Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from people who have used the threat of a divorce in an attempt to get some sort of reaction out of their spouse. They may well be actually considering a divorce. But they are also very interested in gaging their spouse’s response. And, deep down inside, they my be hoping that their spouse will try to talk them out of it, promise to change, or ask them if they might work together to save the marriage.  So when their spouse doesn’t seem to have much of a reaction at all, it can be very disappointing.

To that end, I might hear a comment like: “my marriage has been falling apart by degrees for about a year and a half. It all started when my husband caught me corresponding with an old boyfriend. It wasn’t cheating, but it was inappropriate. And, my husband had every right to be angry with me. Unfortunately, since this incident, he has been unbelievably suspicious of everything that I do. If he so much as catches me spending a tiny bit more than I’ve told him, he will just consider this as further evidence of the fact that I am someone who can’t be trusted. So, he distances himself from me and then I feel angry and defensive. Needless to say, things continue to deteriorate. We have tried numerous things in order to get our marriage back on track. But nothing seems to be help. That resentment and distrust is always there. Last weekend, we were talking about this over dinner and I said that perhaps our marriage is never going to get back on track. I thought that my husband might just encourage me to have more patience, but he didn’t. He shook his head as though he agreed with me. So I decided to take it a step further and I told them that I wanted a divorce. I’m not exactly sure why these words came out of my mouth. I suppose I wanted a reaction out of him. I guess that I wanted him to say something like: ‘oh don’t be silly. You don’t have to take it that far. We can work it out.’ I guess I was looking for reassurance. But he gave me none. He literally shrugged his shoulders and acted as if he didn’t care. And he hasn’t said a thing about it since. In truth, I haven’t been to any attorneys and I haven’t researched a divorce. But I don’t know what to do now. I feel like I backed myself into a corner. And part of me feels like if he cares this little, maybe we should end up divorced anyway.”

I can imagine how upsetting this must be. I used to play these types of “checking in” games with my own husband and, a lot of the time, they backed fired on me in the same way. I believe that there is a reason for this and that is that we’re not being completely honest with our husbands when we are putting these types of feelers out. What we really mean is something like: “this is a scary time for our marriage and we really don’t seem to be making much progress and that scares me. It makes me feel desperate and it makes me want to say dramatic things in order to get your attention. It makes me start to wonder if it’s time to just cut our losses, even though that is the last things that I want.” But this isn’t what we say.

Instead of having this type of honest conversation, we try to take a short cut. Words of divorce leave our lips. The intention is that he will be shocked by what we are saying and he will give us the reassurance that we are so desperately craving. When this doesn’t happen, it leaves us with a dilemma. Now, we must decide if we’re really going to pursue the divorce because of his indifference or if we are going to drop the pretenses and be honest.

In my own life, I had to be honest. Because, at the end of the day, I still wanted my marriage. Now, some wives in this situation will insist that they might really want a divorce. Many of them may have convinced themselves that this is true. But, honestly, this always confuses me. If they truly want a divorce, then why do they care that their husband isn’t having the desired reaction? What should it matter to them if their spouse doesn’t seem to care? I suspect that the reason is that they still care about him and their marriage, and therefore, have some doubts about whether they really want a divorce.

My suggestion here would be to get quiet, to try to distance yourself from the emotion and the disappointment, and to ask yourself what you really want now. If it’s possible that you still want your marriage, then perhaps you back off of the divorce issue and you concentrate on what the core issue is – the fact that you haven’t yet fully addressed and worked through the original distrust. And until and unless you have given that everything you have, then perhaps it’s a bit premature to start talking about wanting a divorce.

I’m not trying to be harsh. I am trying to put this in perspective for you. And, just because you aren’t seeing a physical response from your husband, this doesn’t mean that he’s not having a response that he isn’t allowing you to see. He may be struggling with this also.

I know that any talk of divorce hurts terribly.  I was in this place.  And thankfully, we never got that far, although we did separate.  Coming back from the separation wasn’t always an easy process, but we did it – in part because of my determination.  If it helps, you can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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