092|Time Apart Isn't What's Hurting Your Marriage — Here's What Actually Is

00:00:00 Two Ways to Spend the Same Night Apart

A few Fridays ago, after my son was in bed, I sat down on the couch to watch a World Cup game I had been looking forward to all day.

My wife was out to dinner with one of her closest friends. She was across town laughing over a good meal. I was home with the game and the house to myself, and there was no guilt about it, no texting to check where she was or when she'd be back, just the game and the feeling that this was allowed. And somewhere in the second half, it hit me.

This was good. Not good like we were relieved to get away from each other. Good like we were both doing the exact thing that filled us up, and we'd come back together later and actually be glad to see each other. She had her night, I had mine. Nobody was keeping score, and nobody felt left behind. And I wanna be honest with you because there was a long stretch where a night like that wasn't what I just described at all.

For a lot of my marriage, I would've been half watching the game and half wondering what her being out meant about us or been watching the game hoping that she didn't wanna interrupt me or wanna talk or hang out or do anything. Where me on the couch and her out with a friend wasn't two people filling up and coming back, it was two people hiding.

From the outside, it's the same picture, but underneath it, a completely different thing.

That's the line I wanna walk with you today because there is a real difference between time apart that makes a marriage stronger and time apart that creates more distance. And most men can't tell which one they're living in until it's already gone too far.

So today we're talking about space, your own space, your own interests, the things that are yours outside the marriage, and what makes them healthy instead of two separate lives under the same roof.

By the end of this episode, you're going to be able to tell the difference between space that fills you up and space that's really just avoidance. You're going to see why your own interests outside the marriage are part of being a good husband, and why making your wife the only person in your life does more harm than good.

And you're gonna know how to take your own time in a way that gives more back to your marriage. Stick around. You don't wanna miss this one.

00:02:01 The Space He Was Sure Would End His Marriage

Welcome to Better Husband, the podcast that helps you answer the question: how can I be a better husband? I'm Angelo Santiago, a men's marriage and relationship coach, and every week I bring you practical insights to help you strengthen your marriage and become the best husband you can be

I wanna tell you about one of the men in the Better Husband community, and I'm going to keep his name out of it, but I think a lot of you can relate to his story, and you might be going through exactly what he was. He works from home, has since COVID, and like a lot of guys, when the world shut down, his office became a corner of the basement, and it just stayed that way.

Years went by, and that was the setup, him downstairs on his laptop, the family moving around upstairs, everybody in the same house all day, every day. And his marriage was in a hard stretch, real distance between him and his wife, the kind where you're careful with each other, where you're reading tone on everything, where you're not sure where you stand from one day to the next.

So he was already on edge about the space between them. Then one morning, his wife told him she needed the house to herself more. She asked him to start working from an office or a co-working space at least two days a week. She said the relationship needed room to breathe. She felt like she was never alone, like she was always a wife and a mom and never just herself, and she needed some room in her own home to be a person again.

Now, put yourself in his shoes for a second. His marriage was already shaky, and the woman he's trying to win back is asking him to leave the house. You know what that sounds like when you're scared. It sounds like the door opening. It sounds like the first step toward her not wanting you around at all, and that's exactly where his head went.

He said his chest got tight just hearing it. Part of him wanted to say, "So that's it? You want me gone?" Part of him wanted to negotiate to prove he could make himself smaller and stay out of the way. All of it was fear talking. His gut told him that if he walked out that door two days a week, he'd be handing her the distance she needed to finish pulling away.

And here's what he did with that fear, and this is the part I want you to catch. He didn't argue. He didn't explain why working from home was fine. He didn't turn her asking into proof that the marriage was ending. He got curious about her side of it instead of defensive about his own. He actually let himself picture what it was like to be her, stuck in a house all day with a husband 10 feet away and no room that was just hers, and he heard it.

He honored it. He went and got the co-working membership, and then something happened he did not see coming.

The first day at the co-working spot, he felt good. Not relieved to be away from her, good in himself. He'd been grinding away alone in that basement for years and never once asked whether it was costing him anything, and turns out it was. He'd been isolated the whole time and calling it work. He got around a few other people, got out of the house, had a place of his own to go to, and he came home that night more like himself than he'd been in a long time.

He told me later that he thanked her for it. The thing he was terrified would push her away ended up being one of the better things that happened to the two of them. She got the room she'd been asking for, and he got back something he didn't even know he'd lost, a little of his own life, a space that was his, a reason to leave the house, and a reason to come back home.

And sit with that because it cuts against everything the fear was telling him. He thought the space was going to break them, and it turned out to be a step in the right direction, something his marriage needed that he didn't even know it needed.

00:05:22 Why You Feel Guilty for Wanting a Night

So let's start with something I hear a lot from the men that I work with that may also be true for you. There is a version of you that hears this whole conversation about space and feels a little guilty because somewhere along the way, you picked up the idea that a good husband is always available, that if you want a night to yourself or a hobby that's just yours or an afternoon where nobody needs anything from you, there's something a little selfish about it.

Like you're taking something from her. Like the more you give yourself, the less of a husband you are.

It's very likely that this is something you learned, something that got ingrained in you a long time ago. This is people pleasing, and it usually starts young.

Maybe you were the kid who figured out that if you kept your parents happy, things were easier for you. Maybe there was a lot of fighting in your house, and you did what you could to keep the peace. Maybe you just picked up early that everybody else came first, and the way to stay out of trouble was to not need much, or maybe yours came from somewhere else entirely.

Wherever it started, that's why you still do it, and you carried it into your marriage where a man who never needs anything can look a lot like a man who loves his wife. But there's a problem with this.

Here's what nobody ever told you about marriage. Wanting space is not the opposite of loving your wife. Draining yourself dry is not proof that you love her. A man who never does a single thing that fills him up doesn't become a better husband.

He becomes an emptier one. He becomes a guy who's technically always there and has almost nothing left to give when he is. You know that guy. Maybe you've been that guy. Present in the room, running on empty, a little resentful, and not even sure why.

In your marriage, you cannot pour out of a cup that's got nothing in it.

Everything you want to give her, patience, attention, warmth, actually being there when she wants to talk to you, all of it comes out of a reserve, and that reserve doesn't fill itself just because you love her. It fills up when you go do the things that make you feel like a person. The workout, the round of golf, the hour with a book, the project in the garage, the friends you've been meaning to call.

Those aren't stealing from the marriage. Those are you loading the cup back up so you've got something to pour when she reaches for you

And I've lived the other side of this. There were stretches where I ran myself down to nothing in the name of being a good husband and a good dad, and I was miserable, and everyone in my house could feel it. I'd sit down at dinner with nothing left, and I'd tell myself I was being selfless. I wasn't being selfless.

I was being empty, and I was making my family live next to an empty guy. The nights I actually took care of myself first, went and did the thing that filled me up, I came home lighter. I had more for them, not less. My wife didn't lose me on those nights.

She got more of me. So hear me on this one. Taking care of yourself is not time away from the marriage. It is part of the job. Your need for room is legitimate. It is not something to apologize for, and it is not something to sneak. It's the thing that lets you show back up with something in your hands.

00:08:22 Loving Her Most Isn't Needing Her for Everything

Now let's go a layer deeper because some of you are hearing all of this and none of it is landing. I just gave you a list, the workout, the round of golf, the hour with a book, the project in the garage, the friends you've been meaning to call, and some of you went right down that list and thought, "None of that is me.

I don't go to the gym, I don't play golf, there's no book I'm dying to read, I'm not a garage project guy, and I haven't really talked to a friend in I don't know how long." And I wanna talk to that guy for a minute because if that's you, you didn't just skip a few hobbies. Somewhere along the way, you stopped knowing what you even like.

You don't struggle with taking too much space, you struggle with the opposite. You've made your wife your entire world, and maybe you've said it out loud, "My wife is my best friend," and you meant it as the highest compliment you could give her, and I get it. I've said it, too, but I want you to be honest with yourself about what's underneath it, because sometimes best friend really means only friend.

Only person I talk to, only place I get filled up, the only one who carries the whole weight of whether I'm okay on a given day. When she's the sole outlet for every need you have, that's a lot of love, but it's also a lot of weight to hand one person. When you make her your everything, she can feel it, and it doesn't feel romantic.

It feels heavy. She becomes the only friend, the only social life, the only source of comfort, the only one responsible for your mood, and slowly, she stops feeling like your wife and starts feeling like your life support. There's a word for what that does to a person.

Smothered. Where's my air? Where's the version of me that isn't just holding this guy up? Go back to the man in the story for a second. Remember what his wife actually said? She felt like she was never alone, like she was always a wife and a mom, and she's never just herself. That wasn't necessarily her falling out of love with him.

That was a woman who couldn't find any room to be a whole person in her own house. Your wife needs the exact same thing you need. We just spent a few minutes on why you need things that fill you up outside of the marriage. She does too. Her own friends, her own interests, her own room to be a person and not just a role.

And when you actually want that for her instead of taking it as a threat, it opens up a new possibility. You stop being one more thing she has to manage, and you start being a man she gets to come home to. This is the part I need you to really hear. She can be the person you love most in this world without being the only thing you've got.

Those are not the same. Loving her most is beautiful. Needing her to be everything is a burden neither of you signed up for. The strongest marriages I know are two people who each have a life, who each have a thing that fills them up, and who choose each other on top of all of it, not because they have nobody else, because they'd pick each other anyway.

00:11:12 Sometimes the Distance Is the Cure

So now you've got both sides. Don't drain yourself dry, and don't hang your whole life on her. And I know for the man in the shaky marriage, the one in crisis mode, this can still feel like a lot of risk because when things are tense, every bit of space feels dangerous. Every inch she takes feels like she's inching toward the door.

And that's exactly why I wanna come back to the guy from the story. He was scared that her asking for more space was a sign that the marriage was going in the wrong direction. He showed us another possibility, though, what it can look like to honor that request and what it can actually do for both of you.

Remember where his head went? He was sure that leaving the house two days a week was the beginning of the end, that the space she had asked for was a crack that would split them for good. And the opposite happened. The space didn't pull them further apart.

It gave both of them something they'd been starved of. She got her house back for a couple days, room to breathe, room to be a person and not just a role, and he got out of that basement and remembered he was a person too.

He'd been isolated for years and calling it work, and he never once connected that to how flat he'd been feeling.

One membership to a shared workspace, and he came home more like himself, more energy, more to say, more of him in the room.

And that's the thing men in crisis miss about space. You think the distance is the enemy. Sometimes the distance is the cure. Two people who are on top of each other all day, both a little starved for room, both carrying a low buzz of frustration they can't name, do not fix that by getting closer.

Sometimes they fix it by each getting enough air to come back and actually want to be there.

So if she's asking for room right now and that scares you, do one thing before you do anything else. Take a breath and slow it down

Because fear wants immediate action, to grab on tighter, to go cold, to make some big gesture to prove something. And whatever you do out of that fear, you're doing it before you even know what you're responding to. So listen to what's actually being asked for, because sometimes a request for space is exactly that, space. Room to breathe, room to remember who each of you are outside of the marriage.

00:13:19 Presence Is the Thing, Not Proximity

Now, I do have to give you the other side of this, the other extreme, because if I stop here, I've only told you half the truth, and this is the half I lived. Everything I just said about space filling you up, about coming back with more to give, that's real.

But there's a place where it tips over, where the same space that's supposed to fill you up slowly turns into a place that you go to get away from her. And I know that one from the inside, so let me just tell you.

For a long time in my marriage, we had freedom. What we didn't have was connection. My wife had her interests, I had mine, and on paper it looked healthy.

Two people with their own lives, but somewhere in there, my whole approach became, "I should get to do what I want when I want."

That was the water I was swimming in, and I told myself that was independence. That was me being my own man. It wasn't. I was avoiding her and calling it freedom. And here's the part I don't wanna soften because it's the part that'll actually help you.

We weren't using our separate interests to come back to each other fuller. We were using them to hide from each other and from the things in the marriage we didn't wanna look at. There were hard conversations sitting there, real problems between us, and instead of turning toward them, I'd go do the thing that felt lighter, the thing that felt easier.

She'd do hers, I'd do mine, and neither of us had to sit in the discomfort of what was actually wrong. The time apart wasn't recharging me so I could love her better. The time apart was the escape hatch, and the cost of all that hiding was the marriage itself.

And I was a firefighter for years, so I know this feeling in my body. You go away for a 48-hour shift, you're gone, physically gone, about as gone as you can get, and you think you'd come home filled up. But time away isn't the same as time that fills you. You can be gone for 48 hours and come back with nothing, because being gone was never the point.

Whether it pours something back into you, that's the point. And a lot of the space I took in my marriage poured nothing back in. It just let me not deal.

And it's the same with the round of golf, the night out, the hours in the garage. One version fills you up and hands you back to your marriage. The other version is you slipping out of the back door so you don't have to sit in the hard stuff. The same thing on the calendar, two different men walking back through that door.

And this cuts the other way, too. Even when you're together, you can be hiding. Sitting in the same room, same couch, both of you on your phones, calling it time together when neither of you is really there. Being in the same house is not the same as being together. Presence is the thing, not proximity.

If the time apart is going to work, the time together has to be real. Otherwise, you've just got two people avoiding each other from a shorter distance.

00:15:54 Awareness, Action, Accountability

So that's what I wanted to share with you today. That's the idea, that's the shift, that's what you came here for, that space isn't the enemy of your marriage, that hiding is.

But an idea you only listen to and don't do anything with doesn't change anything, so let's put it to work. And one thing before we get into it. I usually give you one single awareness question on purpose for these episodes so you're not walking away with it with a list, but this week there are two.

Because after everything we just covered, you could be standing in one of two very different places. So I want you to listen to them both and pick the one that's actually yours and answer that one

Here are your awareness questions, your action steps, and your accountability for this week

The first question, if you're the one holding on tight, the one who feels her pull back and wants to close the gap right away, ask yourself why. Am I holding on this tight because I'm scared that any space between us makes this worse, or is it because there isn't anybody else? Those are two different answers, and they need two different things from you.

One is fear, and the other is a man whose life got small. And here's the second version of this question. If you're the one who takes the space, your hobbies, your work, your nights out, your hours with the doors closed, am I using that time to fill myself up and come back to her with more, or have I been using it to get away from something I don't want to face with her?

I want you to pick whichever question is for you, and I want you to answer it honestly.

Now here are your action steps.

First, name one thing outside your marriage that actually fills you up and go do it. Not to escape from the marriage, but to come back better. The workout, the friend you keep meaning to call, the hobby you dropped when things got hard. Pick one and put it back in your life on purpose.

Second, watch how you feel walking back in the door afterward. Restoration and escape feel different in your body. One sends you toward her, one makes you want to stay gone a little bit longer. Pay attention to which one you're actually running.

Third, take the fuller version of yourself and bring it straight to her. Not a text from the other room, a real point of contact. Sit down, put the phones away, and give her 10 real minutes or more where you're actually there.

And fourth, be honest about anything you've been avoiding by staying busy apart. If there's a hard conversation you've been dodging by filling your time, name it to yourself.

You don't have to solve it today, but you do have to stop pretending the distance is the same thing as dealing with it.

And here's what you need to know about accountability. This is the kind of honesty that's hard to hold on your own. It's a lot easier to see when you've got other men asking you the same questions back.

If you want that, come find us inside Better Husband Academy at betterhusbandacademy.com, or click the link at the bottom of the show notes to get the accountability that goes with this episode. You don't have to do these hard things alone.

00:18:40 Closing Takeaway

Here's what I want you to take away from this episode. A good marriage isn't two people with no space between them. It's two whole people who keep choosing to close the distance. The time apart is not the threat. Time apart done right is the thing that keeps sending you back toward her with something to give.

You don't have to choose between having a life and having a marriage. Each one feeds the other. And if she's asking for room, giving it to her is not giving up on her. And if you're the one taking the room, what you carry back through that door is the whole point.

So go fill your own cup, and then come home, all the way home, and be with her.

I just wanna close this by saying that it takes a real man to look honestly at whether he's been filling up or hiding. Thank you for doing that hard looking with me today. Keep going.

You're listening to Better Husband. I'm Angelo Santiago, and I'll see you on the next one.