What is the Best Thing to Do When a Husband Wants Space Or Time Apart?

I often hear from panicked wives who tell me that they aren’t sure how to proceed when their husband has asked for “space” or some “time apart.” They worry that giving him this space will result in him deciding that he likes it and wants more of it in the form of a separation or divorce. So, it can be very tempting to try to talk him out of this or convince him that he’s wrong. However, from my own experience, I feel that this strategy can be a bad idea. I’ll tell you why in the following article.

Sometimes, If You Deny Your Husband The Time Apart, He’ll Want It Even More Or Will Take It Anyway: If you show your hand or express fear and pressure, you run the real risk of your husband pushing right back and becoming even more convinced that this is just what he wants. In short, he’ll dig in his heals and suddenly will accept nothing less. Worse, sometimes when you’re argue this point so much that it causes him stress, he’ll simply remove himself from the situation and take the time without further discussion.

It’s often a bad idea to put yourself on the side that opposes your husband. You want for him to know that you want him to be happy and you want to help him get what he wants in order for this to happen. But, if you debate what he thinks he needs, he’s likely to think that it’s you that’s standing in the way of his happiness. Once this happens, he potentially sees you as something which he may need to eliminate in order to be happy. This is the last thing you want.

Cooperating With His Request For Space, While Having Control Over How He Accomplishes This: For many reasons, I feel that it’s best to appear to cooperate with his request for some time alone. This makes you appear to be his ally and helps to ensure that he won’t limit his contact with you. However, just because you cooperate doesn’t mean that you want to just leave everything to chance.

You might want to suggest that he take the space while you are the one to stay with friends for a while. This gives you a greater ability to control the process. He’s getting what he asked for but you don’t have to worry about figuring out a way to make him come back. Not all husbands will go along with this, but some will.

If this doesn’t work, then the next step would be to try to establish some understanding of how to time apart is going to work. You don’t want to lay the pressure on so thickly that he wants to avoid the topic altogether, but you might ask how often you will check in and how he envisions that the process will work logistically.

Using The Time Away To Your Advantage: His perception of you while he’s taking time away is so important. Because while he (or you) are away, he’s going to be thinking about you and the relationship. He’s going to be exploring whether he’s happier with you or without you. You want to make sure that his impression of you is a favorable one.

To that end, you certainly want to give him something to work with. When he thinks of you, it’s not in your best interest if he envisions a moping, sad, and desperate person who is pacing the floors waiting for his call. Instead, you want for him to know (or at least suspect) that you’re coping fine, are remaining positive, and are using the time to work on yourself and to determine what you yourself want.

That’s why it’s so vital to be and to sound upbeat and positive when you interact with him. You want to display confidence and the knowledge that the two of you are right for one another and can most certainly work this out. Yes, this is a bit of allowing him to see what you want him to see, but it’s typically worth it in the end because you both are able to get what you want.

Hopefully by now it’s obvious that in my view and experience, the best thing to do when your husband asks for space is to freely offer that space, but only after you have a careful plan that will work to your advantage.