Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: When you’re separated and desperately want to reconcile, you want to have hope whenever you see encouraging behavior on the part of your spouse. So every time he calls or sees you and things go well, it’s natural to hope that this means that you are well on your way to a reconciliation. But often, your hopes and feelings are so delicate that as soon as there is one comment or event that you don’t understand or that doesn’t go your way, then you can begin to wonder if you are seeing reality only through the veil of hope. And this is when you can begin to fear that you are being strung along.

A wife might explain: “I did everything wrong in the beginning of my separation. I called several times per day and picked fights. It wasn’t until my husband threatened to cut me out of his life completely that I stopped. For the past five weeks, things have vastly improved. He has started coming over regularly. We watch movies, cuddle, and laugh. Last weekend, he asked me if I wanted to sleep over at his place, but I unfortunately couldn’t say yes because I live quite a distance from him and there was no one to let out my pets. They couldn’t go overnight without being let out to use the bathroom so I had to leave late at night for that reason. Lately though, I’ve been asking my husband to come to our home for an overnight stay or a weekend. His answer is that he is just not ready for that. This confuses me. It is OK for me to stay overnight with him but he won’t come back home to spend the night with me? I suppose he sees my staying at his place as us sleeping together while he sees him coming back home as potentially reconciling. I can only speculate that he is not ready to make that jump. But this hurts and confuses me. He talks about our future sometimes. He has asked me to go on a family trip with his parents and this gives me hope. But then I start to second guess everything and I wonder if he only asked because he knows that his mother loves me and he just wants to hold up appearances. And that’s when I start to wonder if he is just stringing me along. Maybe he likes having me around for a good time and to help to boost his ego but he has no intention of reconciling with me. What if he is just stringing me along?”

I can understand why you fear this. I think every wife in this situation has these doubts. I had them. But, you have to ask yourself if these thoughts are serving you or are just making things worse.

Why You Should Focus On The Progress Instead Of The Immediate Future: Think about it this way. If you follow that line of thinking and you decide that he is only stringing you along, then you might be tempted to start to pressure him or you might back away from fear of being hurt. Are either of these things going to bring you any closer to your goal of a reconciliation? Probably not. In fact, they would likely take you further away from your goal.

But what if you faced your fears and looked instead at how far you have come and how much progress you have made? You’ve gone from him being frustrated with and angry at you to him being very willing to see you for extended periods of time while he is talking about the future.

I don’t mean to be insensitive, but plenty of separated wives would be absolutely thrilled with this scenario. Plus, you’ve already set it up where you have additional opportunities for bonding in the future. You have the family trip to look forward to – where hopefully you will be able to make even more progress.

Why It’s Vital Not To Let Your Fears Cause You To Rush It: The point I’m trying to make is that short of him blurting out that he’d like to come home immediately, your situation is about as good as it could possibly be. You have overcome his reservations. You are seeing him regularly and have future plans. And he is showing you affection on a regular basis.

Now, I know that you would like to feel more secure about your situation. I know that you would like more reassurance from him. But quite honestly, to me, the best course of action would be to keep right on doing what you are doing. And continue to have patience.

I know from experience that I am asking a lot. Once my husband started giving me positive feedback and our relationship started to heat up again, it took everything in my power not to come right and beg him to come home. But I knew that this was a risk. And considering how long it took me to get to the point that I was at, it was a risk I didn’t want to take.

I know it might be hard to see right now, but it appears that you’ve found your grove and are making real progress. My suggestion would be to stay the course. I see too many people doing the right things but then they can not resist pressuring their husbands once they set that progress. And most of them end up regretting this because he either begins to avoid them or he accuses them of not giving him his space.

This was my thought process when I resisted pushing my own husband too hard. I didn’t want to have him avoiding me again. And this turned out to be the right call. Because when he moved back in – he was the one who asked to do it. And that gave me the confidence that this was what he truly wanted. If it helps, you can read more at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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