Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I often hear from wives who feel like they can’t quite trust their husband during the trial separation.  Since they don’t live under the same roof anymore, they can’t keep a continuous eye on him.  And since they can’t keep an eye on him, they have to trust him for reliable information.  Unfortunately, sometimes he acts in such a way that the wives doubt his reliability.  And they can begin to wonder if he has ulterior motives.

I heard from a wife who said: “I will admit that I was plenty mad at my husband in the beginning of our separation, but I never really thought that we would end our marriage.  I thought he would go and have his time and then come back because he realized that he was mostly being silly.  But now that we have been separated for about four weeks, I feel like he is manipulating me.  When he wants something or when he knows he’s going to be doing something that I’m not going to like, suddenly he is nice to me.  For example, he wanted to take the kids half way across the country during the school year to go back to visit friends in his hometown.  Frankly, I know that the trip was just for him to have fun and goof off.  He dragged the kids along so it would appear that he had legitimate reasons.  Here’s another example. He took me out to dinner to tell me that he was going back to school even though we can’t really afford it.  He announced it like it was this wonderful thing, even though we hadn’t discussed it. When he doesn’t haven’t any motive or plan, he’s pretty nasty to me and he doesn’t go out of his way to see me.  But when he has something that he wants to do or he has a little scheme in the back of his mind, suddenly he is calling me and being nice.  This has really become a problem.  I want to be happy when he calls.  I want to enjoy my time with him without being suspicious but he makes it difficult.  I need for things to go well between us when we are together, but I now I feel the need to always be on my guard.  What can I do?”

The wife was probably right in her suspicions that the current situation was not conducive to a reconciliation.  So she needed to address this so that every time her husband reached out to her, she wasn’t so guarded that she turned him away.

Make Sure That Your Perceptions Are Accurate: First, I would suggest taking some inventory and looking very closely to make sure that your perceptions are accurate.  Was it fair to say that every single time that he was nice to her there was an ulterior motive?  It might help to make a list of any recent nice gestures and then to also list what was behind it.  You might see that he indeed reached out in a kind or pleasant way without expecting anything in return.  But if you take an honest inventory and find out that your suspicions were correct, then it might be time to discuss this.

How To Make Your Husband Aware Of This Without Making Him Guarded:  The last thing that you want is for your husband to become as guarded as you currently feel.  But if you become accusatory or bring this up in a tone that sounds very angry, you run the real risk of him not wanting to reach out to you in a kind way again for fear that you will take it in the wrong way.  So, you have to be very careful about how you approach this, while at the same time being aware that you need to just be honest so that you can hopefully remove this obstacle.

So the next time that you find your husband reaching out or appearing nice, don’t expect the worst right away.  Give him a chance to prove you wrong at first.  If he in fact does come forward with a motive, then you might say something like “oh brother, and here I thought you were just going to deliver good news without anything behind it.  I love it when you’re happy and sweet.  I love it when you reach out to me and you’re smiling.  But it seems that lately, every time this happens, you have some sort of request that follows it.  Please don’t take this the wrong way.  I don’t want to make you defensive.  It’s just that I know how important it is for us to make real progress right now.  So I really want for us to have some happy times together where there is nothing but us.  Will you promise me that the next time you approach me like this, we can just enjoy ourselves without worrying about anything else?’

Then, just listen.  Your husband might give you legitimate reasons for what you are seeing.  Try not to sound too judgemental. You don’t want for him to be hesitant to continue to reach out to you.

Also, you might want to consider reaching out to him.  Be nice to him without any expectations so that he feels more comfortable reciprocating. Because you don’t want to allow this process (and the reservations that come along with it) to make either of you hesitate to reach out to or to show love or kindness to one another.

I have to admit that I was suspicious every time my husband was nice to me when we were separated because his being even a little receptive to me was such a rare occurrence that I just didn’t trust it when it did happen.  Unfortunately, this made him back off even more.  Getting him back was a long, hard process.  But eventually I was successful and our marriage is much stronger today.  If it helps, you can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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