Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I often hear from wives who know that they might be at the end of their marriages. Most of them are devastated by this. They are still invested in their husband. But none of this seems to matter, because he wants out, and he seemingly won’t listen to anything the wife will say to change his mind.  

This is difficult on so many levels, but one of the worst frustrations is feeling as if you have very little say in what happens with your own life. So you feel like your time is running out, and all you can do is watch while the pieces of your life fall away around you. You may know that ending your marriage is a huge mistake, but what can you do about it when your husband won’t listen to reason? 

I’ll often hear a wife in this situation say, “my husband insists that our marriage is over, but he can talk all he wants. It’s never going to be over for me. And I don’t know how anyone can expect me to just walk away without a backward glance. I know that this would be a mistake that we will both regret. But there is absolutely no way to convince my husband of this, and he looks like he pities me when I try. Lately, I feel like he’s just stopped listening to me. I’m not prepared to let him, or my marriage, go.  But whether I accept it or not, he’s leaving. Where does that leave me?”

When You Can’t Let Go Even A Little Because Your Brain Is Telling You One Thing And Your Heart Is Telling You Another:  I remember just how this felt during my own separation. You know that you should step back just to encourage a sense of calm, but you feel like your behavior is nonnegotiable because you’re being lead by the heart, not your head. You may logically realize that it makes sense to pause, just for now. But you can’t bring yourself to do it. I’m going to suggest that you make a calculated move. In my experience, you gain an advantage when you willingly compromise just enough to stop your husband from backing away from you.  I’m not asking you to leave your marriage.  I’m suggesting you drop the unyielding stance to give you the room to eventually save it. You’ll regroup once you restore some calm and gain access to your husband.  I’d never tell you to walk away, if you don’t wish to. But I am suggesting you give a little to get a lot.

Don’t Allow Yourself To Take A Completely Opposing Stance:  You’re right if you suspect that blatant stubbornness has a cost. Any time you and your husband are on opposing sides and want opposite things, that’s going to hurt your chances for a reconciliation. And your husband will come to believe that the only compromise you will accept is saving your marriage, avoiding any break, and nothing else. 

So right now, no one was going to give an inch. No one is going to compromise. And someone is going to lose.

Try A New Play: Obviously, to make any progress, this dynamic needed to change. Since the husband had made it clear that he wouldn’t yield, the wife could go first to change the dynamic just a little. If she did nothing, the relationship with her husband might continue to deteriorate and her only play was to hope for the miracle that would change his mind. 

 Or, she could set it up so that she was no longer standing on the opposite side of her husband. She could narrow her focus, by making her strategy one that focused on maintaining a positive rapport between them in the hopes of slowly rebuilding something new. 

The Advantage Of Changing Strategies When You’re Stuck: As hard as this might be to pull off, you gain a huge advantage if you do it correctly. If you convince your husband that you just want to maintain a positive relationship, he should give you more access to him, and he may even start listening to you, since he no longer needs to block your message. He may also drop his defenses, which makes your job substantially easier. You’re no longer taking a combative stance, so he may actually approach you with cooperation.

This is all so important because, in order to save your marriage, you’ll eventually need to work with him rather than against him. Yes, there is plenty that you can do on your own. But eventually, and at some point, you’re going to need him his cooperation. (It is so much easier when you have earlier it in the process because it keeps you from always playing catch up.)

Sometimes, A Strategic (And Temporary) Step Back Actually Makes You Feel Like You Have More Control And Power: When you are trying in vain to hold your husband close when you fear he wants to escape, it’s very easy to feel this entire process falling out of control. Your husband wants some space, but you can’t give it. So you reach for him even more desperately. It may feel as if you have no choice in this, but look around. Does this strategy endear your husband to you? Or does he want to escape even more right now?

Ironically, when you’re trying too hard to regain control by tightening your grip, you’re losing your grip altogether. 

Loosen your grip, just a little, and see what happens. I know it’s scary. But I’d be willing to bet that, in the end, that loosening actually gives you more control and power. I had to force this on myself. I had to surround myself with family members and friends who would force it on me. And I was so paranoid that the second I loosened my grip, my husband would be gone forever. I just knew that “out of sight” would mean “out of mind” forever.

But my fears didn’t materialize. Instead, once I was willing to back away a bit, my husband walked toward me and became much more receptive. 

This shift made everything less contentious. It created an atmosphere where I could actually make progress. 

And at that point, it became obvious that I had to play the game a little differently. 

When You Make The Choice Yourself, It Isn’t Forced: You don’t have to wait until your back is against the wall for you to make this shift. You don’t need this to be forced upon you. Any choice that gives you access to your husband and allows you to focus on the positive so that you can make gradual progress on your marriage is a winning strategy in my book. It’s not letting go. It’s not walking away.

It’s turning to a different type of strategy. And it stops a detrimental and destructive cycle that may not have worked anyway.  Obviously, this only works if there is no finalized divorce and you still have a little time. 

When my separated husband begged me to let him go, he clearly wanted to move forward with a life that did not include me. Eventually, I did make a show of stepping back, even if that wasn’t my final plan and it definitely wasn’t what I felt inside. Thankfully, this changed the game. Eventually, I was able to not only restore my husband’s interest, but eventually save our marriage. You can read that story on my blog at https://isavedmymarriage.com