Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Understandably, people tend to be really hard on husbands who decide to leave their family in order to “have space” or “find themselves.”  Much of the time, the husband reassures his family that hopefully, this is all just going to be temporary.  He will often admit that he isn’t happy with his life, his marriage, or his very existence.  And he hopes or thinks that having some time for himself is going to sort all of this out.  Some husbands are obviously quite torn about and guilty over this.  They will try to ensure that everything at home is still taken care of and they work hard to make the transition easy on their families.

Other husbands will take a more standoffish approach and will tell themselves that they “just have to be selfish right now,” in the hopes that this time away will benefit their family in the long run, even though it is painful now.

Either type of husband can get an awful lot of criticism from family and friends.  And although the wife may feel that he’s being selfish, she often isn’t sure how to handle the criticism from people who love her.  She might explain: “this morning, my mother called my husband a ‘selfish jerk.’  Normally, I would automatically defend my husband.  But I have a hard time doing that just now.  Because quite honestly, my husband is acting like a selfish jerk.  He’s living in an apartment half an hour away because he’s having a mid-life crisis and now wants ‘time to find himself.’  I have tried to be understanding, but I want to smack him.  Sure, I’d love some wonderful silence to ponder the meaning of life, but I do not have that luxury.  I have children who depend on me.  Am I blissfully happy every day of my life? No, I am not.  But I’m not going to overreact and completely disrupt my family for my own selfish needs.  So yes, I do think my husband is acting like a jerk.  And when I start to think that way, my mind starts to wander and I ask myself if I even want this man back.  Because I worry about what he would be like – even if we reconcile.  Is he always going to be keeping an eye out for his own unhappiness?  Is he always going to think the world revolves around him?”

Before I go even further, I want to tell you that I completely understand how you feel.  I called my husband a “selfish jerk” in my own mind more times than I want to admit during my own separation.  And quite frankly, even when I look back today, I still think that was quite a selfish period in his life.  We eventually reconciled and I try very hard to only feed my marriage and my mind good thoughts.  But I don’t think any one can argue that there is a “me” focus when someone leaves their family to “find themselves” or to have “space.”

That said, there are instances where the space ends up being a positive thing and the spouse who left comes home and is a much better, and happier, spouse.

And frankly, even if it is undisputed that your spouse IS being a selfish jerk, you can’t really say this.  You can’t really call them out on their selfishness, because this will often only make it worse or make them want that “space” even more.

So what can you do? Well, you can try to set it up so that you don’t feel quite as resentful.  One of the ways that you do this is that you make the space work for you.  By that, I mean that you spend the time on yourself.  You do exactly what he is doing.  You take your own space.  You answer to yourself and you do what you enjoy doing.

It might help to ask him to be accessible so that you are not having to explain things to the kids.   Seeing him making this effort will help you to not be as resentful.

As far as comments from well-meaning family members go, I found that it was always best to try really hard to defer it.  Yes, you might agree that he’s being a jerk.  But saying so doesn’t really do anything for you and it only feeds into the negativity that is already present.  Plus, when you reconcile, you’ll know that you agreed with his critics.

I found it best to say something like: “yes, it is a tough time for us, but I’m hoping that he will work through it soon and we can move on.  He doesn’t take this lightly and it’s hard on all of us.”

All of this true, but it’s not being critical.  I think that you can probably tell by the tone of this article, that I don’t think that all men who ask for space are selfish jerks.  It can feel very selfish at the time and it may even be a selfish act.  But one selfish act over the course of a marriage doesn’t mean that the person committing the act will be a selfish person for the rest of their life, at least in my own experience. After we reconciled, my husband was able to move forward without the focus being on himself.  You can read about how everything worked out on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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