Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from people who know that they have played a large part in their marital separation. Although they are not the one who asked for the separation or the one who moved out, their actions put the whole thing in motion and they feel badly about this. They know that they have played a role in the destruction of their marriage and they would like to initiate change and make it right. But the problem is that their spouse doubts their words and no longer believes in anything that is said. So they feel stuck and helpless.

It could be described this way. “It has taken me a long time to get honest with myself. But if I am being honest, I have to admit that I can’t really blame my husband for leaving me. I have not been an easy person to live with. I am critical and abrasive. This is sometimes just my nature. But my sibling has been dealing with a chronic illness and this has made my attitude even worse. Instead of asking my husband for support, it seems that I have lashed out at him. When he asked me for a separation, he said that living with me made him feel like he was in a state of panic all of the time. He said that he can’t live this way anymore. He said that he doesn’t want to wake up in the morning wondering what he is going to do to make me angry. He said that life is too short not to feel at peace in your own home. This hurts me. But I have to admit that he is right. I was not abusive to him or anything like that. We never shouted or laid our hands on one another. It was just me being critical all of the time and I am so sorry about this. I took him for granted until it was too late. I want one more chance. I know that I can do better. I have tried to talk to my husband about this, but I can tell that he does not believe me. He is skeptical about everything that I say. I can’t blame him. But I am truthful right now. How can I make him believe me and give me a second chance?”

It’s Not About “Making” Him Believe You.  It’s About Changing His Perception So He’s Open To Change: You can’t “make” him believe you. This almost implies that you want to accomplish your goal by force. You can try to shift his perception of you by changing your behaviors so that he wants to believe you.

And you have to accept that this may take some time because he is understandably going to be skeptical at first. He may be afraid to trust you because he doesn’t want to get his hopes up and make himself vulnerable – only for you to revert back to your old ways. So he can understandably put up his defenses.

Slowly Whittling Away His Doubt: Breaking down a husband’s wall of defenses often requires time, patience, and determination. First, you have to legitimately become the person who you want to be. This is not as easy as it sounds. Real change that lasts often takes repetitive new behaviors with positive feedback when you succeed and negative feedback when you fail. And common sense tells that this is going to be an ongoing process.

You always have to ask yourself what you are doing well and where you could use improvement. And then you have to make adjustments as you go along. You also have to be honest with yourself when you ask if you have truly changed. Some people really need support and counseling to truly change because you have to get to the root of the behaviors and understand any triggers. (It is very difficult to be objective enough to accomplish this on your own.  I know that first hand.)

Having The Patience To See It Through: Once you have truly and legitimately changed, you have to have patience. Your husband is not likely to believe in this change the first time that he sees it. He may have some doubts. And the only way to overcome those doubts is to hang in there and allow him to see the change again and again until he eventually starts to trust in it.

Admittedly, this can be a challenge when you are separated and do not see your husband every day. This means that you will have to make the most of every opportunity that you have. Sometimes, you will only be able to demonstrate your change in verbal conversations that you have. And sometimes you will get the opportunity to demonstrate it in person. Always continue on with the change in front of every one – not just your husband. Because people talk. And someone may mention the changes to your husband, which will only help you.

Setting The Stage: If you’d like, you can tell your husband about your intentions, but you don’t want to try to force any change on him or make outlandish promises. Instead, try something like: “you have every right to be skeptical when I tell you that I am going to change. I hope that I will get the opportunity to show you. I’m very sincere in my intentions and I’m getting some help to keep me on track. I am not proud of the way that I have acted in the past. But the only thing that I can do now is to focus on the future and to try to make up for the past. I hope that in the days to come, you will agree that you see real and lasting change. I want you to know that I am sincere, but I completely understand that I have to prove this to you over a long period of time. And I am willing to put in the effort.”

This is only the first step. I strongly believe that you don’t want to ask for a second chance until you have more than proved to him that the change is real.  If you ask for a second chance before you make any changes, then you are showing your husband that getting what you want is more important to you than the change.  And honestly, it should be the other way around.   The second chance may automatically come without your needing to ask for it once your husband believes in the change.

I admit that I hoped that my husband would just blindly believe that I had changed.  I didn’t completely do the work.  And I was trying to short change the process.  I cared more about getting him back than about legitimately changing.  And this almost cost me my marriage.  Real change took a tremendous amount of effort and time.  There were not many short cuts.  But it was worth it.  There’s more to this story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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