How I Make My Husband Naturally Miss Me While I’m Gone

My sister asked me to come stay with her last fall. She needed a hand around the house for a while, and I said yes before I thought about what it meant. It meant leaving Tom alone in our house for the longest stretch since before our youngest left for college. I packed a bag, filled the freezer, and wrote the trash day on the calendar in big letters.

Before I left, I put a question up on the blog. I asked readers how they got a man to miss them without playing games. The replies came in while I was gone. I read them on my sister’s back porch most evenings with a cup of decaf and my phone face down beside me. At the same time, I was living the question. Tom was home and I was not. I could see what landed with him and what did not.

What follows is what I learned from those porch evenings and from the readers who wrote in. None of it involves tricks. Most of it is just getting out of the way so a man has room to notice you are gone.

Leave him room to notice the quiet

The first night at my sister’s, I wanted to call Tom three times. I called once. I told him I got there fine and that the drive was boring. Then I hung up and helped my sister with dishes. The next morning he called me. He said the house was too quiet and he did not know what to do with the dinner hour. He has never once said that when I was standing in the kitchen with him.

I had not done anything clever. I had just not filled the space. A man cannot miss you if you are in his ear every hour of the day. He needs a little quiet to find out what it sounds like.

Give him a gap. He will notice what is missing on his own.

Keep your own plans and tell him about them

My sister and I drove to a nursery the second day and bought mums for her front steps. I sent Tom one photo of the steps and said we were going out for fish after. I did not ask what he was doing. I did not ask if he was eating. That night he texted to ask what kind of fish, and whether the place had coleslaw.

A reader named Joanne K., 58, from Dayton, Ohio, wrote something similar. She said her husband started asking about her Tuesday walking group only after she stopped reporting on it. She just went and came home happy. He wanted to know why.

Have a life and mention it in passing. Curiosity does the rest.

Do not answer every text the second it lands

On the porch, I kept my phone face down on the table. That was not a strategy. I was tired and my sister talks a lot. But I noticed Tom’s texts started to stack up when I did not answer right away. Two became three. The third one would say something like, you still there, or, call when you can.

Marcy L., 44, from Boise, Idaho, wrote that she used to reply within a minute every time. She said it made her feel safe, but it made her feel invisible too. When she started answering when she was actually free, her boyfriend started calling instead of texting. He said he liked hearing her voice better anyway.

Answer when you are free, not when the phone buzzes. He will wait, and waiting is part of missing.

Save a few things for the next conversation

I used to tell Tom everything the minute it happened. The neighbor’s dog, the price of eggs, what the pharmacist said. At my sister’s, I started holding a few things back. Not secrets. Just small things. I saved the story about the raccoon in her garbage for the weekend call instead of texting it the same night.

When I told him on Sunday, he laughed hard and asked three questions. If I had texted it on Tuesday, he would have sent back a thumbs up. The story was the same. The timing made it worth something.

Keep a little in reserve. It gives him something to look forward to.

Let him handle the house without you

Tom called on the fourth day to ask where the coffee filters were. I told him the second shelf by the stove and did not add anything else. I did not ask if he was eating vegetables. I did not remind him about the bills. I let him run the house his way.

He burned a pan. He ate cereal for dinner twice, by his own admission. He also fixed the back screen door that I had asked about since spring. When I got home, he showed me the door before he even said hello. He was proud of it. He had also figured out exactly how much work I do, without me saying one word about it.

Step back and let him see the whole job. He will miss the person who usually does it.

Have something that belongs only to you

Gwen T., 61, from Chattanooga, Tennessee, wrote that she took up watercolor after her divorce. When she started dating again, she kept her painting afternoons even when the new man wanted to see her. She said it was the first time a man ever asked what she was working on, instead of her asking him.

I thought about that while helping my sister sort her sewing room. I do not paint, but I do read, and I had brought a stack of library books. I told Tom about one of them on the phone and he asked me to save it for him. That had never happened in more than thirty years. He wanted a piece of what I was doing without him.

Keep something of your own. A man leans toward what he is not fully part of.

End the call first and end it kind

My mother never let a phone call drag. She would say what she had to say and then, well, I will let you go. I started doing that with Tom from the porch. I would tell him the good parts of the day, ask about his, and then say I needed to help my sister with supper. I always said I loved him first.

The calls got shorter and better. He started calling with something to tell me instead of just checking in. Renee S., 39, from Tucson, Arizona, wrote almost the same thing. She said ending calls on a warm note, before the conversation ran out of steam, was the one change that made her boyfriend start saying he missed her out loud.

Hang up while it is still good. Leave him wanting one more minute.

Keep a routine he can feel the gap in

Every morning at home, I put the coffee on and set out Tom’s mug before he comes down. I did not think he noticed. On the sixth morning I was gone, he sent me a picture of the empty counter with the words, this is wrong. No mug. No coffee. Just the counter.

I laughed on the porch and my sister asked what was funny. I told her Tom missed a coffee mug. She said no, he misses you, the mug is just how he knows. She was right. The small things you do every day are the things that go missing first.

Do your small daily things without fanfare. Their absence speaks louder than any speech.

Do not chase when he goes quiet

On the eighth day, Tom did not call or text all day. The old me would have called twice and sent a worried message by supper. Instead I helped my sister pull weeds and went to bed. The next morning he called at seven and said his brother had stopped by and they had gone to look at a used truck. He was sorry he forgot to check in.

Carla M., 55, from Wichita, Kansas, wrote that chasing a quiet man was the fastest way to make him pull further back. She said when she let her husband have his quiet days, he came back on his own and in a better mood. When she chased, he dug in.

Let a quiet day be a quiet day. He is more likely to come find you if you are not already on his doorstep.

Say what you like about him and then stop talking

One night Tom told me about the screen door for the second time. I told him I was proud of him for doing it and that I knew it was a fussy job. Then I changed the subject. I did not add that I had asked him since spring. I did not add a to-do list for when I got back.

He got quiet for a second. Then he said, thanks, hon. Later that week he mentioned the door again, but this time he said he was glad I noticed. A compliment with nothing attached is rare in a long marriage. Beth A., 47, from Erie, Pennsylvania, wrote that her husband started texting her sweet things only after she quit tacking a request onto every nice thing she said.

Give the compliment and leave it alone. He will replay it more than you think.

Come home as yourself and not as a report

When I pulled into the driveway, Tom was on the porch. He had been there a while, judging by the empty cup. I had planned on the drive to tell him everything I had learned about missing and being missed. I did not. I hugged him, said the house looked fine, and asked what he wanted for dinner.

He had already thawed a pot roast. He claimed the end piece before it was even in the oven. We ate at the kitchen table and he told me about the truck and the screen door and the cereal dinners. I listened. I did not sum up the trip or hand him a lesson. I just sat there being the person he had been missing.

Come back easy. The missing does its work when you are gone, not when you explain it.

Make the time apart mean something ordinary

The next weekend our kids came over with the grandkids, and someone asked how my sister was doing. Tom answered before I could. He said the house was too quiet while I was gone and that he did not care for it. He said it plainly, in front of everyone, and then went back to carving the roast.

I had not asked him to say that. I had not coached him. Being gone for a plain reason, to help family, with no drama around it, did more than any planned absence ever could. The readers who wrote in said the same in different words. The missing that lasts comes from real life, not from a tactic.

Go when there is a reason to go. Let the ordinary distance do the talking.

I unpacked my bag that night and found the library book Tom had asked me to save for him. I set it on his nightstand. He started it the next evening without saying anything, and I did not say anything either.

None of what I learned at my sister’s was new. My mother knew it. Most of the readers who wrote in knew it. A man misses the person who has her own days, keeps a few things to herself, and comes home kind. The rest is just noise.

What is the one small thing you do every day that your man would notice first if you stopped?