If you are separated and living apart (but are still invested in your marriage,) it is very understandable when you feel extremely impatient. When I was separated, there were times when every day without my husband felt like torture. I actually used to fixate and ruminate on this feeling. So of course, when things start to look up between yourself and your husband, it is natural to begin to fantasize about his coming home. Sometimes, you think about this so much that you flat out ask him if he will just come home. Unfortunately, sometimes you don't get the reaction that you'd hoped for. There are times when he doesn't say yes and he doesn't say no. He simply tells you that he isn't sure. This leaves you wondering where that might leave you in the future. Should you just let go of your hopes or could this only be temporary?
Someone might say, “for almost six months, my husband acted as if he could barely stand to even talk to me. Never mind the fact that he had moved out to avoid me and not fight with me. Him not even bothering to check up on me that hurt the most. I always wondered what he was doing or how he was, but it got to the point where I could not just call him up and ask about this, because he wouldn't pick up my calls. So I was absolutely thrilled when he started calling me and then not screening his calls anymore. Even better, that lead to him asking me if we could meet a couple of times per week. All of this is more than I ever dared to hope for. Then, when we started to spend time together, things got off to an awkward start. But eventually, we started to click and things improved pretty quickly. After that, we really started connecting again. This has been such a precious time for me because it is almost like when we were first dating. I had very high hopes for a fast reconciliation. I just wanted to life our lives again and to forget about all of the pain with the separation. But a good deal of time went by and my husband didn't say anything about this. Thankfully, we continued to see one another and to talk, but he made no mention of coming back home or of reconciling. It killed me to have such a good time together and then to go home alone. So one day I just couldn't take it anymore and I blurted out ‘when are you coming back home?' My husband looked at me like he was shocked at my outburst, and then he sighed and said that he wasn't sure if he was ready for that yet. I was pretty stunned because he'd seemed happy and content while we were spending time together. Why would he be perfectly willing to be affectionate and to interact with me, but then not be sure if he wants to move back in? Does this mean that there is no hope for a reconciliation?”
No, I definitely would not say that at all. My husband and I moved very gradually when things began to gel between us again. As much as I wanted for him to move back home, I was very afraid of having our reconciliation efforts fail. I knew that if we tried to reconcile and then things went south, then I would have a very difficult (if not impossible) time ever convincing my husband to attempt another reconciliation. So essentially, I knew that I only had once chance to make this work. And I knew how lonely and miserable I was living alone. But even so, I wanted to wait until I could be relatively sure that things would actually work out.
Your husband might be having a similar thought process right now. He could just be cautious not to rush things so that the spell isn't broken – since things seem to be going so well right now.
Believe me, I know how difficult it can be to continue to be patient when you what you want more than anything in the world is to not spend one more night alone. But when I would have these thoughts, I'd tell myself that I'd rather continue on with things as they were (on good terms between us) than to risk my progress by rushing. I just was not willing to go back to the time period where my husband was avoiding me, not returning my calls, and giving me very limited access to him. I decided that I would rather wait than return to that.
Instead, I just tried to slant things so that my husband spent more and more time in our home. I'd offer to make him dinner. I'd ask him to fix things. Eventually he spent the night. Then this turned into him spending weekends. It got to where he was staying for several days at a time. Then he just moved back in, but there was nothing really official about it. This took so much pressure off of the situation. If we had a bad night together, he simply went back to his place, allowed things to cool off, and then we picked back up. We were able to evaluate our “hot spots” and places where we still had work to do before we attempted a full on reconciliation. This gradual approach meant there was much less risk and pointed out where we could still make improvements before my husband moved back in full time.
