Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: If you have been separated for any length of time, you may have noticed that on those rare days that you are able to relax in the presence of your spouse, he is more receptive to you.  Sometimes, he may even approach being loving as a result. You might find that there are days when something else other than your marriage (or your separation) requires your attention and so you back off and find that things have improved dramatically. So, of course, you try to recreate that. You tell yourself that not pressuring him or constantly worrying about your separation is the way to go and so you are going to change strategies. Many of us unfortunately find that this is easier said than done. Because our feelings get in the way and we betray our strategy. I get a lot of correspondence from wives who know intellectually that they need to tone down the pressure, but who are finding it very hard to actually do this with authenticity and sincerity.

Here’s an example. A wife might say: “there have been times during my separation when I’ve been dealing with issues with my mother. She’s been having a health crisis, so when I turn my attention to her, I don’t have the time or the energy to focus on my separation. As a result, when I’m dealing with my mother, I do not constantly question, beg, or pressure my husband to come home. Every time this happens, my marital situation improves. But then when my mom gets better and I have the time to focus on my marriage, I just can’t help asking my husband if he’s feeling any differently and I end up being needy around him again. And then I feel him pull away. It almost always happens this way. I know that it is going to happen and yet I can’t seem to get control of my emotions. I can’t seem to pull off being relaxed. How do you do it? I know that I need to tone down the pressure, but I’m so afraid that I can’t actually do it convincingly.”

I admit that this is a tough question. This strategy of backing off and focusing on yourself for a while can seem simple. But it is anything but that. In my own case, I had the luxury of being able to put distance between us. I went home and spent time with family. The physical distance made it impossible for me to just drive by and interrupt my husband as I’d been doing. And, when I was home, there were people I hadn’t seen in a while so I was truly able to keep myself busy because I didn’t want to disappoint anyone.

I realize that not everyone has this luxury. But I think temporary physical distance can help. What comes next is only some suggestions. I can’t possibly know everyone’s individual situation, so you’ll have to use your own best judgement and your knowledge of your husband and your marriage.

But to me, when you feel things going South, it’s better to excuse yourself than to continue on as you are while you feel him pulling away. I know that this is hard. It’s easy to feel that once you’ve started, you can’t stop. But in my experience, it’s important that he genuinely believes that you are backing off and working on yourself. If every time you start this, you end up reverting back to the clinging and questioning, he’s not going to believe this for very long. He’ll think you’re just acting on the rare occasions that you pull it off.

That’s why I think you truly do want to be working on yourself. This isn’t a lot to ask. So many of us put the well-being of others before ourselves. But if there was ever a time to put yourself first and to prioritize your own well being, now is the time. You have to be able to be genuine about this or backing off just feels fake.

Once you truly are working on yourself, the backing off is easier, but it’s not going to be automatic. And if you feel yourself slipping, sometimes you have to stop and begin again. If this happens in front of your husband, I think that the best thing you can do is to tell yourself that you either need to stop, or if you can’t, then you’re going to need to cut the conversation or meeting off until you can. This is only my opinion, but I think it’s better to stop than to just create a bigger problem.

I know that people reading this might be thinking: “well if I did that, I might never see or talk to my husband.” Not necessarily.  It gets easier with time and I think that gives you additional motivation to stop yourself when you feel the need to be clingy or to overstep. I am not pretending that it’s easy or that you don’t have to consciously think about what you are doing. It does not come easily to most of us. We have to keep ourselves busy with other things.

I also think that you have to experiment about what works for you. You know what self talk is going to be most motivating for you. I focused on self improvement because I found that if I knew I was genuinely working on myself, all of this would be authentic which would give me the confidence that I knew I needed.

And I also knew that when it started to go wrong, I needed to remove myself from it rather than just continuing to make it worse. Some people are able to get hold of themselves in the middle of the communication and turn it around. That is the ideal. But I wasn’t able to do it, especially at first. I did get better though.

It got easier in time. And when I saw things improving, this reinforcement helped me stay on track. I know that it can be very difficult and that it is not the easiest of strategies. But it can be very effective in some cases.  It wasn’t automatically and immediately effective in my case.  It took time.  But in the end, it made all of the difference.  The rest is on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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