Your spouse won't talk about the relationship. Things are falling apart, you want more than anything to fix it, but they've completely shut down. How are you supposed to save a marriage when they won't even engage?
Here's the hard truth: you probably haven't earned that conversation yet.
Most people try to jump straight to the deep relationship talks. "Where is this going?" "What do you need from me?" "Can we fix this?"
It doesn't work. They won't tell you what you need to hear because they don't feel safe being honest with you. You'll get "I don't know" or silence or the same surface-level answer you've gotten before.
And then it backfires. The conversation turns into an argument. Or it doesn't blow up, but it generates hard feelings on one or both sides. Either way, you didn't get what you needed and now there's more distance between you than before.
You didn't just fail to get the conversation. You made the next one harder.
Think about it from their perspective. They've probably tried to tell you what was wrong before—maybe for years—and it didn't land. They got dismissed, or you got defensive, or nothing changed. So they stopped trying. Why would they risk being vulnerable again when history tells them it won't matter?
Your job is to rebuild that safety. And there's a progression to how that happens.
Level 1: Harsh Complaints
This is where they're critical, biting your head off, blaming you for everything. It sucks. But it is communication. Your only job here—don't interrupt, don't defend. Just listen. Yes, it hurts. But they're telling you something important, and if you get defensive, you prove it's not safe to be honest with you.
Level 2: Soft Complaints
They're still unhappy, still surfacing issues, but the edge is coming off. You might hear "I feel unloved" or "I feel like I'm doing this alone." The complaints are landing softer because you've shown you can handle the harsh ones. Keep listening. Keep acting on what you hear.
Level 3: External Vulnerability
Now they're starting to open up—but not about you or the marriage yet. Maybe it's stress at work, a problem with a friend, something with their family. This is progress. They're testing whether you're safe to be vulnerable with at all. Be empathetic. Share your own experiences. Rebuild the friendship.
Level 4: Internal Vulnerability
Here they start sharing their own fears, insecurities, maybe guilt about things they've done. This is them letting you see the real them. Your job is to be supportive without being fake. Don't minimize what they've done. Don't pretend everything's fine. Show them you can hold hard truths and still be on their team.
Level 5: Relational Vulnerability
This is what you've been wanting. Honest conversations about your connection, your future, what needs to change, whether this can work. But you only get here because you've proven—at every level before—that it's safe to be honest with you.
The reason they won't have these conversations isn't because they're checked out beyond repair. It's because they don't trust that honesty will be met with anything other than defensiveness, dismissal, or disappointment.
You build that trust by showing up differently at each level. By listening without defending. By acting on feedback without being asked twice. By being consistent even when it's hard.
Do that, and those deep conversations will come. Not because you forced them, but because you finally made it safe enough to have them.
