Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from wives who know that they were very, very close to getting a divorce. They were so close, in fact, that their husband actually went through the trouble of finding and retaining an attorney, drawing up the paper work, and then filing it. The wife was served. The divorce was started. But then, somewhere along the way, something happened to cause the husband to change his mind.

Most of the time, the wife is extremely relieved because she never wanted a divorce to begin with. But she’s also very wounded by what has happened. Quite understandably, she doubts this new change of heart. And she wonders how she can ever trust that her husband is going to be happy and actually want the marriage. She worries that her marriage is going to be forever damaged by this.

She might say: “about four weeks ago, my husband mentioned separating. This was bad enough. At that time, I was so naive and I had no idea how bad things could get. So I begged him to put off the separation. At that time, I thought that this was all I had to worry about. Not only did he not put off the separation, but he decided that a separation was not enough. He went ahead and retained an attorney and filed for divorce. When I asked him why he skipped right over a separation and went directly to a divorce, he said that he was just trying to avoid wasting time and money. He figured a separation would fail and that we would end up divorced anyway. Just as I was looking for my own attorney, my husband abruptly told me that he might be reconsidering. So I held off, but I had my suspicions as to his motivations.  When pressed, my said that he just kept thinking about our kids and he felt that he might have been too abrupt. Since he never moved out, there wasn’t any adjustment that really needed to be made – except for a mental one. Because frankly, I am so hurt that he filed for divorce. I feel so rejected. And I know that it’s important that we try to heal as soon as possible. I know that if I let my pain and anger show, this is going to hurt my marriage and I might end up divorced down the road. But my thoughts are all over the place. And I’m afraid that he doesn’t really want this marriage anyway and that he’s only going to stay because of the kids – but he really won’t be happy staying.

I understand your concern. I went through a pretty rough separation that I was sure would lead to a divorce. And I felt exactly as you describe – rejected. When my husband and I reconciled, I was initially very afraid that one day the shoe would drop and my husband would make the firm decision to divorce me. In short, I worried that we might really try our best, only to fail and divorce in the end.

By as I dwelled on these thoughts, I realized that they were sabotaging my happiness and optimism and were probably making it more likely that what I feared most was going to happen. When you are always worrying, you can’t actively participate in the moment and contribute what might improve your marriage. It can be very scary to get your hopes up. It can be terrifying to let your guard down.

But I think that you have to focus on the fact that he DID choose to call off the divorce. Even though he invested time and money, he still decided to backtrack and go a different route. And that’s pretty significant and means that he likely had doubts that were persuasive enough to give him enough pause that he totally changed course. That’s something to be a bit optimistic about. Because at least that gives you a chance. Now you have to decide what to do with that chance.

My suggestion would be to give it everything that you have despite your fears. I know that it is scary. But allowing yourself to be vulnerable to restore the intimacy is better than allowing yourself to be divorced. Definitely look at what caused your husband to be so unhappy in the first place and do everything in your power to fix it or to make positive changes. But don’t put all of your focus on what is wrong (and your fear of the problems.) Try to spend an equal amount of time focusing on what is right – and the fact that he ultimately did not go through with the divorce. Don’t sabotage yourself by being afraid of the future. Reward yourself by being grateful for the opportunity of today. You were still married. You have a husband who has enough doubt about divorcing to try to make things right. Yes, you have a lot of work and some uncertainty ahead of you – but at least it is a chance and not a sure divorce. Now it is time to make the most of it.

There was a time when a divorce was my absolute worst fear and I focused on that all of the time.  Looking back, placing on my focus on my fear was a mistake.  Once I figured out that it was better to place my focus on improvement rather than fear, things changed.  This change lead to a reconciliation and is one reason why we are still together today.  You can read more about that process on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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