Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from panicked wives who feel that their situation is hopeless. Their husband is declaring that he wants a divorce. As if this isn’t bad enough, when the wife tries to discuss this with him, he digs in his heels and tells her that he absolutely will not be changing his mind, so she may as well just accept it.

This turn of events can be a lot to process when you don’t want to give up your marriage or life as you know it. And this can be particularly true when there are children or other people to consider. Someone might explain: “I can not say that I wasn’t aware that my marriage was in trouble. I was aware of that. I am not blind. I can perceive that he’s been pulling away from me over the last year or so. And if I am being honest, I have to admit that I’ve been frustrated with the marriage as well. However, divorce never, ever entered my mind. We have a family. We have a responsibility to get it together for everyone’s sake. Unfortunately, my husband just does not see it this way. Last week, he announced that he had seen an attorney and is in the process of filing for divorce. When I responded that I can not believe that he would do this without our talking about it, he told me that there’s really nothing to talk about because he gave this careful consideration and he is not going to change his mind. In desperation, I mentioned marriage counseling and his response was ‘I repeat. I am not going to change my mind. I am adamant about that.’ So now I feel literally feel desperate and devastated all at once. I’d do just about anything to get him to change his mind and yet he is telling me that there is literally nothing that I can do. How in the world do I process or accept this? I am trying to come up with a plan to overcome his objections.”

I am sorry that you are going through this. Situations like these bring up bad memories for me and make me remember my own separation. My husband was adamant that he would never change his mind also. That didn’t stop me from trying everything that I could think of to make him see things differently. And I came to a very difficult truth because of this: The more I tried to change his mind, the more determined he was that his mind was made up.  People generally do not like feeling as if they aren’t in control of their own wishes. So even if they start to lose their resolve a little, they will still sometimes cling to their decision.

In my own case, I found out by accident that the only way that I was going to change my husband’s mind about the divorce was to stop trying so that his defenses would come down. I didn’t do this on purpose. I just got tired and discouraged. So I threw up my hands and turned my attention to other things. Once I stopped trying so desperately to change his mind, his mind began to open up to me.

I can’t tell you that this always happens. But in my observation and experience, this strategy works much more than trying to debate with him or trying to force him to change his mind when he’s already told you that this isn’t going to work. I’m not saying that you have to pretend that you want a divorce. I never did that. I basically just made it clear that I didn’t agree with his decision, but it was obvious that it was his decision to make, so I was just going to make the best of it. Luckily, separations and divorces generally are not speedy. So you will often have a little bit of time to work with.

In the meantime, I would recommend that you focus on yourself and your own well being. You likely need support and kindness right now. Reach out to people who love you. Do things that bring you peace or happiness. Give yourself permission for extreme self care. When he sees you turning your attention to yourself, his defenses may drop. And even if they do not, you can’t ever go wrong with taking care of yourself and your children. No one can ever fault you for that.

I certainly can’t tell you that most men who file for divorce (or intend to) eventually change their minds. But I can tell you that SOME do. People calm down. Perceptions or feelings shift. Improvements are made. Counseling sometimes helps. There are various things that can open people up to seeing things in a new way. Sure, you can’t count on this every time. But you can’t count it out either. I even know people who divorced and who still ended up together eventually.

I know that things seem hopeless right now, when he’s determined not to give you any hope. But things tend to be at their worst in the beginning days. He may or may not follow through with the divorce. But he can’t tell you whether or not to have hope. Things change. Right now, since he’s determined not to budge, sometimes the best thing that you can do is not to ask him to and then to focus on yourself. Of course you want to be receptive and pleasant when you can. But when he’s the most determined that he won’t change his mind, that’s when you stop asking and bide your time – for when he lets down his defenses and stops clinging to this decision.

At least this was my experience.  I firmly believe that if I had kept pushing, debating, and trying to change my husband’s mind, we would have ended up divorced.  He was very resistant to my pushing.  I had to pull way back to get his defenses to come down so that we could eventually reconcile. You can read more of the resolution on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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