Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I often hear from wives who are desperate to get their husbands to agree to give them one more chance in order to save their marriage. But unfortunately, the success rate with this plan can be very low, especially if your husband believes that you are only trying to get him to agree in order to stall or keep him from getting what he really wants. Therefore, it can be difficult to carry this out without appearing to be manipulative or desperate.

I heard from a wife who said: “my husband and I have been struggling with our marriage for over a year. He wants to end things and I feel like we have just hit a rough patch that we can get over if we try. It’s not as if anyone has cheated, lied, or abused the other. We just aren’t getting along that well. We don’t really work through our problems in healthy ways, but I feel that we could learn to do that with just a little bit of effort. I feel like if he would just give me a chance, then I could show him that our marriage could be saved and this would all be worth it. But he’s apparently not even willing to try. I have asked him to give me one more chance to save our marriage and he has essentially denied that request. He says that he will hold off on doing anything like a separation or a divorce over the holidays because of our children. He says that things can just stay the way that they are for a couple of months. But he says that once the new year starts, then he is going to begin to explore being single again. How am I supposed to handle this? Do I just have to accept that he won’t ever give me one more chance? Do I just have to give up?”

Admittedly, I am not the most objective person to ask. I refused to give up on my marriage even though my husband wasn’t at all invested in saving it. Granted, this process was sometimes painful, lonely, and unsuccessful. But I hung in there and he eventually came around. I guess my take on this is that you don’t need anyone’s permission or blessing to try and save your marriage. You can proceed on your own, even though the process may be a bit more difficult without his cooperation. I will discuss this more below.

You Can Make Important Changes And Shifts All On Your Own: Often, when we think about saving our marriage, we envision this huge overhaul in which both people have to roll up their sleeves, buckle down, and essentially make huge sweeping and dramatic changes. This isn’t always the case. Yes, you will have to remove the obstacles that are in your way and you will most certainly have to facilitate improvement on the issues that divide you.

But often, it is the small changes that bring about a return to intimacy and a light-hearted playfulness that are going to have the most impact. Think for a second about when you were first falling in love. You may have also have had some issues then, but you didn’t let them get in your way because you treasured every second with the other person. You were having fun. You were getting a huge payoff. And you will willing to downplay whatever issues you faced because your feelings were stronger than any problems or reservations you may have had.

This is very important to understand. Because if you can return to a place of connectedness and intimacy, you will often find that your problems don’t seem nearly as insurmountable. When you are having fun with your husband and the pay off is there, you are willing to overlook the things that likely divide you right now. The same is usually true for him. By no means am I saying that you should gloss over your problems. You shouldn’t. But I do believe that you should take advantage of an improving situation because this is often what makes all of the difference.

Take Advantage Of Any Short Reprieve: I know that this wife didn’t feel as if she had an advantage but honestly, she did. Because the holidays were coming up, she had several weeks to work with. She was also coming upon a time of the year that brings families closer together. This wife knew that her husband wasn’t going to take any action in the very near future. This allowed her some time to try to reestablish some fun and intimacy.

Honestly, I thought it might be beneficial to back off of the whole dialog about having one more chance to save the marriage. This sort of language implies desperation and that there is something gravely wrong.  As a result, the way that you package this will often be not as attractive as it should be.  So instead of presenting him with something you suspect he may reject, just focus on reconnecting with your husband and your family over the holidays. If this arouses any suspicion in him or if he asks what you are doing, simply tell him that although you aren’t sure what the future holds, you want for your family to have a nice and meaningful holiday. He is more likely to cooperate with this.

Frankly, when you use language like “one more chance” you almost put yourself in a situation where you have to accept all or nothing. Instead, consider just taking this language off the table and see what happens if you take your focus off the marriage and place it on the two people involved. See if you can remember what brought you together in the first place. And instead of looking at what is so wrong, look at what is still right and slowly build upon that with a sense of play. Everyone responds better to positive reinforcement.

If you can successfully take some of the pressure off and focus on what connects you instead, you will often find that you don’t really need a last chance because no one is still thinking of the marriage in dire terms.

As I alluded to, my husband and I were actually separated when I decided that focusing on all of the negativity and fear was actually making a divorce more likely.  So, I decided to move slowly toward small improvements that would be easy to achieve.  This made all of the difference and it allowed us to make real progress. If it helps you can read that story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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