You can't encourage someone who is NOT INTERESTED & doesn't want to communicate.

Lol the most meaningful conversation I had in 33 years was when he was trapped in MY truck driving across country to MY new farm. That meaningful conversation was enough for me to know that I wasn't going to waste any more years in a marriage with him tolerating his inability to emotionally connect or communicate. Gave him 2 weeks at my farm before kicking him back to where our home was.

There are some relationships that are just incompatible & there is just no way of making them into anything else when needs & wants are different