneously that created this perfect storm. And because he wasn't communicating all this, he unleashed. He unleashed. Right. And then that made it worse. That's not healthy emotional expression. That's just, you know, vomiting on somebody. And so it's going to get to that point if we don't learn to do it well, you're either just going to shut down and be apathetic like robots with each other, or you're going to you're going to get to that point where you're, you're having these unhealthy emotional outbursts. And so your, your husband in this case needs to realize like, I'm just, I'm trying to help you. I'm not trying to, to coerce you or manipulate you, control or control you. I'm trying to help you, to let you know I'm a safe place, safest place on earth for you to express what's going on. And the more you express and share with me, the closer we can become.

Exactly. Well said, sweetie. Well, thank you all for joining us and we will see you next time on Hump Day Q and A.

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Thank you all so much for listening to today's episode of Hump Day Q and A. We love getting your questions and we want to answer your question. And so if you go to nakedmarriagepodcast.com, you can submit your question right there or you can follow us on Instagram avanashleywillis and you can give us your questions right there by giving us a dm. So we'll catch you next time on Hump Day Q and A.