Reader Question: Why Are We Feeling Distant AFTER Dealing with our Problems?

by | Jan 15, 2018 | Resolving Conflict | 15 comments

Healing is often a journey that plunges us even more backwards before we move forward! Too often this leads to confusion, but here are some surprising factors.

Why is that one step forward often means two steps back when you’re trying to fix big marriage problems?

Reader Question: Why do we feel distant after we already dealt with our marriage problems?

This week on the blog we’re going to be looking at how to tackle big things in your marriage. And one thing I’ve noticed is that often when you start healing, marriage suddenly gets worse. It seems almost counterintuitive. But that’s what this woman found, who recently reached out to me about her marriage. She writes:

Reader Question

We have been married for 5 years and blessed with a little one this past April. We’ve gone through many struggles the past 5 years, most of which has been healed. We both had sex before marriage and had a rocky start to our relationship, ending up with infidelity a little over a year ago. We’ve grown, forgiven, healed.Changing my mindset has been the hardest- years of destruction in behavior, confronting how I was raised. So recently I started reading more from you about how to improve our sex life and grow and hopefully repair some of the damage that many years have caused. I got excited about it, but now my husband feels inadequate. He’s crushed and I’m crushed. We’re even sleeping so far apart now! I still can’t talk to my husband about what I want! It’s frustrating. But through all of this, I can’t keep but wondering “why?”, why did I want to change something that was working and now is not?

That is a really common dynamic, and I want to explain what often happens. I don’t know more about this woman’s marriage, so I’ll just talk in general generic terms. But here goes!

Healing is often a journey that plunges us even more backwards before we move forward! Too often this leads to confusion, but here are some surprising factors.

Every marriage has an equilibrium. When you disrupt it, life gets messy.

Why would marriage get more difficult AFTER progress has been made and right when you’re trying to improve it?

Because you’re upsetting the apple cart.

Every marriage has an equilibrium, a balance where you each know what’s expected of you. That balance isn’t necessarily healthy. Your habits aren’t necessarily good ones. But they are your “normal”. When you decide that you want a new normal, that puts a lot of pressure on your spouse, because now they don’t know what’s expected of them. They were used to a certain way of doing life (even if it wasn’t a good way), and now it’s like they’re dropped out of a plane without a parachute. They don’t know what’s happening.

Any time you don’t know what’s happening is scary, even if the change is good. Why do families self-destruct after they win millions in a lottery? Because their whole way of life is gone and they’re at a loss as to what to do now.

Progress and healing inevitably bring a lot of confusion. It’s like how life often gets more complicated right after you become a Christian. Sure, that’s a great decision to make, but now nobody knows how to relate to you. You don’t know how to do life anymore. You need to learn a bunch of new habits. It may be an exciting time, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy one.

When you heal, you walk into truth. But some people are not used to living in truth.

There’s another element to this, too. All healing, of any type, comes down to this:

You choose to see your life in the same way that God sees it.

You line your vision up with God’s, and you decide to walk in truth.

That’s healing. That’s maturity. That gives you the ability to move forward.

But walking in truth can also be very intimidating, and not everyone is ready for it. I talked before Christmas about the situation where family members are estranged from one another. I talked about why siblings will often choose a dysfunctional relationship with a parent over a loving relationship with a sibling. Because they have unmet needs for acceptance from a parent, and they haven’t been able to take that need to God yet, then they will keep living the lie that their parents demand they do rather than admit that the parental relationship is destructive as the sibling wants them to. They will choose the lie over truth because it allows them to preserve the illusion that they may one day get the acceptance they yearn for from parents.

It doesn’t work, of course. But living in truth means understanding that some of these things our inmost selves desperately yearn for–like love from parents, acceptance from others, praise from important people–may never happen. That’s hard to face up to. Instead, many people continue to live a shame-based or illusion-based life rather than a truth-based life.

What that may mean is that you may have been able to walk forward in truth, but your husband may not be there yet. And you can’t force him to face up to truth. Just because you have healed doesn’t mean that your husband has, and so you wanting to improve things may be making him go faster than he’s emotionally ready for.

Sometimes our healing isn’t as simultaneous as it may seem.

You may feel as if you’ve come a long way in your marriage. You’ve dealt with baggage from the past. You’ve dealt with the infidelity.

And so now you don’t just want to get rid of the crud; you want to build some new stuff!

But it could be that your spouse just hasn’t come as far down that road as you have. It may not just be emotional issues either; especially where infidelity is concerned, there could be some major trust issues. In this woman’s letter, she said that there was infidelity last year, but she didn’t lay out who had the affair. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that it was her. She cheated on him. And they’ve obviously worked through that and had counseling. If she’s the one who has cheated, I’m sure she’d like nothing better than to look forward and move forward!

Infidelity, though, can be very hard to get past. And if you’re the one who has cheated, and you regret it and you’re now super motivated to build a great marriage, and you come to your husband and say, “I’ve got all these great ideas on how we can improve our sex life!”, that really can be very intimidating. He may still not be completely over the affair, and you saying, “I want to fix our sex life” can easily sound like, “the fact that our sex life was lousy is why I had an affair, and if you don’t step up, I may again.” This obviously is not what she means. But can you see how that may be the message he’s hearing?

Even if he’s the one who has had the affair, she still may be miles ahead in healing. He still may not have completely dealt with the intimacy issues (not necessarily sex issues, but intimacy issues) that caused him to stray in the first place. If someone is not used to living in complete intimacy with another person, then the thought of trying to create a great sex life can sound scary.

Yes, you may have gone over the ways that you were hurt as a child, and you may have worked through the infidelity. But just remember that your spouse may not be at the same place, and give him grace to keep growing.

Be careful of insecurities!

And especially give him grace in areas that he may be insecure. If you’ve suddenly decided that your sex life could be much better, and you study how to make it better (by buying The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, for instance, or reading a ton of posts on this blog), that can make it sound like you don’t think he’s a good lover. Or if you finally realize that the reason you guys are in debt is because you don’t have a plan, and you go overboard with Dave Ramsey and build a super detailed budget, he can feel like you think he’s irresponsible.

If he has insecurities in an area, just recognize that before you barge straight in. And that leaves me my last point:

Remember the goal: Keep connecting. Then you can address other things!

Look, when you’ve had a really messed up past, and you finally admit it to yourself and realize that you don’t have to live that way, it’s exhilarating.

You can make all these plans for how to fix every area of your life. You’re going to fix your sex life. You’re going to fix your finances. You’re going to eat better. EVERYTHING is going to be awesome!

But the problem with this approach is that the goal becomes I am going to fix my life. Because you’re so excited about it, you want your husband to jump on board too, and start fixing his life with you.

When your goal is to fix your life, though, then it makes it sound like you’re saying:

I don’t like my life the way it is now.

And your husband is a huge part of your life now! So it can seem like it’s a rejection of him.

I have found, though, that a simple switch in how you frame things can turn the whole thing around.

Instead of the goal being, “I want to fix my life“, the goal can become: “I love you so much that I want to grow closer to you in this way…” The goal becomes closer connection and intimacy with your husband, not fixing your life.

Can you see how that’s an easier thing to get on board with?

If it’s your sex life, for instance, instead of saying something like:

I know sex can get better. I’ve got all these ideas! Let’s try them!

you can say,

I want us to feel so intimate sexually, and I’d love to grow even closer to you. I’ve got some ideas. Can we talk about them?

One sounds like a veiled rejection or insult. The other sounds like a bid to connect.

Do you find it hard to talk about SEX?

31 Days to Great Sex guides you through exercises so that you can talk about libido, frequency, intimacy, in a low-stress, easy way.

No blaming. Just solutions–and a whole lot of fun!

One of the most exciting times in your life and periods of the biggest growth is when you realize how counterproductive and toxic much of your approach to your life and marriage has been, and how it doesn’t have to be like that. But that time has a lot of dangers, too. So just be careful that in your enthusiasm you don’t inadvertently push your spouse away. Keep the focus on connecting. And you’ll likely find that’s much easier for everyone to handle!

What do you think? Has your marriage ever been in the situation where you thought it was getting better–and then your husband (or wife) pulled away? Let’s talk in the comments!

Written by

Sheila Wray Gregoire

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Sheila Wray Gregoire

Author at Bare Marriage

Sheila is determined to help Christians find biblical, healthy, evidence-based help for their marriages. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8

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15 Comments

  1. Jo

    I think even in good change the equilibrium gets disrupts and can be challenging. My husband has been growing a lot as a person through work experiences and I realized that I have been adverse to asking him about those changes. Part of me recognized a stubbornness in myself of seeing him bouncing ahead without me yet not wanting to accept that I’ve become stuck in my routine rut. Something I am learning about marriage is that it is like the verse that talks about iron sharpening iron. Our spouse isn’t there to come against us, sometimes the truths they challenge us to are hard but worth it. In my case I’m learning that he’s changing and there is a beautiful invitation to grow alongside him if I am willing to have a little humility and admit I need to be open to change in my own heart.

    Reply
    • Sheila Gregoire

      Oh, Jo, humility is so hard, isn’t it? It’s great that God’s revealing this in you, though, and now you can do something about it.

      Reply
  2. Vicky

    Oh may this is where i am in my marriage..after sorting a very very big issue i prayed God would help us keep it together and save our marriage…seemed to be that way until my husband punished me back and hurt me so much, now im struggling to trust him…i even question if i truly love him thd same way anymore 🙁

    Reply
    • Sheila Gregoire

      I’m sorry, Vicky. It sounds like you have been through so much turmoil. I’d just encourage you not to make any big decisions in the middle of deep hurt. Think about it, pray about it, maybe go to counselling together. I pray you’ll find peace.

      Reply
  3. Mina

    *Very* timely for me, and very encouraging, thank you!

    Reply
    • Sheila Gregoire

      I’m glad!

      Reply
  4. Johanna Galyen

    Sheila,
    I really appreciated how you reframed the “I want to do to THIS in my marriage” to how can we grow together? I have seen this happen in my marriage so many times.

    I struggle with being a total go-getter. I can make a plan in 5 minutes, and have it implemented and I’m ready. But usually, it’s all in my head and I don’t communicate it to my husband very well. So misunderstanding occurs. But when I step back, calm down the excited emotions, and we really talk about the issues and how we can grow through them…that’s when the best plan gets formed and we both see positive change. ~ Johanna

    Reply
    • Sheila Gregoire

      yay, Johanna! That’s great. And I do think the reframing makes a huge difference. We don’t realize how we can subtly be criticizing our spouse without realizing it, even when that’s not our intention.

      Reply
  5. Rachel

    In addition to what Sheila said, I have found in life that as soon as we start trying to follow God better and make better choices, the enemy throws a whole bunch of difficulties in the way. That’s often a sign that you are doing well. Unfortunately.

    Reply
    • Kay

      I came to say the same! Satan always launches a counter attack, and discouragement is one of his favorite weapons.

      Reply
    • Sheila Gregoire

      That is SO true, Rachel. I’ve found that in my life, too.

      Reply
  6. Flo

    This article reminds me of some times that my husband and I went through… Solving problems is a useful activity, but not a pleasant one. And we like to spend time with people with whom it is actually pleasant to spend time, not useful. So, in a way, solving problems decreases the friendship between husband and wife… And leads to silence and isolation. I think the thing to do then is: work on the friendship, organize pleasant activities together. It has to be things that both enjoy! We like to go out for dinner, to go hiking in the forest, to watch a good movie while cuddling, to have lengthy discussions about various (not painful) subjects. We spend so much time together that we have no choice but to work on being each other’s best friend 🙂

    Reply
  7. MMM

    EXCELLENT post!

    Reply
  8. Mere

    I love your posts and book, 9 thoughts. It has become a staple while figuring out how to be a great wife, and overall woman. I agree it is soo trying and the enemy has his ways, makes it seem so easy to give up!
    Without much detail, I can relate to this post… esp the enemy and interferences. There’s a lot of pressure on women and men to be this or that. Then, realizing those pressures on me don’t have to be relayed harshly from my voice is refreshing, I’ll have to learn to do so and pray for patience daily. I love the comments, thank you from a struggling newlywed!!!

    Reply
    • Sheila Gregoire

      Oh, I’m so glad you liked my book! It actually is one of my favourite ones that I’ve written, and I’m glad it’s helped you!

      Reply

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