Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Sometimes when you are separated but hoping for a reconciliation, one of the biggest decisions that you will make is how much to disclose to your husband. Sometimes, you may feel very tempted to share your feelings, but you are afraid that this is going to make things worse. You may want to tell him how much you are struggling or how much you miss him, but you wonder if it would benefit you (or hurt you) to share this sort of vulnerable information. You may ask friends or family members for their input, but ultimately, whether to share is your decision alone. And you might finally decide that honesty is the best policy and then work up your courage to tell the truth, only to find that you did not get the response that you were hoping for. Not only is this disappointing, but it makes you wonder what this might mean for your separation or for a possible reconciliation.

Someone might explain this common scenario: “since my separation started, I’ve almost been walking on eggshells around my husband. I don’t want him to see me in a negative way because I desperately want my marriage back. Since he has moved out, I have missed him so much that it is almost all that I can think about. I almost can’t stand it. His sister and myself are very good friends. I was talking about this with her and she told me that I should be honest with my husband and tell him how desperately I miss him. I was somewhat afraid that it might make things worse but then I put it out of my mind. I decided that this man is my husband and that I didn’t want to play games. The other night, we met for dinner. Things were going extremely well, so maybe that helped me to get my courage up. I finally blurted out how much I missed him. And as soon as I did, the atmosphere in the room changed. He did not reply with an ‘I miss you too.’ He did not seem touched by this. He honestly sort of cleared his throat and tried to change the subject. And then everything changed. There was no longer any laughter. He ended the evening pretty quickly. So now I am in a panic and wondering if I have ruined everything. I don’t know how to undo this. Do I tell him that I misspoke? Do I just let it ride and hope that it passes? I am so afraid I’ve messed up big time.”

I know how you feel. I was in a similar situation. It was honestly pretty obvious how much I missed my separated husband and I am sure that this fact made him uncomfortable.  It seemed that the more I poured my heart out to him, the more he pulled away from me and the worse things got. Now, I don’t know your husband so I can’t possibly guess at the best strategy. All I can tell you is that when I backed away a little bit, things eventually improved for me.

Don’t Make Assumptions And Know The Most Likely Causes Of His Reaction: It’s normal to assume that he has cooled off because he doesn’t miss you in return or he doesn’t want to reconcile. I don’t think that this is always the case, however. I think that sometimes, men respond in the way that they do because when you make these types of confessions, they elicit feelings of guilt and maybe even shame in your husband. Deep down, he may be feeling selfish and guilty for putting you through all of this. So when you tell him how much you are struggling, all this does is magnify that guilt. And he will then naturally try to shut that type of talk down, because he doesn’t want to feel the guilt.

Why Watching And Waiting Might Not Be A Bad Idea: As to how to handle this moving forward, I think that I would consider waiting and watching for a little bit. It may be that eventually, he will realize that you weren’t expecting him to take any action and that you were just sharing your feelings. As a result, he may realize that he overreacted. Or he may still be distant and cold. I think it makes sense to wait for a little bit and see if this will resolve without needing to have an awkward conversation that might make things worse.

Working To Change His Perception: I also think that it’s important that he begins to perceive that although you may miss him, you aren’t waiting around or stopping your life because of this. It’s important that he knows that you are coping and doing the best that you can. Since his sister and you are friends, you want to make sure that she knows that you’ve picked yourself up, dusted yourself off, and continued on.

Because once a husband knows that you are coping, the pressure on him is lessened and he will often be receptive again eventually. If not, you may have to attempt a conversation, but I would not rush that.

In my own case, when I got busy pursuing other things, it initially felt like a risk. But I wasn’t sure what else to do. I had already laid my cards on the table with disastrous results. So backing away was more out of fear than anything else.  But backing away just slightly turned out to be a brilliant strategy, because this was the only thing that got him receptive again. There’s more about that on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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