Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Many wives strongly suspect that their husband is very unhappy within their marriage and therefore likely wants a separation or divorce. This is very often the elephant in the room that the wife is very afraid to even address. The wife usually very much wants to know what he’s thinking, but at the same time, she is terrified to know the truth.

She might say: “for the last couple of years, my husband has become increasingly withdrawn in our marriage. It’s obvious that he’s unhappy and he admits as much. He’s very open about the fact that he thinks our marriage has changed. And he doesn’t find these changes to be positive ones. But instead of going to counseling or trying to change anything, he just mopes around and draws attention to himself and his own unhappiness. At this point, I feel like just asking him if he wants out of our marriage because I’m sick of tiptoeing around him. But I’m afraid of the answer he might give me because, despite his sour personality, I want to save my marriage. So what is the best thing to do? Should I continue to ignore the obvious so that my husband and I both remain miserable? Or do I gather up my courage and just ask him if he wants out?” I’ll try to answer these questions in the following article.

One Answer To One Question Isn’t Likely To End Your Marriage. But The Feelings Behind That Same Answer Just Might: People seem to have the mistaken perception that if you never speak of or ignore a problem that same problem is just going to go away. This is usually not what happens. Instead, because you are not addressing the problem, it just gets worse and worse.

I’m not sure why people think that if you don’t speak of your marital problems, then you won’t have to address them because hopefully, they will go away. Even if the wife never mentioned her marital problems with her husband, nothing said that he was never going to take any action. He might have been planning to bring up the topic on his own or announce that he wanted a separation or divorce in the very near future. Not bringing up the topic or refusing to ask the question was no guarantee that the husband was never going to act on his unhappiness.

What Might Be A Better Alternative Than Asking Your Husband If He Wants Out Of The Marriage: As you might have gathered, I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to avoid the problems in your marriage. As painful and as awkward as discussing your issues can be, doing so is the only way to work through them. They are not likely to just go away on their own.

I believe that you’re often better off putting the issue on the table instead of waiting for your husband to do so. Because sometimes, by the time he finally gets around to addressing your marriage, it is because he wants to end it.

But, while I advocate being proactive and bringing up your problems, I don’t advocate automatically jumping to the worst case scenario. If you approach your husband and bluntly ask him “do you want a divorce?” or “you want out of our marriage, don’t you?” you’re almost nudging him toward saying yes.

Instead, you want to leave things open-ended and you want to make it appear that you are working with him rather than accusing him or expecting him to say the worst. So, an alternative might be to say something like: “I’m sure we’ve both noticed that things aren’t going so well with our marriage. You’ve admitted that you’re not happy and if I’m being honest, I’m not happy with the way that things are going either. Rather than us both continuing to be unhappy and to just watch while our marriage continues to deteriorate, I’d like to take some action. I’m going to be trying to improve our marriage and I’d like your cooperation. It just doesn’t make sense to continue to be unhappy and avoid talking about our problems when we have the power to change things.”

Do you see the difference? You aren’t really asking for his opinion or cooperation (although it would be great if he’d enthusiastically tell you that he’s completely on board and he’s been waiting for you to take charge all along.) You aren’t really giving him the option to express that he wants out unless he takes the initiative to interrupt you.

What Happens If You Still Suspect He Wants Out?: So what happens if you take the initiative and you bring up your marital issues but still get a lukewarm response from your husband? What if, despite your best efforts, he’s still moping around so that it’s obvious that he’s still unhappy?”

Well, there are a couple of options. Perhaps you haven’t given the process enough time. Maybe you haven’t made the process one that is fun for him so he’s resistant to becoming invested. Or perhaps there is something else going on in his life that is the real source of his unhappiness.

Whatever the reason, nothing says you can’t continue on with improving yourself and your happiness. So many people underestimate the possibility of greatly improving (or even saving) their marriage all by themselves. Yes, your husband will eventually need to cooperate. But often, you can make huge changes in your marriage by changing your outlook, your focus, and your habits, and behaviors. Often, as you become more happy, agreeable, and attentive, he will see that the whole process isn’t as impossible or as difficult as he once thought and his level of resistance (and his happiness) will begin to wane.

The bottom line is that I agree that it makes sense to be reluctant to ask your husband if he wants out. It’s better to address your marriage without assuming the worst. And it’s even better to take positive and decisive action without waiting for someone else to take the lead.

When my husband first told me he wanted a separation, I swore that it came out of the blue with no warning.  But as I look back on it now, I realize that there were warnings but I just chose to ignore them because I didn’t want to risk getting the answer that scared me the most.  I did eventually save my marriage but it took so much more time and effort than if I had just started the dialog.  If it helps, you can read the whole story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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