Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Often, when your spouse tells you that he wants a divorce, you envision that in a certain amount of time, you will either divorce or reconcile. In my experience, most people who are separated (myself included) expect one of these two scenarios. Most of us HOPE that we will be reconciled. But we figure that if this is not possible, then we may end up divorced instead.

What many of us do not anticipate is to be in limbo for a long period of time. Most of us assume that our spouse will eventually be able to make a firm decision. What we don’t expect is the spouse who is reluctant to divorce us, but who doesn’t want to come home, either. Here’s what you might hear: “never in my wildest dreams did I think that my husband and I would still have no resolution seven months after our separation. I had hoped that we would be reconciled by now, but I feared that we would be divorced. I guess that I should be grateful that I am not divorced. But I dislike not knowing what is going to happen. My husband moved out to see how he would feel after doing so. Our marriage had been struggling. I hoped that the separation would allow him to get the unhappiness out of his system. And for a while, it seemed that this was happening. He started being more sweet to me and I honestly felt that we were making progress. We get together a couple of times a week and, for the most part, it goes well. So I naturally assumed that he would soon want to move back in. But when I mentioned this to him, he said that he had no immediate intentions of doing so. As a result, I assumed that he wanted a divorce and I asked him about this as well. He assured me that he did not want a divorce, but stressed that he felt that things were going relatively well between us and that he was content with the living situation for now. He said that he saw no reason to ‘rock the boat.’ Well, I’m not necessarily content with the living situation. I have gotten more used to it as time goes on, but I would prefer to live with my husband instead of living by myself. At the same time, I am not sure how to handle this. I hesitate to give him an ultimatum because I don’t want to undo the progress that we have made. But when I look at our future and I think about us living apart on a long term basis, that just makes me sad.”

Taking Inventory: I hear more and more about this situation. It seems that as the economy begins to improve, separated couples have a little more flexibility with their living arrangements. Some couples actually embrace living apart. They are still very married and still interact as a married couple, but they find that they get along better when each has his or her own space. HOWEVER, this only works when both people are happy with the arrangement. It doesn’t sound as if you are happy, so it makes sense to take an honest look at your situation.

It sounds as if you have made progress and that’s wonderful. Now, you have to ask yourself if it’s possible that if you continued to make progress, then perhaps your husband would become more and more comfortable with the idea of eventually moving back home. I must confess that I was so paranoid and superstitious about asking my husband to come home (because our progress took a very long time to finally happen) that I just started easing him into the process without really announcing it or telling him what I was doing.

Easing The Way Back: This process started out with him spending the night every once in a while. As this continued to go well, it progressed to weekends. I moved slowly. I did not want for him to think that I was trying to force him into anything. After he’d been doing weekends for a while, he started staying during some of the work week. Eventually, he was practically living with me once again and no one really had to say anything or make a big deal of it.

This gradual approach also let us iron out issues and awkwardness before he moved back in, when the stakes would have felt more high. So I think the gradual “staying over” approach does sometimes work. Many husbands aren’t as opposed to EVENTUALLY moving back in as it may seem. They are just reluctant to move too quickly and have things eventually crumble. They’d rather wait and be sure than to act too quickly and regret it.

Only you know how patient you are able to be with this. If you are relatively happy when you are together, then try to gradually get together more. This means that you are alone less. And again, you are gradually leading him to something more. I know that this is tricky, but in my own experience, being patient was easier for me than risking a divorce because I wanted to rush. But everyone has to evaluate their patience level for themselves. Most of the time, pressuring your husband works against you rather than for you. It’s better to give off the appearance of being patient – even when you are trying to ease him into more without making a big deal about it and scaring him off.

I think that the fear of scaring my husband off was what made a gradual pace tolerable.   I was simply too afraid that all of my progress would be reversed if I pushed.  Of course, I was impatient and wanted to move more swiftly.  But it just wasn’t worth the risk to me. You’re welcome to read more about our reconciliation on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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