Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Many spouses are on the receiving end of the old “I need space” request. Often, people will initially try to ignore or talk their spouse out of needing space. When this doesn’t work, they’ll often try to ignore the situation or hope that it just goes away. Unfortunately, this strategy often doesn’t work because the more you deny your spouse what he thinks he wants, the more he is going to want it.

Someone might explain: “for the past year and a half, my husband has been telling me that he’s unhappy. About seven months ago, he started asking me to stay with my old roommate for a while so that he could have some space. He said he was no longer sure that he wanted to live together. Then this progressed to him being unsure if he wanted to be married. He keeps changing his mind. Some days he’s reasonably content with me and other days he will ask me when I’m staying with my friend because he’s no longer sure what he wants. I’m starting to think that maybe I should just give in and give him his space. That way, he’ll have to make up his mind once and for all and at least I will know what I am dealing with. But the thought of this scares me. Because I worry that he will like being on his own or that his mind is already made up anyway. If I stay and don’t give him space, then at least I know what’s going on and I have some control over the situation.”

Control was a huge issue for me when I was reluctant to give my own husband space. My thought process was much like the above example. I thought that the closer I kept my husband, the less of a chance there would be that he would slip away from me. But what I didn’t understand was that the harder I tried to keep my husband by my side through force, the more he wanted to go.

The thing is, husbands can and do push back and eventually give you no control about him having his space. Because sometimes, when you give him no other alternative, he will just leave. This is what happened in my case, and although I eventually did my husband back, I probably could have made things easier if I would have agreed to the space but set it up so that I still had a sense of control. I’ll discuss this more below.

Believe It Or Not, Your Position Isn’t The Worst Case Scenario: Many wives feel as if giving their husband space is the worst case they can imagine. It’s like admitting defeat. It’s potentially a relationship-changing decision. But in this case, the wife was only going to go stay with a friend. No one was going to move out. It’s my opinion that it’s much better for you to move out than to allow for him to move out. Because it allows you control over when you come back. When your husband leaves, you have no choice but to wait until he decides to come home. But if you are the one who leaves, the process is a bit easier.

So as bad as this feels, know that you do have some advantages. Yes, there is a risk here. And yes, it’s not encouraging that your husband wants to spend time away from you. But, plenty of husbands take their space and then use it to determine that they want to come home and fight for your marriage.

In My Opinion, Giving Him Space Does Increase The Chances That He’ll Make A Decision, But There Are No Guarantees: Every husband and every marriage are different. It’s very difficult to predict when or if a husband is going to finally make up his mind about the state of his marriage. But from my own experience and from those I hear about, I believe that giving him the space that he’s asked for can increase the chances that he’ll truly evaluate what he wants and will, therefore, come to a decision more quickly.

The reason for this is that he has more distance and objectivity since he’s not in your constant presence. And another consideration is that if you refuse to give him what he’s asked for, he’s going to want it that much more. And any decision that he makes (or doesn’t make) is going to be influenced by his frustration at not having what he thinks he wants.

I do understand trying to stall when a husband asks for space. There’s always the chance that he will change his mind. But in this case and in this marriage, the husband had been repeatedly asking for some distance for quite some time. He wasn’t likely to change his mind. And there was a risk that he would eventually tire of waiting and leave on his own.

So to answer the question posed, I believe that giving him space can sometimes increase the odds of him coming to a decision. But more important than that, since you’ve shown him cooperation rather than conflict, he is more likely to come to the decision that you were hoping for all along.

As I alluded to, I really didn’t want to give my husband space.  And this reluctance made things much worse for me. If I had to do it all over again, I would willingly offer up space with some boundaries built in.  I did eventually get him back.  But it took a lot more work and time.  If it helps, you can read the whole story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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