My Husband Wants To Leave Me. Should I Let Him?
By: Leslie Cane: I am most often contacted by wives who are looking for a way to stop their husband from leaving or going through with a separation or divorce. Some are willing to do absolutely everything in their power to stop him from walking out the martial door. But, as they are carrying this out, many aren’t sure if this strategy is the way to go. Often, they can see him only intensifying his wish to go with every attempt they make.
I recently heard from a wife who said, in part: “my husband has been open and clear about his wish to leave me. In fact, he told me that he planned to move out next weekend. I am absolutely devastated and my first inclination is to do whatever I have to do to ensure that he never walks out that door. We have debated this for weeks, but I still have a few tricks left up my sleeve that I think are worth a try. My best friend, however, thinks that I am degrading myself by basically throwing myself at my husband’s feet and begging him not to go. She says that when I act like this, I’m only lessening my chances that he will stay or ever want to come back. She says my best bet is to let him go with a little dignity and hope that he comes back. Who is right? Should I let him leave?”
I will try to answer these questions in the following article.
If You’re Acting In Very Volatile And Negative Ways To Keep Him From Leaving, Then You Often Aren’t Helping Yourself: In this particular instance, I agreed with the wife’s friend. As the wife described it to me, her desperate actions were only digging her into a bigger mess and were getting a very negative response from her husband. If she kept going at the rate that she was, there was a chance that she could eventually alienate herself from him completely. For a woman whose main goal was to eventually save her marriage, this was not the best strategy or plan.
If you’re only able to keep him by acting so volatile, embarrassing, or scary that he’s afraid to leave you on your own, then you haven’t really kept him by legitimate means. And, as soon as you drop the act, you risk him mentioning leaving again. (Also, many husbands in this situation will eventually get tired of waiting anyway.) Taking this even further, the question of whether she should “let him leave” almost implied that she was going to attempt to physically restrain him from going. And there is not much that is good about that mental picture or eventual reality.
I understand that the thought of seeing him clear the threshold and then shut the door behind him may seem like the worst thing imaginable right now, but, if you want to have any chance of him eventually coming back willingly and actually wanting to be with you, alienating him by attempting to force him to change his mind is probably not the best way to go about it. If he changes his mind at all with this strategy, it will probably be out of fear, guilt, or pity. And none of these things inspire long-term results. You can’t keep up the charade forever and I can’t imagine why you’d want to.
Deciding Between The Alternative Of Willingly Letting Him Go (While Having a Plan) Or Offering An Alternative: In my own opinion and experience, there are really only two alternatives that have the best chance of long-term success. By long-term success, I mean that, once this thing resolves itself, your husband will either have decided not to leave after all (and you’re about to save your marriage,) or he comes back after he left because he decides that he wants to work things out.
Sometimes, this happens when the wife “lets the husband go” while telling him that his happiness and well being is important to her and that she wants to keep the lines of communication open because she doesn’t want to surrender the relationship just because it is changing. I know that this strategy may seem very scary to you right now, but I very often see it work when the wife plays it correctly.
The key to making it work is making it believable. He must truly believe that you are so sincere about wanting him to be happy, that you are willing to let him go. Now, with this said, this step is usually all part of a master plan. The idea is that you are letting him go for the short term as a means to get access to him and to encourage him to think of you more favorably. While this is happening, you are (behind the scenes) working on changing his mind about you and the marriage is a very low key way. You allow and encourage him to see you as a strong and capable woman rather than one who is begging him not to go because she is not confident that, at the end of the day, you belong together.
So this is one strategy. And, when played correctly, this is the strategy that I see most often working because it allows the husband to see his wife in a new light so that when he does come back, both people feel like equals and willing participants in saving the marriage. The wife can (and often does) have more confidence that the husband is sincere in his love for her and desire to save the marriage because she knows that she didn’t lure him back out of guilt, pity or obligation.
The other strategy is to take control by your being the one to leave. In this way, you’re upping the odds that you will get back together or keep your marriage intact because it’s easier for you to return home once things improve than to talk him to coming back once he has already left. So, this strategy is often more appealing because it makes you feel as if you have a greater sense of control and it’s not as scary because he is still in your home. But, the downside to this strategy is that you both might always wonder what might have happened if you willingly gave him the freedom he asked for. And because this question that hangs between you, one or both of you might have some doubts.
My knowledge of this topic stems from my going through it. A couple of years ago, my husband made it clear that I had to give him his space or he was going to file for divorce to get it. Unfortunately, I did not understand these principles and I fought him every step of the way, which nearly costs me my marriage. Once I changed strategies and cooperated with him rather than fought him, that made all the difference. If it helps, you can read about how this played out on my blog at http//isavedmymarriage.com
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