The Marriage of Silence

Before I knew my husband was an addict, I thought he was simply a man of silence. He is a doer, not a talker. He never opened up his heart to me, instead, he would give me a foot rub or do the dishes to say he loved me. Every woman loves a foot rub, no complaints there. But most women want a companion as well–someone she can share her heart with.

After nearly two years of sobriety, my husband is still a man of silence. Oh, he says he is trying to open up more, and once-in-a-blue-moon he does, but he stopped checking in with me long ago. He said because every day to him is the same–he just goes to work, is still doing well managing his addiction, so what else is there to say? He still is the man who can spend hours in a room with me and never speak to me. It’s terribly lonely.

I have told my husband that our marriage of silence sort-of-worked in the past, but now I need more. I need a true companion to repair my broken heart. I need someone who is willing to try and earn my trust back, one heartfelt conversation at a time.

We have this conversation about silence over and over, just the two of us, and also with our therapist. I feel like we walk into the therapist’s office, and recently our ecclesiastical leader’s office too, and need to press play on the tape recorder because the message is always the same. My tape-recorded message:

“I am lonely, I don’t trust him, he won’t talk to me.”

And my husband has his tape-recorded message as well–

“I am trying”, “Old habits die hard”, and “Most days are just days, there is nothing to talk about.”

He’s good, he’s really good. He is kind, quiet, and says this so convincingly, with a soft voice that it really seems genuine. You feel sorry for him. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with those explanations, not really. But I can read between the lines. And the real message is–

“I don’t want to talk, please leave me alone” or

“I am tired of talking about this addiction that is way in the past” or

“This is my personality, she needs to get over this.”

If he does try to talk to me it is always after we turn the lights out and go to bed. I guarantee I would fall off my chair with shock if he ever said “Hey Lorena, can we talk for a few minutes alone in the bedroom?” Our broken marriage is simply an afterthought at the end of the day, a way to break the awkward silence between a man and woman who have shared the same bed for 21 years before they fall to sleep.

I really don’t know what to do about this marriage of silence. It’s the definition of loneliness. I feel like I am walking at dusk on this semi-dark road. Heading down the road only leads towards something harder to walk–these cold and snowy mountains. Either way I am cold–either on the road (staying married) or divorced (cold mountains). Do women really walk away from marriages where he is kind, quiet, and does the dishes?

I think loneliness can make a woman do crazy things.