Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Some separated spouses have more than one attempt at a reconciliation. It would be wonderful if your good intentions were all you needed to successfully reconcile. But for many, this is just not the case. Sometimes, one of the spouses changes their mind – which is very painful for all involved. And if the spouse changes their mind back and wants to eventually reconcile once again, there can be some doubts about that same spouse’s sincerity.

Someone might address a concern like: “I’d love to believe that my spouse genuinely wants to get back together with me. But I’ve been down this road before and I have been hurt as the result. A couple of months ago, he told me that he thought he wanted to reconcile, but he said that he wasn’t ready to just move back in. He wanted to take it slowly. I wasn’t completely happy with this because I felt like I’d been patient all along, but I didn’t feel that I had much of a choice. So I complied. Things seemed to go OK for a couple of weeks and then he told me that he was changing his mind. This was extremely painful. I felt like he’d almost lied to me or that he should not have said anything until he was absolutely sure. Well, last night we went out for drinks and he may have had a little too much alcohol. By the end of the night, he was blabbing again about wanting to save our marriage. I thought that it was only the alcohol talking. But then this morning he called me and he asked me if I had given any consideration to reconciling. I told him that it was very hard for me to take him seriously when he bailed out on me before. He asked what he needed to do to prove this to me. I want to say that he needs to move back home, but I don’t want to push my luck. What can he do to prove to me that he is serious about reconciling?”

Frankly, the most reassuring thing to me was time. The more time that went by with my husband and I getting along well, the more confident I was that it was actually going to work. But, there are probably some overtures that he could make that would make you feel more secure. I will discuss some of them below.

Make A Noticeable Effort To Spend Meaningful And Significant Time With You: I agree that it can be risky to push your spouse to move back in before he is ready. I’ve seen so many reconciliation attempts go sour this way. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t spend a lot of time together. When you are attempting to reconcile, the idea is to spend more and more time together until the transition to moving back in would be easy. So you don’t want to see your spouse still taking lots of “space” or not spending free time with you. Because this would indicate that he isn’t as serious as he might have lead you to believe. When someone is serious about reconciling, they work to clear their calendars for you. They put some thought and effort into the time that the two of you are spending together.

You Don’t Sense Him Waffling Too Much On His Feelings: Quite frankly, it is normal to have doubts when you’re attempting to reconcile. So much is at stake here. I wanted my husband back more than anything. And yet, I was always afraid that something would go wrong. I did not doubt my feelings about him or about our marriage. I simply doubted that things were actually going to work. I was always so paranoid of something going wrong. So while you may see your spouse act a little hesitant about everything falling into place, you shouldn’t feel tons of doubts about his feelings for you. There is bound to be some doubt. Because you are separated and the relationship is fragile. Still, I like to believe that most people can feel the difference between a little hesitation and a huge lack of feelings. You might both have some concern about having success. But you shouldn’t have concern about the fact that the will is there. You should be able to feel his sincerity and the fact that his feelings, though fragile, are real.

You’re Seeing Obvious And Undeniable Improvement: Generally speaking, when both people want to reconcile, they are both on their best behavior and they are both making every effort to ensure that this works. That’s why at this time you should see (and feel) a definite improvement in your situation. Things should no longer feel nearly as tense. It should be clear that things are improving. It should feel hopeful. Most people can just sense that things are changing – even if a few challenges crop up along the way.

In short, you should be seeing sincere behavior and obvious attempts on his part to make you feel reassured. You can’t expect for everything to be perfect. But you should feel relief because most of the time, you can just feel the tide shift.

I did feel a shift in my marriage as a reconciliation was approaching.  But it took a while before I had complete confidence.  It always helped when my husband reassured me.  But time did more than anything else.You can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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