Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from wives who feel as if they’re having to fight against their every inclination during their marital separation. They’re reluctantly separated because that’s what their husband wants. 

And therefore, they feel pressure to begin to “let go.” But, deep in their hearts, letting go is absolutely the last thing they want to do. And they wonder if they absolutely have to do this. 

Someone might say, “My husband demanded to separate for weeks before I would actually talk to him about it. Once it was clear that it was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not, I finally conceded to discussing it. But my husband didn’t really want to talk. He wanted to take action. He wanted out – at least temporarily.”

“He won’t tell what he thinks the chances are of us getting back together. But his actions don’t give me a lot of hope. He never wants to spend time with me. He doesn’t always pick up when I call or text him. It seems that he’s going out and having a high time when I am mostly miserable.”

“Some of my friends say that I need to let him go in order to hold onto my own sanity. But I just don’t see how I can possibly do that. Are they right? Do I need to let go of my separated husband? If so, how?”

I know that no one can know how someone else feels. We can’t physically experience another person’s feelings.

But I do have a good idea of how this wife feels feel because I had friends telling me to let my husband go during my own separation.

For that very reason, I’m not objective about this. I have to be honest about that. What I say here is going to be clouded by how I felt and what I did. So please keep that in mind because everyone, and every marriage, is different. What worked for me may not work for you.

But below, I am going to give you my take. I know that plenty of people won’t agree, and that’s fine. But this is what I found to be true.

No One Can Tell You What to Feel in Your Own Heart:  

People often ask me when they have to stop loving their separated spouse. My answer is when they decide that it no longer works for them.

For myself, I figured if I wasn’t divorced then no one could expect me to just turn off my feelings. No matter how bad things got, I always held out hope, at least in my own heart.

And I’m going to be honest, even if it had come to that (divorce,) I probably would have still loved my husband – in my own way – until the day I took my last breath. Yes, I know I would have had to move on. And I’m sure I would have. But my feelings are my own.  

My parents are divorced. They both remarried other people. And yet, when one them became ill, the other poured out so much love and grief that it shocked me. Again, you can’t just end your feelings because they’re painful or inconvenient. 

There is a Difference Between “Letting Go” and Stepping Back:”

Even though I’ve said that I wasn’t ready to stop loving my husband or to begin to let him go, I do have to admit that I had to step back.

And this was because of our circumstances. In the beginning, my husband wasn’t receptive to me. The more I pushed myself on him, the more he pulled away. The more he pulled away, the more desperate I became.

It became an awful cycle where I was only making things worse with each passing day.

So I eventually had to admit that if I were to have any chance of gaining ground and eventually getting him back, I was going to have to stop trying to do too much and back away some. I was going to have to let him come to me at least some of the time.

I can’t tell you how daunting this seemed to me at the time. And I had to play all sorts of mind games with myself to see it through. I also had a strong group of friends who I told to make sure I stuck to this. 

Pivoting from Clinging to Patience:  

Another mistake that can fall under the umbrella of letting go is clinging. When we think we might be forced to “let go,” then we have a tendency to cling. 

And when you cling, this action may not be attractive to a spouse who wants space. That same spouse may push you away as a result.

I found that it was in my best interest to force myself to stop clinging and accept that I would need patience. Yes, this was very challenging. It meant that I didn’t let myself call every time I wanted to. 

 It meant that I didn’t come by if I wasn’t invited. I had to consciously keep myself busy so that I wouldn’t succumb to my impulse to cling.

But it did pay off. Eventually, my husband got curious. And that was the start of a change.

Did I let go during this time? Not even a little bit. My stepping back was based more on strategy than actual feelings. In fact, my feelings actually intensified during this time. But I was the only one who knew it (except for my best friend).

My husband may have suspected it, but as long as I respected boundaries, he didn’t call me on it.

So my answer to the question of “should you let go of your separated spouse,” really depends on how you feel. Only you know your situation. Only you know what you are feeling.

You may choose a different strategy if you are afraid that you are hanging on too tightly. But that doesn’t mean that you’re letting go if you don’t want to.  

It may just mean that you’ve decided patience and a gradual pace might serve you a little better.

It may feel like giving in, but in my case, it was just re-grouping. It was taking a different path – and that was a path that actually worked much better in the end. You can read that whole story about how I finally got him back at https://isavedmymarriage.com

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