Has Moving Out Ever Saved A Marriage?
By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from people whose spouse is insisting on moving out. Some of the time, the spouse justifies the move by saying that he is doing so in order to save the marriage. This is confusing to many people. Doesn’t moving out just make things more distant and awkward? Isn’t moving out bringing the couple one step closer to a divorce?
Someone might ask: “I will admit that for the past three months or so, my husband and I have been fighting constantly. We fight about things that are silly sometimes. But other times, we just have a very different way of seeing the world. He says that I am too pessimistic and I think that he is too reckless. I am conservative with money and he is careless with it. I plan hard for the future and he likes to just see what happens. We’ve had unforeseen expenses come up with one of our children. This has been unavoidable and we could not have prepared for it. And we have to pay a significant amount of money because of it. But I want to take action to adjust and my husband thinks that it is all just going to even out in the wash. He refuses to curb his spending. And his moving out is going to cost us money that we don’t have. A divorce would obviously be very costly. But when I try to explain these things to my husband, he says that in his opinion, moving out is the only way to give our marriage a chance. He says he is tired of us being at each other’s throats all of the time and he does not want to live in the tension in our home for much longer. Well, to me that sounds very petty. I don’t want to live with money struggles in the way that we are, but what choice do I have? When you are an adult, sometimes you have to buckle down and make it work. To me, a spouse moving out is more likely to end a marriage than to save it. Are any marriages actually saved when one person moves out?”
In some severe cases, I have had people tell me that living separately DID save their marriage. For most of these folks, living together had become toxic. Their dividing issue became front – and – center in their lives and in their marriage. This issue became the focus all of the time. It became impossible to live around it. Things typically get so bad where the choice becomes living apart for a little while and then reevaluating or going straight to a divorce. In these cases, moving out seems to be the best of two evils. And in some cases, that break or pause does tend to be the ticket. It allows for things to calm down enough so that the spouses can eventually come together more calmly and can work through their issues – which could not happen when things were so volatile while they were living together.
That is not to say that some spouses don’t use this excuse when they just want a break. It’s impossible to read your spouse’s mind to determine what he is thinking. From my own experience, it did seem more difficult to save the marriage when my husband and I were living apart simply because I did not have as much access to my husband. By the same token, though, what finally got my husband’s interest again was NOT having access to me. So in that sense, living apart may have worked at least somewhat to my benefit, although it certainly didn’t feel that way at the time and I would not want to repeat the process.
Because living apart can be really difficult, I don’t think it hurts to offer your spouse some alternatives like living in separate bedrooms in the same home. Or perhaps staying in a hotel (or with friends) while the other spouse stays in the house. (I know that this doesn’t sound ideal, but it might be better than him signing a lease somewhere else.) If he rejects these alternatives and still insists on moving out, then I think it’s best to turn your attention toward staying in close touch while he is away. I can not stress enough how important this is. When you do not make a plan ahead of time, it’s very easy to let a lot of time go by when you don’t communicate with or see one another. This can lead to even more distance and awkwardness between you. It can be really helpful if you can get your husband to agree to having coffee or dinner once a week just to check in. Of course, he may be by to see or interact with his kids. But that is really the kids’ time and not the time to talk about marital issues.
Before he goes, ask if you can agree on a plan. He should be agreeable to this, since he has said that he’s moving out to give your marriage a chance.
I know that this is very hard. But know that moving out did not end my marriage and I know many other couples for whom this was the case. It may seem catastrophic at the time, but it gives a needed pause. And as long as you handle the separation correctly, it can sometimes actually be helpful rather than hurtful. I had to learn this the hard way, unfortunately. You can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com
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