Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from wives who feel that they have a very unique (and discouraging) situation. Not only has their husband left them (meaning that he has left their home and seemingly initiated a separation.) But, he has also left the immediate area, meaning that the wife doesn’t have easy access to him. So, if she wants to attempt to make him want the marriage again, she is going to have specific challenges of distance that must be overcome.

I might hear a comment like: “it would probably unfair to say that my husband left me without any warning. This wouldn’t be true. He did give me at least some warning. But I didn’t want to see the signs that were there. He’s been telling me for months that he was unhappy in our marriage. He’s also been telling me about a tempting job offer that he got in another city. I never thought that he would leave me to take the job, but that is exactly what has happened. I came home and found a note saying that he was leaving to pursue new career opportunities that he felt couldn’t be passed up. His letter alluded to the fact that he felt that our marriage has been over for a long time. It honestly sounded very final. I gave him a couple of days before I called him and although he picked up the phone and was cordial, he said more than once that he just wanted to focus on his job right now and that he had no emotional energy to put toward the marriage. After being in the house without him, it is clear to me that I want him and I want my marriage. I’d be perfectly willing to pack up and move to be with him, but he doesn’t seem to want this. I feel discouraged because all of the advise that I read about getting your husband back are applicable if you live in the same town as him or if he is reasonably accessible to you. My husband is hours away from me. It’s not as if we are going to run into each other. How do I get him to want me when he’s already gone away from our town?”

I will admit right up front that this situation is a bit more challenging. You truly do have to make each encounter count because as you said, you aren’t going to get any chance encounters. And the encounters that you are able to swing may well be few and far between. Plus, since you aren’t in regular contact with your husband, you may have some anxiety about what type of reception you are going to get when you reach out. However, although this situation has its limits, it isn’t impossible. I actually imposed some distance between my husband and I during my own separation and, much to my surprise, it eventually helped us. Below, I’ll offer some suggestions that I hope might help you to navigate this situation.

Wait And See If The Distance Helps You: Before you panic, you should know that sometimes, the distance between you may eventually work in your favor. For example, in my own situation, I became so frustrated with my own separation that I scheduled some time to go to my hometown, many hours away from my husband. I was at a point where I knew that the only way that I wasn’t going to continue to reach out and be rejected was to put literal distance in terms of miles between us. Slowly, my husband began to show a tolerance and then an interest in me again. And I firmly suspect that this would not have happened without the distance. Many people confirm this on my blog and say that very slowly, being apart from their spouse allowed them the space to actually miss them. So I’d suggest waiting to see if this is going to be the case before you try any drastic measures.

Make It Clear That Your Expectations Are Realistic And That For Now, You’re Only Trying To Maintain A Basic Relationship: In many cases, I suspect that being very honest and announcing to your husband that you’re going to save your marriage from a distance is going to be met with skepticism at best and at worst be met with resistance. I believe that the better call might be to make it clear that you’d just like to maintain some sort of relationship whether that is friendship, respect, or something else. After all, it’s unrealistic and cold to think that the two of you are just going to suddenly break of all contact with one another. This person has been the most important person in your life for years, so it’s reasonable to tell him that you’d like to maintain a relationship. With this done, you want to slowly begin to build on whatever relationship you start with until you slowly, and eventually, find that you’re begun to rebuild toward something more.

Move Forward As Is Natural: I can not stress enough that almost without fail, where I see this plan stumble is when the wife begins to get a good response and then gets all excited and then wants to accelerate the pace. Believe me when I say that I completely and totally understand this. This was definitely a challenge for me. But when it was, I would remind myself of how far I had come and how much I didn’t want to have to start over. It is optimal to allow your husband to take the initiative sometimes, especially when things are going well. It’s also advisable to move more slowly than you want to, even though I know first hand that it is going to be a challenge.

But to answer the first question, it is possible to revive the relationship when he’s not accessible to you. Yes, it is more challenging. And yes, you may have to move at a slower pace and be more deliberate with your contact. You may also have to just focus on a basic relationship at first. But if you have patience and a little luck, anything is possible.  I believe this to my core. If it helps, you’re welcome to read more about how I navigated this on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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