Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from wives who have become somewhat emotionally burned during their marital separation.  Therefore, they feel reluctance when they begin to feel any sort of hope.  Even when it appears that things are improving or turning around, we can sometimes have the urge to hold ourselves back, afraid that the second we turn toward positive emotions, we are going to regret it.

A wife might ask: “it has been so long since I’ve had anything positive to report where my separation is concerned.  Things have gone from bad to worse.   It has always seemed that we couldn’t communicate in a productive or positive way.  And so we started avoiding each other to keep from things turning ugly between us.  We went on like this for months.  And then one day, we had to meet because of an issue at one of our childrens’ school.  Both of us were angry about how the school handled an issue and we joined together to get the result that we wanted for our child.  This forced us to work together and we united.  We were forced to speak often. Although I regret that my child had issues at school, in terms of my separation, this was the best thing that happened to us.  Suddenly, we have found that we can communicate.  There has been laughter.  And some tears.  For the last three weeks, we have gone out together every Friday night.  There has even been some hand holding.  Part of me is walking on air. I am thrilled.  But another part of me remembers how bad things were between us and I know that things can change in the blink of an eye.  Some of my friends have been warning me not to get my hopes up.  I know that they are right.  But having no hope whatsoever brings me down.  It is hard enough being separated without getting to have expectations that things will hopefully get better.  How do I balance this?  I don’t want to get hurt.  But I don’t want to have a negative attitude either.”

I understand your dilemma.  I had the same one.  My husband avoided me for most of our separation.  And this was mostly my fault.  Because I was out of control and emotionally needy.  Being around me and talking to me made my husband feel guilty because I loved to try to emphasize how much I was struggling.

It took a while, but it eventually dawned on me that if I was going to have any chance of reconnecting with my husband, I was going to have to have a better attitude.  My change in attitude changed everything.  Because once I made this change, my husband was more receptive to me.  Eventually, we started to make some progress.

So I had a huge incentive to continue to be positive.  But I had to ask myself if my positive thinking needed to extend to my own brain and my own outlook.  After all, my husband had no way to read my mind.  Although I could present a positive attitude when he saw or talked to me, he had no way to know what I was really thinking internally.

And I knew that I was emotionally vulnerable.  I knew that if my husband suddenly changed again and began avoiding me, it was going to crush me. I went back and forth on this and drove myself crazy.  Here is what I finally came up with.  I was going to do my best to maintain my positive attitude even with my own thoughts.  Why? Because it made it easier for me to stay positive around my husband.  Because being negative at home and positive with him was just too difficult. Switching your attitude back and forth is just exhausting.  At least for me, it was better to try to stay upbeat as often as possible.

Does that mean that I never had doubts and fears?  Absolutely not.  I knew that there was actually probably a decent chance that we would hit a snag eventually.  I knew that being separated was a huge risk to my marriage.  I had to be realistic.  And I never allowed myself to just assume that we were going to reconcile.  I knew that it was possible that we wouldn’t.

But here is what I told myself (and my husband sometimes.)  I decided that I was going to give the relationship everything that I had simply because my husband was that important to me.   Even if the relationship wasn’t ultimately a reconciled marriage, I still wanted to be on good terms with him.  I wanted a healthy relationship with him regardless of how this relationship was characterized.  And in order for this to happen, I had to make sure that my thinking was positive.  I told myself that if our marriage was meant to be, then really, I just had to keep a good attitude, not do anything to thwart this, and get out of my own way.

Was this always easy? No, it wasn’t.  But what was the alternative?  Changing attitudes constantly?  For me at least, the better solution was just remaining positive in all areas, but being realistic and knowing that the outcome was not yet determined.

You have to accept the good with the bad.  But I think it’s beneficial for you to hope for the best and to have the best attitude that you can.  Yes, there will be times when you get down and have doubts.  But this doesn’t serve you.  It does no good.  So I have always found it best to try to pick yourself up when this happens.

There are no guarantees that a positive outlook and a hopeful attitude will lead to a reconciliation.  But I still think that it’s better than focusing on negativity, fear, and doubt.  Regardless of the outcome, having hope makes the process easier to handle, at least in my experience.  There’s more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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