Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane:  It’s natural to want to see your separated spouse more often and in a more meaningful way.  However, if your husband is the one who initiated the separation or the one who wanted space, then it can feel very scary when you ask to see more of him.

You can be afraid that he will simply turn you down.  You can fear rejection.  And you might hesitate because you fear that he will begin to avoid you in order to keep from being asked twice.  So you end up with the choice of just giving up and accepting that you may not see him very much or coming up with a crafty way to ask him out so that you don’t sound desperate, pathetic, or needy.

A wife might say: “as it stands right now, I only see my separated husband when he picks up the kids for his weekend visits.  He comes and picks them up and then I take them home after church.  We do sit together at church, but there is very little conversation between us.  Right now, we talk on the phone a couple of times per week.  Things are not nasty between us.  We are cordial.  My husband seems relatively friendly.  But I want more than this. I’d like to see him once a week to reconnect.  But I am scared to ask him.  I have discussed this with a coworker and she says that if he wanted to see me more, he would ask.  She thinks that it is a mistake to ask him and says that I should be more patient.  I am not sure if I can.  I worry that if we don’t start seeing each other regularly, he will begin to date again, although he assures me that this is not going to happen.  So, is there any way to ask him on a date without fearing rejection or looking pathetic?”

This is a tough one, but perhaps I am projecting my own issues  Early on in my separation, I did ask my husband to get away for weekend.  Of course, he said no.  And after he did, he stopped taking my calls for a while.  I’m sure he thought I was pushing, so he pushed back, sending the nonverbal message that he wanted me to respect his space.  I’m not saying that this is what would happen in your case, but there is a risk here.

Minimize The Risk: If you ask this too early on, you may delay any progress because your husband will retreat. And you have to be careful that any request that you make seems extremely casual.  You need to make it sound as if there’s not so much riding on this – almost as if it’s an afterthought.

I always hesitate to even suggest that someone put their kids in the middle.  The kids should never be used as an “in” for trying to reconcile your marriage.  But since you are already at church together, you could invite him to go to lunch.  (Or if you think that is too much of a stretch, to come back to your home for a sandwich.)

If you go this route, then you have to be very careful.  Because it would not be right to ask him to accompany you on a family lunch and then try to make it a romantic lunch for two.  You have to be clear that there are boundaries that can’t be crossed.  If you’re going that route, then you want to have a light, casual lunch with your children, where the focus is on just that – your children.  No talk about your marriage.

This may not sound as if the lunch offers you much progress, but it actually might.  It sets up a clearer path in the future.  If he says yes to this, then later, as you make more progress, it won’t seem as weird if you ask him when it’s only the two of you.

Making The Most Of Any Existing Opportunities: The other option is to ask him to accompany you to an obligation where it would seem weird if you were going alone.  Examples are a work function, a parent / teacher conference, or a birthday party for a family member of mutual friends.  In these situations, it’s normal to not want to explain your spouse’s absence, so it’s just easier to take him along, assuming he is willing to go.

Your spouse isn’t as likely to read something into this if it’s clear that his attendance avoids a lot of unnecessary explaining.  And while this “date” may not be ideal, it offers less of a chance of rejection and it could lead to something else.

Whatever route you take, you want it to be casual.  You don’t want to put so much pressure on one outing.  And you want to chose something where there are other people around and other things to do, so that if things turn awkward, you can place your attention toward other things.  You want this to be a low pressure situation that can easily succeed and not require a lot of effort out of either one of you.

It’s tempting to want to set up a romantic, intimate outing for just the two of you.  But this set up can go wrong.  There is too much pressure and many people find that they are met with uncomfortable silence and an early night.  When this happens, people are reluctant to try again.  So it’s better to keep things light while keeping expectations low.  If you do this, there is nowhere to go but up.

As I alluded to, my early attempts to “date” my husband were total disasters and set me back by weeks.  I later became much more crafty at being casual and not so transparent.  And this made all of the difference.  You can read more about this on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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