Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from wives who can’t help but notice that when they represent that they are coping well during their trial separation, their husband is more receptive to them. But, when they are honest about their pain, their doubts, and their sadness, he is more likely to back away. So, these wives can begin to believe that it is in their best interest to deny reality and to pretend that everything is fine.

To demonstrate this, I might hear a comment like: “the last thing that I wanted was to get a separation. It took everything in me not to block the door way when my husband was leaving. My heart was breaking on that day. And when my husband called me later that night, everything spilled out. And I will admit that I got into the habit of telling my husband how lost I was without him and how difficult all of this was for me. Over time, I noticed that when I would start this once again, my husband would change the subject or cut the conversation short. So one day I decided to do a little experiment. I began to pretend that I was having good days and that I was embracing my life. Once this shift took place, my husband was willing to talk to me for longer periods of time with more enthusiasm. So it’s my plan to keep this up and to pretend that everything is OK. If I do this, will he come back?”

Focusing On The Positive Is Always A Good Idea: I can’t predict if he is going to come back.  But, I can tell you that placing your focus on the positive will often improve how he relates to you. Here is why. Husbands often feel quite guilty for initiating the separation. They feel quite badly when they hear that you are struggling. This brings out negative emotions like guilt, fear, and shame. And this is why they will cut off the conversation when it starts to veer that way. But when you downplay this, then it alleviates some of those negative feelings. Talking and communicating with you is much more tolerable to them because they aren’t being made to feel like the bad guy each time the two of you talk.

However, Sometimes People Take It To The Extreme: Of course, it’s possible to take this too far. Your husband knows that you didn’t want the separation and also that you did everything in your power to prevent it. So it may be hard for him to buy that suddenly everything is going to be perfect. If you try to take it too far, then it just rings false and you may feel him backing away like he did before.

Plus, if you pretend that everything is just as fine as it can be, then there’s a tendency to gloss over your problems. I don’t want to discourage you, because I know from my own experience that putting a positive spin on things can allow your husband to be more receptive to you. And, if he is more receptive to you, then this is certainly going to make communicating with him and working with him much easier. But it’s not likely to just magically make a separated husband who wasn’t receptive to you before to suddenly want to come home. It can be a first step. But it is not a magic pill.

My suggestion is that if it is working well for you, continue on with it. But be careful not to take it too far. And be careful not to think that this is all you need to do. In order to come home, most men will need to believe that the things that caused him to leave in the first place have at least begun to be addressed. If you pretend that everything is fine before you even attempt to do this work, you’re almost hurting your situation instead of helping it.

Try A Compromise: I think that the best compromise here is to portray yourself as someone who is coping well and who is taking this opportunity to work on herself but who is going to do everything in her power to get her marriage back. Obviously, this is not a situation where everything is perfectly fine, but it is a situation where you are making the best of it and you are seeing it as an opportunity to make improvements that might make your husband’s coming home more likely.

But to answer the original question posed, pretending that everything is OK as your sole strategy may not get him to come back unless he was already planning to come back. Instead, you can use this as a tool to allow him to be more receptive to you. And, once he is more receptive to you, then you can slowly rebuild your relationship and begin to slowly address what lead him to move out in the first place.   (Do this gradually and only as your marriage can withstand it.) These things will hopefully make it much more likely that he will eventually come home because of the work that you have done and not because you’ve pretended that everything was fine when it wasn’t.

As I alluded to, I did put my best foot forward during my own separation.  But I always pretty clear on the fact that I wanted for things to be different in a perfect world.  Eventually, this strategy was very effective.  If it helps, you can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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