Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I often hear from people who are on the receiving end of a request for freedom. Often, this not only hurts, but it leaves a lot of confusion as to how you are supposed to respond and to handle this. Because most people get married in order to have someone with whom to share their lives. So a request from your spouse to now only be a party of one can seem as if it is coming out of nowhere.

I heard from a wife who said: “over the last several months, my husband has been spending more and more time away from home. He has made a group of friends at his office and he always wants to go out to dinner with them, or play softball, or just hang out. I don’t mind this arrangement for a night or two each week, but when it started happening every night, I began to express my frustration with this. So my husband started staying home a little bit more but he would pout when he would do so. It was clear that he wasn’t really present at home. I hoped that in time things would get better so I pretty much ignored his pouting. Well, apparently things didn’t improve because last night my husband came home and said that he was moving out because he wants to be free. He said that being married makes him feel tied down and he can’t live that way anymore. He assured me that I was a good wife but he insisted that he is not the type of person who should be married. He said that being married made him realize how much he likes and needs his freedom. Part of me is tempted to try to negotiate and to tell him that if he needs to, then he can go ahead and start going out with his friends again without any limitations. But I’m not sure if I want to do this. I don’t want to live my life that way because it’s very lonely to have your spouse to never want to come home to you. But at the same time, I don’t want a divorce. What am I supposed to do?” I will try to address these concerns in the following article.

See If You Can Offer Him More Freedom Within Your Marriage: It was clear that this woman really did want to save her marriage. But in order to do that, she was going to have to make some compromises. Her husband had already made it clear that he needed to socialize with others in order to be happy. So it wasn’t realistic to think that she could sell him on a more isolated lifestyle, especially at first. The key would be to find something that they could both be content with. She might consider asking her husband how many nights out with his friends would make him feel happy. Wanting to go out every night isn’t healthy and probably wouldn’t be acceptable, but a few nights a week might work, especially if the wife negotiated going out with him on the other nights so that they could have fun together. It’s not as important what you agree to as long as you agree and you are both content.  Frankly, sometimes you have to settle for less than you want.  But when you do begin to go out with your husband, then you begin to reconnect.  And when you reconnect, you will often find that his so called need to be free lessens, which leads me to my next point.

Know That If You Reignite The Spark In Your Marriage, Your Spouse Might Not Crave As Much Freedom: I know that many people might disagree with what I am about to say but please hear me out. I notice that a lot of the correspondence that I get about spouses needing their freedom comes from folks who have been married for quite a while. It’s often when things are stale that one or both of the spouses will start to seek out excitement or contentment elsewhere. I am not saying that to hurt you or to insinuate that you are doing anything wrong. I tell you this so that you can see that this issue may not be completely about freedom or “feeling tied down” after all.

Because the truth is that when your relationship is exciting and fulfilling, it’s much more likely that your spouse is going to be content both at home and within the relationship. So the implication here is that although it can be very helpful to talk about and to try to compromise on this issue, it would probably be equally as helpful to take a very close look at your marriage to see where you can improve the intimacy and restore the closeness.

And sometimes in order to do that, you have to take full advantage of the time that you do have with your spouse. Admittedly, the husband in this scenario wasn’t home much. But nothing said that the wife couldn’t use that time to improve her marriage. Because I suspected that if she was successful in doing this, she would soon notice much less requests for freedom because this would no longer be necessary.

So to answer the question posed, my inclination would be to first try to discuss the situation and to reach a compromise. But after that, very particular attention should be paid to what is happening in the marriage. Because a spouse who wants freedom is a spouse who is giving you a warning sign that they aren’t completely happy with the way that things are going.

A quest for his freedom was one of the reoccurring themes my husband used when he wanted a separation. I honestly thought that this was one of the main issues that I was dealing with. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that restoring the intimacy in my marriage was the best way to deal with my husband’s perceived lack of freedom. If it helps, you can read the whole story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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