Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from wives who are absolutely shocked that suddenly their husband is admitting that the thought of divorce has crossed his mind. Often, these women will tell you that this is the first that they have heard of such talk.

I heard from a wife who said: “last week, my husband and I got into a terrible argument. He blurted out that he wasn’t all that happy in our marriage. When this failed to get the reaction that he apparently wanted, he said that he’d even thought about a divorce a couple of months ago. That stopped me in my tracks. Frankly, I had no idea he was that unhappy. I know that we’ve recently hit a bit of a rough patch and I know that our marriage most definitely is not perfect. But I’ve never thought about divorce and I didn’t think he had either. In fact, if you asked me if my marriage was generally happy, I would tell you that yes it is mostly happy. And I would have assumed that my husband would’ve said the same thing. But obviously I was wrong. Things have blown over in the past couple of days but I can’t forget about those words. Some of my friends say that I should just put it behind me but I can’t seem to do that. I am afraid that as I turn my attention elsewhere my husband is still going to be thinking about a divorce. And I have my kids to consider also. Am I crazy to dwell on this?”

I didn’t think this wife was crazy at all. In fact, I think she was very smart and observant. When your husband starts alluding to the fact that he isn’t happy and that the thought of divorce has crossed his mind, you would be smart to pay close attention. I can tell you this from experience. So many wives just ignore this and hope for the best and then they are stunned to be served with the divorce papers. You are much better off paying attention and taking action. And if you turn out to be wrong, the worst that can happen is that you have taken action to improve your marriage. So honestly, there is no down side.

Try To Get Him To Clarify The Source And Severity Of His Unhappiness: I realize that the last thing that both of you might want to do is to rehash your problems, especially if it seems as if things have blown over. But, if you can get him to clarify how unhappy he is, the source of his unhappiness, and the duration of it, you will be in a much better position to address and then fix this.

When things are calm, you might consider saying something like: “I don’t mean to rehash the past, but can we talk for a minute about what you said the other day? It concerns me that you’ve been this unhappy without my knowing it. I want for us both to be as happily married as we can possible be. Can you share with me what’s making you unhappy. Can you quantify how bad it is on a scale of 1 to 10? Can you share when the unhappiness started? I’m not trying to debate about it. I’m just trying to understand what is causing it so that we can address this and fix it once and for all.”

Hopefully this will inspire an honest conversation that can give you important insights on what you might need to address. Remember that you aren’t bringing this up to tell him that he’s overreacting or to argue with his perceptions or with what he is feeling. You are looking for clues as to where you can both do better. You are looking for areas to focus on improvement. And you are trying to come up with some compromises that are going to work for both of you.

Once You Begin To Address The Issues That Are Most Affecting His Happiness Level, Check In Regularly. One of the issues that is the biggest concern here is that the wife was caught completely off guard. She truly didn’t know that her husband had been unhappy at all. So, it’s very important that you begin to check in with one another regularly so that you aren’t caught unaware the next time.

Perhaps once a week you can go out to dinner and then just casually ask him where his happiness level is and what you might do to bring it up even higher. You might both evaluate the changes you’ve made and what is working and what is not. You don’t want to make so huge a deal out of this that your husband feels like he’s being analyzed too much. But, you do want to get in the habit of regularly discussing any issues so that you can address them before they become issues so large that your husband once again considers divorce.

Conversations about divorce shouldn’t be taken lightly even when they come in the middle of an argument or out and out fight. Committed and happily married couples generally will not carelessly utter these phrases if they don’t have at least some validity. That’s why I think this wife was absolutely right to take this very seriously.

As  I alluded to, I know this from experience.  My husband started dropping hints that he was unhappy long before he left.  But I thought he was just being overly dramatic and getting into the habit of complaining.  My delay in taking any real action almost cost me my marriage.  And I had to work very hard to get my husband on board in order to save it.  If it helps, you can read the whole story from beginning to end on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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