Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: If you didn’t want to separate, it’s normal to be relieved every time your separated spouse reaches out to you. After all, you want to be receptive. You want to be somewhat available. You want to be in touch and in communication so that hopefully, this separation will only be temporary. 

But what happens when you begin to feel that your spouse is reaching out not because he wants to see or communicate with you, necessarily? But because he has his own agenda, that has nothing to do with you or your marriage?

Someone might say, “As embarrassed and as sad as I am to admit it, I jump to attention when my separated husband calls or comes by. I want his attention. I want him thinking about or seeing me. I am desperate to reconcile, and he knows this. In my heart, I know that he is much less motivated to reconcile than I am. And I believe that this may be why he is using me. I am not sure what to do about it. Appearances are extremely important to my husband. He has developed a reputation as a trustworthy family man who puts his family before anything else. This has helped him have success with his career. He doesn’t want people to know that we are separated – not even his family.  He is the one who initiated the separation even though I begged him not to. But because he felt strongly that he needed some time on his own, we are essentially separated on the down-low. He doesn’t want his workplace or his clients to know. Because they all like and respect me. He doesn’t want his family to know. Because they all love me. So he is constantly asking me to make appearances with him and act like everything is okay. Occasionally, when he’s feeling like he wants someone to praise him or he wants to brag about an accomplishment, he’ll invite me out to dinner. A couple of times, we’ve even slept together at the end. Unfortunately, though, these get-togethers never lead to any improvement between us. Once he’s gotten what he wants from me, then we’ll go back to the way things were. Until the next time. He’ll go silent on me until he has another obligation. I am torn about what to do. I’d never cut him off because I know that we need to be in communication if we have any chance to reconcile. But this makes me feel used. And I’m not sure how to go about making it any better.”

This is indeed a tough spot. You can’t do anything to completely alienate your husband because the attention that he shows you during some of these outings could bear fruit eventually. So we need to figure out a way to make these down-low get-togethers work for BOTH of you, not just for one of you. I’ll offer some suggestions about how to do that below. 

Try To Get Him To Do An Exchange: The biggest downside with your current arrangement is that he goes silent on you when he doesn’t need you for anything. You need to balance this with some actual improvement or progress. So the next time he asks you to attend an event with him, offer him a quid pro quo. Make sure there is something in it for you. 

For example, if he tells you that he needs you to attend a business dinner with him, say, “I’d love to if you agree to take me to a movie next weekend.” Of course, you can fill in the blank with any activity that appeals to you. Perhaps you’d like for him to come over and just get a pizza and watch Netflix. Maybe you just want an hour or two to take a walk and talk. Whatever you’d like to do, I think it’s only fair for you to ask for reciprocation. 

Even better, the outings that you have choose for pleasure rather than business can actually enhance your relationship because you are free to be playful and lighthearted in a way that you may not be during business or family obligations. 

Don’t Feel That You Have To Say Yes 100% of The Time:  When I was separated from my own husband, I eventually realized that I was being too accommodating. My husband reached out to me so little, that I took to reaching out to him all of the time. I was the only one who ever initiated communication initially. So on the rare occasions that he reached out to me, I jumped to attention. It didn’t matter if he gave me no notice. It didn’t matter if it was something I didn’t really want to do. And it didn’t matter if his motives didn’t benefit me.

Thankfully, I eventually realized that all of this over-accommodation was contributing to my husband not seeing my true value. He didn’t have to be on his best behavior or give anything because I was requiring absolutely nothing from him.

So every once in a while (and especially if he’d been particularly rude) I’d work it in somehow that I had something else to do. When this worked well, I actually went out of town to get some strategic distance. This was actually a new strategy that worked for me. This helped my cause much more than my continuing to come running every time my husband called. Of course, I always made it clear that I was still invested and ultimately wanted to reconcile. But I also wanted it to appear that I respected myself enough to not be a doormat.

Of course, there is a fine line that you have to walk. You want to maintain contact with your husband. And sometimes that means accommodating  him when he needs you. But, this should be a give and take. You should definitely feel like you’re getting something in return. And you should definitely feel like there is a way to use this to your advantage as a way to move toward reconciliation. 

Otherwise, you will feel resentful and your husband will feel entitled. And that doesn’t do either or you (or your marriage) any favors. 

I found that what DOES help is to work on yourself so that when you see or communicate with your husband, he senses that something has changed. Think about it. Something DOES need to change for your marriage to change. And this can be an important first step. To see how I used this as my starting point, check out https://isavedmymarriage.com

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