Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane:  There is no worse feeling than knowing your marriage might be over when this is the very last thing that you want.  Unfortunately, saving or maintaining a marriage is often a decision that has to ultimately and eventually be jointly made.  After all, you can want to remain married more than anything in the world, but if your spouse doesn’t agree, he can pursue a separation or a divorce without this being what you want.

This can leave you with a horrible feeling of being helpless or of just being a reluctant witness.  You’d give anything to change what is happening.  But unless you can reach your husband, then you fear that nothing is really going to change.

A wife might say: “the most important thing to know about me is that I do not want to end my marriage.  It’s awful for me to even think about this.  But I have been separated for over six months and I don’t see any improvement at all.  My husband hasn’t made a decision about our marriage yet.  But since I never get any positive signs or signals from him, I guess I have to use common sense and realize that my marriage is probably ending.  I’m a pretty practical person.  I know that it makes sense to accept the facts as they are.  But I just can’t wrap my head around this and I can’t even begin to accept it. I will look in the mirror and try to say the words ‘my marriage is over’  and I can’t even get the whole phrase out of my mouth.  If I had my way, it wouldn’t be over.  But I can’t seem to control what my husband thinks and feels.  And that is so frustrating.  I want to make peace with this, but I just can’t.  It doesn’t help that he sends mixed signals.”

I know exactly what you are saying.  I felt the same way.  I was not prepared to admit that my marriage was over.  In my mind, it wasn’t going to be over until I saw final divorce papers. And for a long time, I just seemed to ignore reality because of this.  Actually, I ran away from reality at one point.  Because I just could not stand to see what was happening.  This wasn’t a master plan.  It was just the only way that I could cope at the time.

It Is Hard To Let Go Because Things Can Change: I didn’t expect for my little break to change things, but it did.  The point that I am trying to make is that you never know what is going to happen.  That’s why I think that it’s sometimes hard to give up – you hope that things can change.  And honestly, sometimes they do.  Unbelievably, my husband showed a little interest after this.  But I doubted it.  Because of my fear.  I didn’t want to get my hopes for fear that it would only hurt more when it was actually over.

Understanding That You Don’t Have To Make Assumptions.  You Can Wait And See:   Eventually I got sick of my fear and I realized something.  And I honestly think that this realization changed many things for me.  I realized that until I was actually divorced, I really shouldn’t make assumptions.  Until my marriage had been legally dissolved, I wasn’t ready to say it was over.  Heck, I’d even read about couples who divorced and eventually remarried.  I knew that this was my being stubborn – which might frustrate people or make me look silly.  But ultimately, I didn’t care.  It was my marriage I was talking about.

And I realized that it was up to me as to whether or not I was ready to allow myself to think it was over.  I realized that this was under my control.  It was up to me.  And I just wasn’t ready. So I didn’t call it over in my own head.

I told myself that I could accept that things weren’t going well, but I wasn’t going to influence any outcome by my own dark thoughts and fears.  So I told myself that I would take things day by day and try to handle each and every day with grace and a good attitude.  This actually did change the way that I approached things and my husband noticed a difference.

This small shift did dramatically improve our situation, but even when things were going well, I knew that at any moment, my husband could tell me that he was moving forward toward ending things for good.  When I had these feelings, I pushed them away and I continued to just focus on our next meeting or conversation.  I tried hard not to get ahead of myself and to just focus on those things that I could control  – the next conversation, the next face to face meeting, and myself.

You Have Absolute Control Over Yourself: This is huge.  It is so important to understand that you DO have control of yourself.  You can control your actions.  You can control how you react to your feelings.  You can control how you react to what he does or says.   This does sometimes makes a difference.  And it keeps you from feeling like a victim.  Or a  witness.  It allows you to take back at least some control.

No, you can not ultimately control his decisions or whether he will decide that your marriage is over.  But until that time, and until you are legally not married anymore, you can control what you do and how you react.  You can control what you are doing to make yourself stronger and care for yourself.  And you can control the circumstances that surround your communications with him right now.  These things may or may not have any influence on the ultimate outcome.

But controlling what you can will give you a sense of peace and make you feel better.  And sometimes, that small shift makes a difference. I understand that it can be hard to just wait and see.   I understand how hard it is to focus on yourself when you have nothing else that gives you a sense of control.  But sometimes this shift is beneficial. You can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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