Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: It’s a somewhat cruel irony. When you are separated but are hoping to reconcile, it is advantageous to display your best self to your husband as often as you can. This helps him to miss you, see what he is missing, and remember what he loved about you in the first place. Unfortunately, this best version of yourself often goes into hiding during your separation – precisely when you need her to show herself the most.

A wife might say, “There is no other way to say it. I am an emotional and even a physical mess since my husband and I separated. I looked in the mirror this morning, and I didn’t even recognize myself. I have bags under my eyes. I look haunted. I look frightened. But it’s more than just my looks. Emotionally, I am lost. I walk around so frightened all of the time, like something awful is just around the corner, and there is no way for me to prevent it. My husband is doing much better during this separation than I am. He seems to be coping well. He almost seems to be happier, and I almost begrudge him this, which makes me feel extremely petty. I shouldn’t want my husband to feel pain, but if I am being honest, I’d feel better if I thought he was experiencing some of the same pain that I am experiencing. I find myself wanting him to feel the longing that I feel. I am jealous of his friends who get to spend time with him. I am insecure and unsure about what I might have to offer now. And I know I have to snap out of this. Why would he want me back if he knew I was like this? But I am not sure how to stop.”

I understand where you are. I too was stuck in unproductive loops of rumination during my own separation. And it wasn’t just one specific thing that got me out of it. Rather, it was a combination of surrounding myself with loving support, forcing myself to do things that distracted me from my unrelenting focus on my fears, therapy, a change in approach when it came to my husband, and a whole lot of self-care.

Thankfully, as I improved myself, my relationship with my husband began to improve also. But that was a long time coming. I really got to a low bottom before I realized that I had to change something, as much for myself as for my marriage. I was very unhappy and I was suffering and trapped in my own negative thoughts. And I needed to change for myself every bit as much as I needed to change for my marriage.

Below, I’ll offer some specifics that helped me. I didn’t do all of these things all at once. That would have felt a bit overwhelming. Instead, I gained momentum quite slowly.

Loving Support:

I can’t lie about this one. I’m just lucky. I have family members and friends who weren’t going to allow me to brush them off. Oh, I tried. I tried very hard. I was downright rude and reclusive sometimes. But the people who loved me refused to be put off. They forced me to go places and do things with them. Sometimes, this was the last thing I wanted to do. But every single time I went, I felt better. Eventually, as I saw over and over again that being with others benefitted me, I stopped fighting it.

Focusing on Other Things:

If you sit in your home and think about your husband and your separation every minute, you will ruminate. And that rumination feeds upon itself until you’re thinking of nothing but the worst-case scenarios.

I found that I couldn’t “think” myself out of ruminations. Instead, I had to literally force myself to do something else. Often, this involved getting out of the house and helping someone else. Other times, it was a physical activity such as washing my car, organizing my closets, taking a painting class, or even exercising. My home has never been that clean and organized again, but staying busy made me feel like I’d accomplished something, and it paused the ruminating.

In time, this new focus calmed me down, and my husband definitely eventually noticed the shift, but more than that, it made my situation more bearable.

A Shift of Focus:

When I first began my separation, my focus was almost entirely on what I lacked. To put it bluntly, I felt very sorry for myself. And my focus was solely on me – what I wanted, what I didn’t have, what I had lost. I was miserable, and I was miserable to be around in that state. If there’s any good news about feeling this way, it is that eventually, it becomes so exhausting that you realize you want it to stop immediately, and you look for ways to shake it off.

I did seek help from a therapist, and I thought long and hard about whether my mindset was serving me. I looked in my journal and was able to clearly see that my thought patterns were extremely negative and self-limiting. I had to work very hard on consciously changing the way that I was thinking. I was living as if the worst had already happened, so I was doubling my fear and misery. Changing my thinking required constant work and scrutiny. I had to learn how to question the thoughts that were constantly popping into my head as well as my assumptions, but doing this made my thinking clearer, which improved my situation substantially.

I stayed in a better headspace for a while without doing any additional work. But when I felt I’d been stable for a while and was therefore ready, I took an honest look at my part in the deterioration of my marriage and made some genuine, but sustainable changes. I didn’t know if these things would make any difference to my husband, but I knew that these changes were needed regardless.

As I slowly began to make many improvements, my self-esteem improved. This is very important. It is so much easier to sell your husband an improved, more vibrant version of yourself if you know that it’s actually true. Do whatever you need to do to improve your self-esteem. It’s very important. And don’t always assume that your husband is doing great while you are not. You can’t know someone else’s reality.

I don’t want to make it sound like I got better immediately. That’s just not true. This was a gradual process, and I had plenty of miserable days, but I just got tired of always feeling bad about my situation and about myself. There is no shame in getting help if you need it. But if you feel as if you need a change, then start small and go about making it. Don’t take on too much, but slowly and steadily do small things that you know in your heart will make things better.

You’re welcome to read about my own process during my separation at https://isavedmymarriage.com.  My progress wasn’t always linear, but there were some small shifts that made big differences.

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