Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: When you fully realize that you might soon be facing a divorce, you can want all of the information that you can gather. You want to know if in fact a divorce will be filed and when this might happen. If you are not the one who wants the divorce, then there is really only one person who can provide you with this information – your spouse. Unfortunately, not everyone is forthcoming where filing for a divorce is concerned.

Wives sometimes assume that their husbands are being evasive on purpose and they are looking for ways to get him to just be honest about his intentions. A wife might say: “when my husband first told me that he wanted to move out, he claimed that he was only looking to separate. In fact, we never even pursued a legal separation. He simply said that he wanted to try a trial separation and he moved out. Things were never ugly between us. We continued to talk almost every day and we sometimes met for dinner. Last week, we were having dinner and my husband took out his wallet to pay. A card fell out and fluttered onto the floor. I picked it up, but I could not help looking at the card to see what it was. Unfortunately, the card appeared to be from a divorce attorney. I asked my husband why he had this card. I asked him if he had filed for divorce and, if so, why hadn’t he told me. He said that he had not filed, but that he had just talked to the attorney to figure out his options. He said at this point, he has no immediate intentions to file for a divorce, but he doesn’t know that he won’t eventually. He says that he’s waiting to see what happens with us during our separation. I was talking about this with the wife of my husband’s best friend and suddenly she got quiet. I told her to please share anything that she might know with me. She paused and then she finally sighed and admitted that my husband had told her husband last week that he was going to eventually pursue a divorce. If this is true, why won’t he just tell me?”

You would have more of an accurate inclination than I might. Not knowing your husband, it’s very hard to say. You know your husband and you might have an inkling as to why he is being evasive. I could only guess.

That said, there are some relatively common reasons that a man won’t talk about his thought process regarding a divorce. This article won’t discuss legal strategies. I’m not an attorney and I don’t think there is any substitute for getting legal advice from someone who is qualified to give it.

He May Still Be Undecided: From the standpoint of feelings, he may not be talking about the divorce because he truly has not decided if he is going to file. There may be times when he is away from you when he feels that he may want to. And then when he sees you or you talk and spend time together, he changes his mind because he sees that things sometimes go well between you. It’s actually pretty common for people to fluctuate back and forth about whether a divorce is their best choice when they are separated. And many very understandably feel that, in order to give their marriage the best chance and to give the separation time to work, it’s best to not come to a quick or immediate decision.

Sure, he may well be gathering information, which you may find to be incredibly insensitive and premature, but it doesn’t appear that he has filed anything or you probably would have received a copy. (Again, I’m not a legal expert, but many courts have online searches where you can make sure that nothing has been filed. This is public record.)

If in fact he hasn’t filed, this can be telling. I know it’s upsetting that he has seen an attorney, but not everyone who visits legal counsel files for divorce. And at this point, I’m not sure what option you have other than to take him at his word and to try to attempt to have positive and loving communications with him so that he doesn’t see the need to pursue the divorce.

I know that it’s tempting to push him for a real answer. It’s understandable to feel that you have an absolute right to know if he’s actually going to file for divorce and what his current intentions are. You may feel like you have a right to demand that he give you an answer. That’s understandable. And since you know your husband better than I do, you may have an idea as to how he might react to this.

But I can tell you that in my experience, most people don’t respond well to demands and threats. I think that taking this hard line will sometimes make a husband MORE likely to pursue a divorce even if he was on the fence and leaning toward not filing before. Right now, it appears that he hasn’t filed and that you have some time to continue to improve things. But if you press him and act negatively, this might influence any decision in a negative way. This is only my opinion, but I think it’s better to try to focus on the positive, maintain good communications and wait – with the hope that he doesn’t file at all. Pushing him is risky and it forces his hand at a time when that might not be wise.

I know that it’s very difficult when you don’t know where you stand.  Every day during my own separation, I wondered if my husband was going to pursue a divorce.  But I felt it best not to dwell on it or to force his hand.  That turned out to be correct because we are still married today. There’s more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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