Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: There’s one feeling that you can pretty much count on when you’re dealing with a separation that you aren’t sure that you wanted in the first place – that of missing your spouse.

This often feels like a painful, dull ache that you are aware of almost all of the time. It’s not like the feeling that you get when your spouse is away on business or visiting family, but you know that he is going to be coming back soon. No, this is different – because you don’t know if he’s ever going to be back in the same way. And you find yourself going over and over old memories in your mind. You focus on the good times and you are well aware that it might never be that good again. You will often try to minimize this deep feeling of missing him by calling or stopping by. This doesn’t always work, though. Even if the phone call or visit goes well, that just makes you miss him more. And sometimes, it doesn’t go well at all, which makes you wonder if he misses you even a fraction of the amount of that you miss him.

You might think that if you could just stop missing him this desperately, your situation might improve. You might hear this type of explanation: “every morning when I wake up, my first thought that I miss my separated husband. And every night when I go to sleep, that is my last thought as my head hits the pillow. It’s almost all that I can think about. It’s affecting my job and my other relationships. And sometimes, it makes me so desperate that I call my husband and I say desperate things that I very much regret the next day. It almost feels like an addiction that I can’t shake. I am fixated on how much I miss him. I know it’s probably not healthy. And I want to stop. But I am not sure how. I figure if I can stop myself from missing him so desperately, I might stop the behaviors. How do you force yourself not to miss him?”

Understand What Is Realistic: I am not sure that it is realistic to think that you can completely stop yourself from missing him. In order to do that, you’d almost have to forget your situation. And although you can get up your resolve and promise yourself that you will stop missing him this much, you really can not control your thoughts.

Understand The Art Of Diversion And Staying Busy: But what you can control is whether or not you discourage those thoughts and how you do (or do not) act on them. I found one truth when I was going through this myself. It is very difficult to have two thoughts at once. So in order to stop all of the thoughts about my marriage and my husband, I had to keep my mind busy thinking other thoughts.

In order to successfully do this, I had to be very conscious of focusing my mind elsewhere. I had to be absorbed in what I was doing so that my mind wouldn’t wander. Tasks like washing the dishes which didn’t require concentration did not work for this because these are mindless things that almost promote your mind going back to your problems. But things like learning new hobbies or reading a book that requires your undivided attention can work quite well. Also, actively talking to someone about their life and not yours works well for this too.

I guess that is why that I learned to knit and crochet during my separation. I am not crafty by nature, but I wanted to make something to give to someone else. (Charity yarn-work is a wonderful hobby.   Someone in need gets a handmade item to keep them warm and you feel wonderful.) Learning this skill did require my full attention and it required me trying over and over again. I started and stopped countless projects before I had one that I felt was decent enough to give away.

I also supported a couple of friends who had their own challenges. I listened to and offered my love and support to them without bringing up my own issues. Anything that requires your undivided attention and can divert your focus away form your marriage for a while is fair game. Yes, you have to actively look for these activities and you have to have the discipline to disengage when you find yourself starting to dwell on my marriage or on how much you miss him.

Changing Your Outlook: Here’s another thing that I found helpful. I took on a different point of view. In the beginning, my thinking was something like this: “I am so worried that I won’t do the right thing. Because if I mess this up, my husband is going to be lost to me forever and I can’t take this because I miss him so much.”   Once I changed my outlook, I’d try to think something like: “the universe is going to watch over me. If it is meant for me to be with my husband, if it is in my best interest, then it will happen. It may not happen in the time frame that I want. But if it’s truly meant to be and if it is right, then I just have to be patient. If not, then perhaps it’s not meant to be for a reason that I’m not seeing.”

I can’t tell you that I always bought into this thinking. But it did help a good deal of the time. I didn’t find anything that completely stopped me from missing my husband. But my methods did keep the feelings from being as intense and frequent. And it also kept me from me constantly acting on them in ways I later regretted.  Don’t let me fool you, though.  There were certainly times when I regressed and had regrettable behavior.  But in the end, we did reconcile.  You can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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