Leslie Cane Articles

by: Leslie cane: I recently heard from a wife who just wasn’t sure what to do. Her husband had left her and the home the week before and now was not accepting her calls, texts, or emails. Anytime that she did get him on the phone, placed herself in front of him, and had his attention for long enough to get a question or two into the conversation, she would ask him why he had left her. The husband would abruptly change the subject, end the conversation, or walk away. It became very clear that he was avoiding this topic at all costs.

The wife was dead set on getting some answers. She knew that the marriage wasn’t perfect and that they most certainly had some work to do, but she never imagined that he would just leave. She suspected that if she could get him to tell her why exactly he had left, she could then work on those issues in the hopes of resolving the situation to get him to return home.

But, she wasn’t sure how she could do this when he had made it clear that this was an off-limits topic. I will share some insights in the following article.

Don’t Spend All Of Your Time And Energy Getting The Answers That Might Not Come And Will Push Him Even Further Away: I completely understand wanting and needing the answers as to why your husband has left. I’ve been in this place and I know that it can feel like you need to know and you need to know now. But, if he’s seriously resistant to this, you will often do more harm than good if you push too hard.

Often you will only push him away even more. What’s more, often you’re placing your focus on only one place when you should be seeing the big picture. At the end of the day, your goal is to improve your situation so that he wants to come back. Yes, I understand your feeling that his reason for this is a piece of the puzzle that you need. But sometimes, if you push too hard, you risk completely losing access to him and this makes your chance for success much lower. (This is what happened to me initially.)

Moving Forward With A Plan Even If You Don’t Know Precisely Why He’s Left: There are many potential reasons why he might have left. Wives usually assume that there is another woman or that the husband just doesn’t love them anymore. This isn’t always the case. It’s more common that a husband will tell me that he just felt that the relationship wasn’t working anymore and he doesn’t believe that this is ever going to change.

For whatever reason, he believes that the two of you are not connected, are not functioning as two people that are part of one whole. He believes that you no longer have the relationship that used to be mutually satisfying to both of you. When I tell women this, they will often say something like “well, he’s just overreacting. He expects everything to be perfect and that’s just not realistic. He expects the impossible.”

This may well seem true. And your points may well be quite valid. But what you have to understand is that, at least to him, his thoughts are reality – whether they are valid to you or not. He holds these thoughts and perceptions to be true. So, many times you are better off just addressing these things rather than attempting to argue with him about it or trying to get him to see that he’s mistaken.

Arguing the point (even when you are right) is one of those things that is just going to make your job harder. Right now, you’ll have to evaluate what’s going to bring him closer to you and what’s going to push him further away. As tempting as it can be to demand answers and then argue that those aren’t valid, this is often not going to be in your best interest.

Coming Off As Positive, Even If You Won’t Know What You’re Dealing With: Quite often, it’s best just to get started rather than to waste precious time fixating on answers that you might never get. So, you’ll often be better off if you proceed forward placing your focus on creating positive impressions and perceptions.

The next time you communicate with him, tell him that you’ve had a change of heart. Make it clear that although one day you hope his reasoning will be more clear to you, your concern at this very moment is to improve your situation. To that end, you’re going to move forward with integrity and grace, because, after all, your end goal is that you are both happy people who know that you’ve given this relationship your best effort. You now realize the arguing and engaging isn’t likely to accomplish this. So, you’re going to place your focus on what might get you better results – no matter how the relationship ultimately ends up.

Tell him that it’s obvious that he wants some time and space and you are going to provide this while taking some much needed time for yourself also. Yes, this may feel like a risk. But what you’ve done here is to hopefully give yourself more open access to him. He no longer feels like he has to hide from you or to put his guard up. If you do this really well, he just might come to see you as someone who wants to help him to get what he wants. This makes you his ally, which is the best-case scenario.

Then, when you get more and more access to him, always leave him with a positive impression. Your real goal is to show him that yes, things can change and that yes, your relationship actually can be a close one that is mutually satisfying. This isn’t likely to happen overnight. But, you do know this man better than any other. You know what he responds to and what he doesn’t. Do not let your frustration and fear drive you to show the fearful side of yourself that you know, at least deep down, isn’t likely to bring you the results that you want.

When my husband left me, his mind was made up. He was going forward with moving out and maybe eventually divorce. Thankfully, I realized that many of the tactics I cautioned against above were toxic.  And I changed strategies. That story is at http://isavedmymarriage.com/