Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane:  Many wives worry that their separated husband is “over” them because he has started to see other people during the separation.  And many worry that if he’s over his wife, this mean that the marriage is over and that a divorce is going to follow.  A wife might say: “my husband and I separated about three months ago.  We haven’t been fighting horribly or anything, but my husband hasn’t made any attempts to come home, even though there have been instances where we had started to reconnect.  At one point, my husband told me that he didn’t know if he would ever get over me.  This gave me some hope.  However, for the last week, he’s been honest about the fact that he has started to see other people.  What does this mean for my separation and for my marriage?  Does his seeing other people mean that he’s over me?  And if he’s over me, is my marriage over?”  I will try to address these concerns in the following article.

A Husband Who Is Seeing Other People May Be Trying To Cope Or Explore Rather Than To Move On:  Of course, I had no way to know exactly what this husband was thinking.    Many husbands in this situation are just torn and trying to cope.  Sometimes, their family or friends are telling them they need to “stop moping” or “move on” so they feel pressured to see other people even if their heart isn’t really in it.

Additionally, sometimes men just want to explore what happens in terms of their thoughts and feelings when they see other people.  Sometimes, their intention isn’t to get serious with someone else.  Rather, they want to see if dating others make them miss their wife or if other women seem inferior to their wife by comparison. Believe it or not, sometimes this situation actually helps the marriage because the husband actually finds that he misses his wife since seeing the other woman makes him feel empty and makes him want his wife that much more.

I Find It Hard To Believe A Husband Can “Get Over His Wife” After Only Three Months Or So:  This separation had only lasted for three months.  Unless their marriage was just an awful one that made the husband absolutely miserable, it was hard to believe that the husband would be completely over his wife and ready to move on within that short amount of time.  Sure, he might be seeing other women and he may even think that he’s been successful.  But I suspect that even if he isn’t experiencing overtly negative feelings, somewhere deep inside, he still must feel something for his wife.  Three months is just too soon to be completely over someone in my opinion.  Of course, the husband and others may disagree.

What Should You Do If You Fear Your Husband Is Over You Or Moving On During Your Separation?:  My best advice would be not to panic.  It didn’t seem as if the husband in this situation was seeing any one woman in particular.  He was basically just casually dating different people.  He was basically just starting out and exploring.  Of course, this made the wife afraid that he was going to eventually move on for good, but, as I said earlier, this is certainly not always the case.  Many times, the husband’s attempt at dating isn’t completely successful and it makes him miss his wife.   That’s why you should not jump to conclusions or act in a way that makes your husband feel defensive.  I know that it’s tempting to want to demand answers from him and ask him what this means.  But sometimes, if you make too much out of this, you actually push him into defending it and therefore pursuing it even more.

My suggestion would be to acknowledge that you are troubled and confused by his seeing other people, but to, for now, let it go at that and continue to observe.  Continue to be upbeat and easily approachable and considering adding a little mystery to the equation.  I honestly don’t advocate seeing other people just to make him jealous because this will typically only confuse you more.  But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with going out with your friends or family and letting him wonder where you are.  He certainly doesn’t need to think that you are sitting at home mourning and waiting on him.  Because if he’s wondering what you are doing, he will have a little more incentive to evaluate where he is going with this.  I’d like to make more point.  While creating a little mystery is good, you don’t want to give the impression that you are moving on or are no longer interested in your husband.  Because doing so could give him more incentive to step up his dating, which is the last thing you want.

Instead, you want to lay a positive foundation so that he wants to interact with you and so that, eventually, he looks around and wonders why he is wasting his time with other women when he could be with you full time.

I was always very paranoid about other women when my husband and I were separated.  What I didn’t realize was that strengthening our relationship and our bond should have been my biggest concern.   My paranoia actually pushed my husband further away, but when I placed my focus on just us, this brought him much closer so that we could eventually reconcile.  If it helps you with your own situation, you’re welcome to read the whole story of our reconciliation on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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