Getting an Answer: When He/She Won’t Make a Decision
A recent letter triggered me to thinking about how I handle this tough situation. I have been using the all-purpose skill, I'm going to describe here, for over a dozen years, recommending it to my clients. Some use it. Some don’t. Sometimes it makes things “better.” Sometimes it seems to make things “worse!” Life is like that. “Who can tell.” Take a-look.
By writing this, I may become less popular with some readers. The trick is to turn “no decision” into a “clear decision.” I just don’t see any other way out of this situation. Do you? So, take courage.
I am reminded of a study about divorce that was done, oh, 20 years ago. The question was, “After a divorce, how long did people stay single, before they started looking for another partner.” My memory was that these figures came from Australia, which my friends tell me is/was a pretty strongly macho culture. (I might be wrong. This might be one of those “lies in search of the truth.”)
The answer was that the average “woman” waited something like seven years and the average “man” waited something like seven months. And one of the factors seemed to be that the women had children – to raise, live with, and have relationships with; and the men had no one – were alone.
What got me to thinking about this study was the question of “How long should you wait?” Let’s say you are a Clinging guy and your partner is an Avoiding gal. So she leaves you and you learn all about What To Do When He/She Leaves. So you give up pursuing her, you get into therapy, you learn, your practice patience, and you wait. But how long?
I know this is a sexist version of the situation, and so the gentle reader will have to do the translations to “men avoiding women” or to gay couples. I’ll wait and give you time. 
But, let me give you another situation that I am real familiar with. A gal has been having a long-term relationship, affair, with a guy who is married. He promises to divorce his wife, but has not made a move. The gal has put her relationship-life on hold waiting for this guy. How long should she wait?
Same situation! Different, but the same. So here’s the tool.
Step One: Determine how long you can wait.
Obviously, if you were dumped on a desert island, you can wait a long time; but, you are not on a desert island. You have a life to live. I am 66 now, as I get older I think about both the “end of life” and “wasting time.” I fear that I see an awful lot of people “wasting time.” It saddens me. So this question of “how long” I frame this way. How long do you choose to wait for this person – your distant and perhaps indecisive partner, to make a decision?
And lets remember what that decision is. It is a decision to start working, slowly or quickly, on learning the skills to get along well together – University of Life stuff. Generally that means finding a therapist, counselor, pastor, someone who “knows how” and who can guide you both.
This is not a decision to “the other.” Nope. It is a decision that says, “I don’t know how to live fully peacefully with this person, and I am gonna learn how to.” The decision has to be “fair” in that both have to be free to make that decision with full integrity.
One factor in setting the time is whether you have children and what are their ages. Remember, you teach them the relationship skills they will use in life and most of this teaching takes place before they are 8–years-old. I would love it if people learned great relationship skills before they gave birth to a kid. Vintage Love parents would be awesome. But we can survive and recover amazingly. Humans are tough. Still it would be nice to be learning relationship skills before your kids hit 3. I have found that going through the University of Life after your kids hit the teenage years has a lot of drawbacks for a lot of people. I did it.
So settle on how long you can wait before starting into the University of Life with a partner. Nail it down. Write it on a wall.
Step Two: Tell your partner.
Of course this can be tricky, so I’ll give you some ideas. If your partner is not making a decision, anything you do may come across like a threat. And so you are going to have to consciously move into “making a threat.” But all of us understand that banks want their money back. Loans are not forever. If you don’t pay for the car, it will be reposessed. We know this. Why not in relationships?
Here’s a way of delivering this message with the minimum threat potential. “Honey, I care about you. I want to have a great and happy life with you. I am working on this teaching myself lots of things. But I find I need a partner to work with, to practice all these skills I am learning. I really, really want it to be you. But I know I cannot force you to work with me. That’s one of the things I have learned. Still I don’t want to wait forever for your decision to join me in this work. I don’t think that would be fair to you, (to the kids), to me.”
“So here’s the deal. I ready to wait quietly for x-length-of-time (3 months). I am not trying to force you, I just want a decision I can live with. So if you have made an appointment with a counselor of your choice and we have seen that person for, oh, 4 sessions, by date-x-length-of-time away, then I am your partner. You have my commitment. If for any reason you decide to not make the appointments or not work with me, that is ok. I will be very sad, but I will be ok with it. I will then proceed to get on with my life, separate clearly from you, and find some other partner to work with. Remember, I gotta learn anyway and I would prefer it to be you.”
“Please don’t respond to this now. Just make your decision and either let me know or don’t. It is your call. Thanks for listening.”
If you look at this lengthy speech it has all the elements: your preference to be with your partner, your respect for them, your achieving a decision even if they do nothing. This is a way to turn “their doing nothing” into “their making a clear decision.”
Step 3: Do it and don’t turn back easily!
If you get to the end of the “warning time,” I suggest you get on with your life. Do what you have to do to give yourself determination. This is tough, but Do It! You are working on the issue of Reliable Membership, so be reliable.
Also remember that finding a new partner Ms. Right or Mr. Right, takes time. If your partner changes their mind and decides to work with you while you are “dating” others, make whatever decision at that point that you think is right. I have frequently met couples who didn’t believe in their partner’s commitment. They had to see it to believe it. I think this is part of what is behind a lot of dangerous extra-marital.
Remember the goal is you getting to Vintage Love, rather than giving up and living in Door #2.
Good luck.
Hi there! I am a big fan of your site and have read quite a bit of it! Here's my situation — i'm hoping you will have a response for me! I believe my husband is in the midst of a mid life crisis. Not sure if you believe in these or not. Some people believe that term is an excuse for bad behavior. But i know him, and he is not himself right now at all.
So, here's the short version. A year ago May, my husband left me. He had been experiencing work stress, and our relationship was rocky b/c i was complaining a lot about his drinking. He had expressed the strong desire for me to quit my job to lessen the load at home, and i had a plan to do that. When he left, he said he didn't believe i was ever really going to quit, and he proceeded to spend 6 wks sharing all the grievances he held against me — i was controlling, i didn't spend enough time with him, he felt unappreciated, i was too critical of him, etc, etc. He was very depressed, cried a lot during this time, and never came back home. Said he needed time and space to sort this out. Said he knew we needed to preserve our marriage but needed space.
By Aug he started talking about divorce, said he wanted a "new normal." In Dec. i was pretty sure he was seeing someone but i didn't want to ask him for fear that would give him another excuse to stay gone (aka, "you don't trust me"). In Feb he filed for divorce — didn't tell me but left the paperwork on the counter for me to find. That's when he verified the affair — said it had been going on since Dec. She is a coworker and i'm pretty sure she helped him leave me, even if at that time their relationship was emotional only and not yet physical.
My counselor has advised me to continue to love him as a verb and to show him the qualities he wants to see in me and none of those he didn't like. I have tried to do that — betray my feelings and choose to treat him with love. He treats me like a nanny to our 2 children — not with any love or affection. He is very detached from me and shows very little emotion. I do most of the work of life right now — all the stuff for the house, all the kids' stuff, etc. He has very little responsibility outside of spending "fun" time with our kids. And i have let that happen b/c i think he needs little stress right now.
The books i read all say he is "recovering" from this crisis and to give him plenty of time to sort things out in his head. In May of this year he told me he felt like he had screwed up his life, he feels like a total screw-up and he wants to just "burn the whole thing down." I have stayed encouraging and loving and told him i love him and am here for him. I don't know if he's still in that relationship w/ the other woman, and we have a pending court date that neither of us is doing anything about. He has put that on hold since he's not sure what he wants.
So what advice do you have in a situation like this? My counselor said this type of behavior is quite rare, but what i read about this is not at all encouraging. Many women have had passive men like my husband stay in limbo for years. Right now, assuming he is still in the relationship, he has all of his needs met. In the meantime, i have all the gruntwork at the house, i have the kids' lives to manage, and i have no relationship b/c i am staying faithful to my husband.
Of course this is not a sustainable situation for me — I'm only 39! Lots of life yet to live. And yet i want my husband — and only my husband. I love him dearly and want to stay devoted to him, but at what cost? And we have 2 small children whose version of reality at the moment is pretty strange, to say the least. What are they learning about marriage right now?! So how would you advise me? How long do i wait? And do i follow your advice and give him a timeline, even though i feel like he is still very much in the midst of his crisis? He seems very depressed right now. He is in counseling, but we see the same counselor and i know that he is dancing around our issues. He focuses more on work and his friends than on our marriage, which again is extremely frustrating to me given that our marriage is all i can even think about. I feel like he is avoiding the hard issues in his life and just spinning his wheels.
I want to wait out his midlife crisis and yet i've read they can last years and years. And if he isn't doing anything to better himself and learn from this, then aren't we just wasting time? He is a very passive person, and i'm afraid he could go on like this for a long time b/c he doesn't want to look bad. Thanks for reading and for any input you can offer!
Thank you for your reply. I sometimes wonder why I continue to hope for reconcilliation after all these yrs. All I can say is that I am a product of a divorced family,I continue to care deeply about my ex, and I'm not one to give up as long as he hasn't remarried another.
However, since we have been divorced many yrs, I can tell I am changing. My one problem is that I can't always tell the difference between him being friendly and cake-eating. My birthday was recently and he calls every yr to wish me the happiest of days. In the beginning I was thrilled because I thought it meant he still cared, but the last couple of yrs , although happy to hear from him, I also am irritated because I think if he cares so much about me having a great birthday, then why didn't he stick around to be with me for them!!!! His OW's birthday is a few weeks before mine and this yr they went away for her birthday weekend- that is what makes me think he is a cakewalker. Having a great vacation with her, but also keeping me in the background,just in case.
I also found out through the kids, that he wanted them to tell me he liked my new yard I put in—he drove by to see it–kind of stalkery don't you think??? He and I don't visit on a regular basis, so he would have only known about about activity from the kids. I certainly would not have told them to tell him. I think I feel we are in a dysfunctional relationship and I dont want to encourage that. This is starting to sound like a sopa opera, so I'll stop. JUst letting you know that after all these yrs, divorceed people can still suffer.
Yes, Denise, I have seen this before. Here are some thoughts.
Firstly, I have seen people remarry each other after twice divorcing each other – married each other three times. May seem strange, but it wasn't. Just people struggling through life and this was the path they followed. Oh, and both had married someone else in the times between their remarriages. We do seem a remarrying-people.
The primary reason people really divorce, I believe, is that they want an improved, better marriage and have finally accepted that their partner is hopeless – cannot change for the better. Well, everyone can change and they do change all the time. “Hopeless” seems just a judgement call on the part of one person and that decision can change too.
Once you fall-in-love with someone and stay with them for, oh let's say, at least 6 months, then I tend to consider them an Imago Match – a person with whom you have and will always have the potential to learn your way into Vintage Love. I believe they remain an Imago Match probably for the rest of your life. And so, my experience suggests you can find many Imago Matches over a life time. And “all your ex's” are still candidates.
Still people seem to be only able to work with one Imago Match at a time. In your situation, tis possible/probable that the new OW is also an Imago Match for your ex. If they are making progress, even very slightly, toward Vintage Love (or if they are still in the Romantic Phase), then your ex may not be very interested in even checking you out – checking out your status on whether now you seem to be making progress toward Vintage Love. Still things change and the new OW had better be working (and your ex had better be also working) or he may consider pulling the plug on her, too. Anything can happen.
You never lose by learning for yourself. You will come across to everyone as a growing, learning person and if he looks in to check you out, you will not look “hopeless” to him. That can make you a bargain deal.
But still the skills that lead to Vintage Love can only be learned by practice and that means with a partner to practice with. And so I'm kind of suggesting that while waiting for him you might want to practice with others.
Oh. And one other thing. Ex-miilitary generally have a terrible time with relationships and intimacy and getting to Vintage Love. Their training, in service, is completely contrary to the democratic requirements of Vintage Love. But they are not hopeless at all. Just seem to have a bit of a hurdle to cross.
Good luck.
Al
new to this site, but have been reading for approx one month. Here is my situation. Was married 29 yrs and husband was career military, gone freq the last few yrs of marriage. He had affair for 8 mo before confessing and I did all the wrong things, like crying, begging, etc. We ended up divorcing, approx 12 yrs ago, which was a yr after discovery. He is still with OW, they live together but have no marriage plans. We have four now grown children together, so we have had freq contact over all thes divorced yrs. Three yrs ago, our oldest son, age 39 was diagnosed as schizophrenic. During divorce ex mentioned that son was one of the reasons we were divorcing–this son had a lot of behavior problems as a child and caused much tension in household. The reason I bring this up is that the recent diagnosis , I think has caused my ex a lot of guilt. Anyway, he acts like we are good firends now. I have actually backed way off on talking andleaving voicemails, as I felt I was into a pursuing type mode. Anyway, after one month he left a voicemail stating he hadn't heard from me and to give him a call.
Reason I'm writing, is I never wanted divorce and have always held out hope for reconnection. I have gone on with life and stay busy. In the past ex has said if he had to do it over, we would have worked on the marriage. Maybe I'm having false hope as he has not married other woman . Do you have any poss suggestions or thoughts about this situation? Just curious if you have had any success with prev divorced couples reconnecting successfully.
I've been diligently working on 'our' relationship for about 1 1/2 years now. Unfortunately my partner has not joined me on my journey so far. I'm going to be using this exact formula to get a clear decision from her. I'll keep everyone here posted as to the results.