A
female
age
51-59,
*race89
writes:I have not been a good friend to my husband for the past 12 years and so because of that he feels he cant trust me as a friend and is afraid to tell me things because i haven't been a good listener and would take it personally and criticize and make him feel bad. I believe he wants me as a best friend and he has told me he wants to and he says he has tried to come to me first but i wouldn't listen or respond how he needed me to so i have lost who should be my friend and i should be his. It hurts that he has friends that are girls and he goes to them and considers them best friends and trusts them more then me. How can i become his best friend again? How can i get him to trust me enough to tell me anything again? have i pushed him away to far that he will never come back?
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (25 January 2012): You have to stop what he said you were doing. But you have to do this consistently, and permanently, for a long time without expecting anything back from him, then maybe someday the memories of the 'old you' will be faint enough that he will feel safe to get closer to you. there's no way to predict how long this will take. it could be years. And this is assuming you stay "good" and don't go back to the way you have been treating him.
you can't expect to be 'good' for a few days or even a few months and have him feel comfortable around you. If there's a longer history of you being mean to him than of being good to him, then he'll feel and behave as if you're a mean person.
Only once you've changed the balance of your behavioral history and now you can say that there have been more years that you've been good to him than mean, then there is a chance he may start to feel safe around you. Even then it could still take longer depending on deeply you've hurt him.
you have to prove to him that you're changed for the better, permanently. And that means you need to be changed for a long, long time while he's still got his guard up and is not giving back to you. But if you love him, you would continue to be good to him even if he's still got his guard up. If you're only going to change yourself to get him to let his guard down, then you're still being selfish and doing this for yourself not for him.
the point is, you have to change permanently, not just for long enough to get him to get closer to you and then once you feel you've got what you wanted you go back to your old ways again. He's afraid you'll do just that so that's why when you change your behaviors and attitudes you have to make sure it's a permanent change no matter the outcome from him, even if he NEVER comes back to you you still have to continue behaving in the new better way.
Are you ready to do that? Or are you only willing to change yourself temporarily just for however long it takes to get him to get closer to you again and then you dont' want to have to keep being good? And then what if you're being good but he never comes back to you emotionally? Are you then going to go back to your old thin-skinned criticizing and negative behaviors? If so that means you never wanted to change yourself for real to become a better person, you just wanted to manipulate his behavior to get what you wanted.
A
female
reader, person12345 +, writes (23 January 2012):
 You've already expressed how, right here:
"because i haven't been a good listener and would take it personally and criticize and make him feel bad."
Basically stop doing that. Be supportive, stop taking it personally, don't talk when he's trying to talk, don't offer solutions unless prompted, just be there and don't criticize.
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