Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: If the martial or trial separation was never your choice, then the chances are good that you are looking for any way to end it and to carry on with your marriage.  Many people suspect that one very efficient and effective way to end the separation is for their spouse to come to the realization that they are still in love.  This isn’t as easy as it would seem, though.  Especially since sometimes, a spouse who wants the separation in the first place has doubts about this love.  So, assuming that it might be lost, how do you get this love back when you are separated?

For example, someone might ask: “my husband and I have been separated for almost three months.  Initially, he gave me the ‘I need space line,’ but as the separation went on and as I began to push him for answers, he started admitting that he wasn’t sure about his feelings for me.  One day I got really upset and I demanded to know if he still loved me. He hesitated for several minutes.  That alone let me know that I was not going to like his answer.  He finally said that he wasn’t sure, but I suspect that this was to spare my feelings more than it was to give me an honest answer.  I’m pretty sure that he thinks that he doesn’t love me anymore.  I’m equally as sure that if I could get him to love me again, our marriage might stand a chance.  But honestly, he is very cold to me all of the time.  I’ve tried to improve my appearance.  I call him every night to try to get him to connect with me.  I ask his friends what I can do.  But I still haven’t gotten the response that I want.  How do I get him to love me again?”

Often The Harder You Push, The More He Pulls Away: I know how you feel.  I asked these same questions during my own separation. But here is what I found.  The more I tried to “get” or “make” him love me, the less likely he was to respond.  In fact, the more I tried to manipulate this to my advantage, the less my husband seemed to love me at all.  At first, I tried to ignore this fact and I simply tried to push harder.  I became even more determined that no matter what, he was going to love me again.  This only frustrated us both and I honestly think that my husband responded with his own determination that he was not going to be swayed by me.

One day, I realized that my actions were actually getting me FURTHER AWAY from what I wanted.  So I decided to take a break.  I went home to spend time with my parents and friends.  The distance meant I simply couldn’t reach out to my husband as much.  And a strange thing eventually happened.  He began to take the initiative to reach out to me – for the first time in a very long time. That’s when I made a very important realization.  Once I stopped trying to manipulate my husband and I ceased the desperate behavior, things changed.

Holding Back To Gain Some Ground: I can’t tell you that when we were interacting or talking, that somewhere in the back of my mind, I wasn’t hoping that he would love me again.   Of course I was.  But I was very careful to not act on these thoughts.  I tried to keep things light between us because I knew that when I did, it was much more likely that he would ask to see me again.

I can only speak for myself.  But here is what I think most contributed to my husband loving me again.  I stopped trying to MAKE him do so.  I worked on myself while we were living apart.  I saw friends and continued to live my life.  He saw me doing this and it made a difference.  And on the occasions we did talk, I tried to make it as pleasant as it could possibly be.

Never Underestimate Time Used Correctly: Then there was the time factor. I believe that all of the above COMBINED with time, helped my cause greatly. Eventually, my husband started to miss me, which made him start to remember the positive things about me that he now couldn’t experience.  This was an important shift because when my husband thought about me, he started to think not of the negative things, but of the positive things.

This shift changed the tone of our interactions.  It suddenly became easier to have fun together and to connect.  This is when we started to gel again.  It was very tempting at this point to dissect our marriage, pick it apart, and name what was wrong.  I resisted that urge, however, because I thought that things were too delicate.  We did eventually get some professional help/self-help with our marriage.  And we needed that, but I eased my way into this because I knew that early on, every positive step was fragile.  I just wanted the feelings to return – very strongly and very securely – before I tackled our problems.

I think that in order for a husband to fall back in love with you, he needs to see the woman who he initially fell in love with.  This is a big challenge when you are separated, which is why you sometimes need to step back.  It’s so tempting to show him the scared, paranoid, and desperate wife who is separated.  Instead, you need to show him the happy go lucky, fun, intense woman who he dated.  At least that is what eventually worked for me. You can read more at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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