Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Most people expect that their marital separation will take some adjustment. There will likely be times when you are unsure, scared, and discouraged. That is to be expected. But not everyone expects seemingly everything to go wrong. Some people have so many unfortunate events during their separation that it begins to feel as if you can literally do nothing right in your spouse’s eyes.

A wife might say, “Honestly, I was very down on life and on myself as my marriage started to sour. I felt like a bit of a failure and that feeling only intensified as it became obvious that we were going to separate. I tried to go into the separation with a good attitude. I tried to tell myself that if I was upbeat about it, I had a better chance of a good outcome. But everything that I do is wrong. Every time I approach my husband, he acts as if my behavior is offensive. So then I will try to change tactics, but it doesn’t matter. It’s like he’s going to be resistant to me no matter what I do. This has depressed me more than I can express. And it has bled into other areas of my life. It has affected my self-confidence so I don’t do my job as well. I bail out on my friends. I’ve even scaled back on the time I spend with my mom. I feel like even my pets look at me with disappointment on their faces. I feel like I’m no longer competent. And I know this affects how I approach my husband and could potentially make things worse. But I can’t seem to help it. “

Don’t Blame Yourself: I understand the feeling. I had some of the same experiences. You want so badly to do the right thing at the right time. But please don’t be so hard on yourself. There is no perfect manual out there to tell you how you should behave during a separation. Such a thing would be impossible because everyone is different. What works wonderfully for one wife might be a complete disaster for another. Because every husband, and every separation, are also different.

All you can do is do the best you can. When one tactic doesn’t work, there is another. Unfortunately, though, we often can’t see that option, which leads me to my next point.

Don’t Make the Mistake of Thinking You’re Too Late:  When it feels as if everything is going wrong, it’s very easy to panic. You start to believe that nothing can right this train and that you are unavoidably headed for disaster.

This can cause a couple of reactions. Sometimes you will just freeze. You’re so scared of making a mistake that you just stop living your life or making any attempts at improving things because you’re scared that you will keep getting bad results.

The other possibility is that you will try over-the-top methods in an attempt to rein this in as soon as possible. You’ll think that you’re running out of time and you have to do something drastic right away. So you’ll keep ramping up your behavior to try to get something to change. And you run the risk of making it worse and turning your husband off even more.

Both of these responses can be troublesome because they either dig a deeper hole or they paralyze you. 

Taking a More Moderate Approach:  If your husband is not receptive to you right now, there is nothing wrong with taking a pause and taking care of yourself. You very likely need some care too. And frankly, if you don’t give it to yourself, no one else is going to right now. The good news is that self-care and self-improvement are never a waste. When your husband decides he wants to come back to the table, he will come back to a stronger, better, version of you.

There is no reason to put your life on hold or to take away the support system that is important to you. Instead, allow those people who love you into your life more and not less. Going out with friends, seeing family, and doing things you enjoy distract you from worrying about your husband and separation. 

And I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but your life consists of other factors besides the separation. Sometimes, it helps to focus on the places where you can excel, feel comfortable, and gain some positive feedback. Give yourself permission to do more of those things and to do less struggling about how and when to act with your husband. 

If there is one thing that I learned over the course of my separation, it was that I didn’t always need to think so hard about and analyze things. I actually brought about some worst-case scenarios because I couldn’t leave well enough alone and just allow for a natural pause. I learned later to focus on other things, but not until my mistakes caused additional issues that I needed to clean up.

Eventually, I allowed things to calm down, I focused on myself, and I got very insistent on my own self-care. Sometimes, this required me to literally force myself to do things. But every time I did this, I felt better in the end. So I just eventually made it a habit.

As I focused on other things, my husband did come around. And at that time, I changed strategies because I could. My failures early on didn’t mean that I was incompetent or couldn’t do anything right. My husband wanted his space. Nothing I did was going to change that. I should have given it more time, but I can see why I didn’t want to and I don’t blame myself. You shouldn’t either. 

You are not incompetent, either. You are the same person you were before the separation, but this is a very hard time for anyone to deal with, and you are doing the best you can. Be gentle with yourself, take care of yourself, and see where you are after a short pause. Husbands do change their behaviors and their perceptions over the course of separation quite frequently.

My husband did change perceptions with a little help from a new strategy from me.  It didn’t happen as soon as I would have liked, but it did happen.  You can read the whole story at https://isavedmymarriage.com

Filed under: Uncategorized by admin