6 Reasons Your Husband Won’t Talk to You and How to Help Him Want To
Discover the reasons your husband won’t talk to you and what you can do about it to make your relationship better–for the both of you.
When men stop talking to their wives, it is not something that makes them happy. In fact, it makes both them and their wives miserable.
Why would they do it then? There are several possible reasons and men can have more than one at the same time. Detecting the right reason or reasons will help you to focus on the right remedy to increase his communication.
Never expect your husband to figure out what is making him behave a certain way and to fix it. Men look for external reasons for their behavior, which means you are likely to be blamed for it, no matter what. Improving relationships works better not by getting others help, but by creating healthy conditions for the relationship. That is under our control. Changing others is not. Just as providing love and requiring respect helps parents to have healthy relationships with their children, the same is true for every other relationship.
The person who should work on improving a relationship is the one who cares most about relationship improvement.
For example, if you respond in a way that rewards bad behavior, it will only get worse. You need to behave in such a way that increases his desire to be with and talk to you, while also taking away his desire to distance or be disrespectful–just like with kids or anyone else.
Let’s take a look at the possible reasons why your husband doesn’t talk to you…
Understanding why your husband won’t talk to you
For the sake of all your relationships, please memorize the motivation principle:
People do things because of some perceived benefit for them or to avoid pain.
Whenever you want to know why someone is doing something, this principle will help you to figure out why. The key to understanding your husband’s lack of communication is to figure out what benefit he gets or what pain he avoids by not talking.
Which is more rewarding for your husband? Talking to you, or avoiding you? Which brings him the most pleasure? The most pain? By working to increase his pleasure in communicating and decrease his communication pain, he will enjoy talking to you more.
Let me help you to focus in on some reasons he may perceive it is better to not talk to you or how he avoids pain by not talking to you…
Reason #1: Your husband won’t talk because he wants to feel important.
Most people want to feel important. Not everyone had parents who made them feel that way. In fact, many people haven’t. When parents don’t do a good job at helping their kids to feel important when they are socially appropriate, kids behave socially inappropriately in order to get that feeling.
The underlying reasoning is, If you have to stop what you are doing to deal with me, then I must be pretty important. Or, if what I do really bothers you, then I must be really important.
Whenever I hear some guy’s very loud car or motorcycle blasting down the road, I think it is so sad that he has to do that just to feel powerful and important. Much criminal behavior happens for the same reason. Parents ignoring or being unavailable to their children is a good way to create criminals.
Your husband may not be talking to you because he doesn’t feel that he is getting enough attention from you. But, rather than seeking attention from you in a good way, he attempts to force it from you. This is the essence of needy behavior–trying to force from our partners what we need.
As long as he is able to get more attention this way, then you can count on him continuing to do it. This behavior usually only happens when he really isn’t getting enough positive attention otherwise. It is important to ask yourself if you are giving your husband as much affection and attention as you used to.
Most of the time when women tell me that their husbands withdraw, I also discover how they go to their husbands and provide extra attention and affection in a way that they don’t normally do, in order to get him to stop withdrawing.
Fixing this pattern means providing more attention and affection when your husband is behaving well and removing attention and affection when he is withdrawing. Both parts are necessary for success. You won’t fix this overnight, and you will have to maintain these two things throughout your marriage or the withdrawal will quickly return.
In the absence of psychological disorders, men don’t withdraw because they like to withdraw. They do it to get something from you. If it isn’t attention, then it is something else, like…
Reason # 2: Your husband won’t talk because he fears creating conflict or backlash.
Your husband may be upset at you for something, but not want to say anything about it for fear that it will cause conflict. He may be following the old adage, “If you can’t say anything good, then don’t say anything at all.”
You may believe that if he would only tell you what was bothering him, then the problem could be resolved. Honestly though, this is often not the case. Were he to tell you what was bothering him, it might lead to even more conflict than you have now.
Think back on when your husband has shared what was bothering him. Has it been a good thing for him, or something that taught him not to do that again? Is there a good reason why your husband doesn’t want to share with you now? Do you do a good job of helping him feel validated when he tells you what is bothering him?
If you are good at providing love and affection, and you are good at validating him when he shares with you, then his not talking may be because of…
Reason # 3: Your husband won’t talk because he has given up hope on your relationship.
Perhaps your husband has repeatedly talked with you about some ongoing problem in your relationship. You have validated him, but nothing ever really changed. At this point he may have given up on that actually changing. And, because he is not enjoying your relationship, he just spends time doing other things that he enjoys more than talking with you.
When men stop working on change, it is not usually because they have become okay with things as they are, but because they have no more hope. His hope may shift to having a relationship with another woman. If your husband says he wants space to figure out what he wants, usually an affair is right around the corner.
Is there some issue that your husband used to be concerned about, but no longer is? Could his not talking to you be a step toward moving out of your relationship to get what he wants?
Fixing your relationship in this situation is not as simple as providing what he wanted before. You are likely to be rejected if you do, because he gave up already–he no longer wants it from you. You will need to start at a more basic level to rebuild your relationship and help him to enjoy you again.
Never start at the level which you will be rejected or fail. Start at the level where success is assured and work your way up.
Did you ever consider that because you don’t like it that he isn’t talking to you, he may not be talking because of…
Reason # 4: Your husband won’t talk because he is punishing you.
Did you do something your husband doesn’t like? If so, he may be doing something that you don’t like. Many people will get revenge, even if they hurt themselves in the process.
If your husband knows that his not talking to you bothers you a lot, then he knows it is an effective way to punish you. Men who use this style are often punitive toward others as well, whom them blame for causing their problems.
Is he never wrong? The more right he feels, the more justified he will feel to judge others and treat them badly, including you. Does your husband typically feel that he is a victim of other people’s behavior and deserves better than he has? Is his way the only right way?
Effectively improving this situation requires using boundaries that put him in the position to possibly lose you. Since he wants to punish you and not lose you, this will stimulate more positive interaction from him, which you can reward by treating him well.
Is that still not it? Well then, let’s look at…
Reason # 5: Your husband won’t talk because he is trying to force something from you.
There are many things that people can do to try to get their way. Unfortunately, withholding love, affection, attention, or talking are some of them. These always do damage, but often work, especially with needy people who are fearful of abandonment.
The more fearful you are of losing your husband, the more likely you are to give in to this kind of psychological manipulation. As soon as you do, your husband is rewarded for doing that and so is even more likely to do it again.
Just like giving in to a child who has a tantrum in order to get what he wants, giving in to psychological manipulation only makes the problem worse. Has your husband been doing this more and more over the years? What has he learned from you that is encouraging him to continue doing it?
Making positive change will start with you becoming less fearful of losing your spouse. You will need to work on enjoying other aspects of your life other than your marriage and possibly work with a therapist to overcome your fears of abandonment. Then you will be able to better not give in to your husband’s manipulation.
An unhappy woman is more likely to reward a man who mistreats her. Secure and happy women will never reward men who mistreat them.
Let’s consider one more reason your husband may not be talking to you…
Reason # 6: Your husband won’t talk because he is intentionally creating emotional distance.
There are a number of things that people can do to create distance in their relationship. A very common one is arguing about trivial matters. Another is not talking or only talking about practical matters–avoiding all personal communication.
These are warning signs that your husband is preparing to leave you or is already having an affair. In order to feel justified for such actions, people often create distance in their relationships. Most people would feel guilty to cheat on or leave someone they have a good relationship with.
Men in this situation typically are not interested in marriage counseling or will sabotage it, if they do go. Does your husband seem to go out of his way to create conflict? Do you get rejected even when you treat your husband very well?
Fixing this situation requires you to be secure, as well as increasing your value to your husband. You will then not allow him to have his cake and eat it, too. He will be fearful of losing you because people never want to lose someone they value.
The needy wife’s response when her husband won’t talk to her
Because needy women are afraid of abandonment, any kind of withdrawal by their husbands triggers anxiety. Their natural inclination is to go to their husbands and apologize, give in on something they don’t want to do, or treat their husbands extra lovingly.
With so many payoffs just for not talking, their husbands find this an excellent way to keep their wives in line and get what they want. Men with such needy wives will use withdrawal more and more in the relationship and may even get to the place where they are threatening divorce.
Men who want to divorce, divorce. Men who want to control, threaten divorce.
The secure wife’s response when her husband won’t talk to her
Secure wives have two obvious qualities. They treat their husbands very well, and they don’t accept any mistreatment from them. As a result, they are valued and respected by their husbands.
You are valued by God because you are His creation. You will only be valued by people by being valuable. We can’t demand to be valued.
Becoming valuable and secure will strengthen your relationship, although it will initially be a difficult adjustment for your husband. He will temporarily become more upset. You will need to stop giving in to whatever he is trying to force from you when he won’t talk to you. You will also need to make a concerted effort to give him good love and affirmation when he is not behaving this way.
The skills for good communication
As you can tell from the reasons that men won’t talk with their wives, their is much that women can do to maintain or restart good communication.
Here are a few essential behaviors for maintaining good communication:
- Validating
- Providing positive attention and affection
- Having a life that makes you happy, independent of your husband
- Using good boundaries to avoid rewarding bad behavior.
You can work on these skills on your own, but if you get stuck or would like guidance, I recommend you see my Difficult Partner Coaching Package. I hope I have shown you that waiting for your husband to start talking or trying to fix him is not a solution for your situation. Regardless of what your husband is doing, there are always things that you can do to create a loving, healthy marriage.
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