Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: When you love your spouse and are invested in your marriage, you just naturally want to spend time with them and are generally happy in their presence. This is just the natural product of a good marriage and it generally comes easily – without any effort. Which is why this sort of arrangement and atmosphere can be hard to fake.

Generally, it’s fairly obvious when one person in the marriage is less than happy. Sometimes, long periods of time will go by when the unhappy spouse doesn’t say anything about it. Yet, the happy spouse generally knows it anyway because it’s fairly obvious.  It’s just something that you can feel.

Someone might explain it this way: “for the past six months, it has been pretty evident that my husband isn’t happy with me. I tried to tell myself that I was imagining it. I tried to reason that this is what you have to expect when you’ve been married for a while. But I just don’t think that is it. People started to notice. When my husband and I were out with others, friends would literally ask me what is wrong between us because he seemed almost miserable in my presence. The other day, I had to work. My husband was going out with friends and he seemed to be looking forward to it. He seemed happy in anticipation of it. Well it turned out that we weren’t that busy at work, so my boss told me that I didn’t have to come in. I happily told my husband that I’d be happy to join him after all and his face just dropped. He went from being happy to being miserable in about two seconds. I asked him if he didn’t want me coming along. And it was at that point that he told me that he needed space from me and that he didn’t want me attending everything he does. I can’t act like I’m shocked by this. My presence has made him unhappy for a while. But I don’t know what to do about this because I want my marriage. I don’t feel the way that he does. I never want my space from him. I never feel that I don’t want him coming along. How do I handle this? Does he not love me anymore?”

I can’t speculate as to whether or not he currently feels loving feelings toward you. Not only is there not enough information, but this is not for me to say. We do know one thing for sure though. And we know this because the husband himself has told us – he wants space. I know that for many of us, this is about the worst thing that we could imagine. When this happened to me, it was my inclination to be scared to give the space. I envisioned my husband having the time of his life without me and deciding that because of this, he didn’t need to be married to me anymore. And so I clung. I did everything possible to ensure he didn’t have even a tiny bit of space. This went on until he left me in order to get that space.

Know That If You Withhold The Space, He May Want It Even More: My point is that often, when it gets to this point, clinging or refusing to back away will only make it worse. He will only want to get away even faster. I know that hurts. But the only way to allow him to see that his thinking is wrong is to allow him the thing that he wants so that he can see for himself that it isn’t what he thought or that it doesn’t fix his problem.

As hard as it may be, I don’t see the harm in just letting him go on the outing and giving him that space. Consider telling him that it’s no problem and that you too could use a day just to yourself enjoying the unexpected gift of not having to work. Go ahead and do whatever would be pleasing to you whether this is going out with your girlfriends, shopping, or just enjoying the quiet of your home with a good movie.

Stay Positive So That He’s Uplifted When He Reaches Out To You: Whatever you do, don’t dwell on it. Keep an upbeat attitude. Then, get quiet and ask yourself if there is anything that your husband has said directly that might offer some clues as to why he might need the space. Sometimes, it’s as simple as the fact that occasionally he’d like to be with his friends alone. This doesn’t always mean that he’s unhappy or doesn’t love you. It just means that he can have male bonding with his friends without his wife.  Many men who love their wives want and need this.

If that’s not it, then perhaps there is something in your time together that makes him feel not free to be himself or to relax. I’m only speculating. I can’t possibly know the specifics. But generally before he will ask for space, he will give you clues as to why he’s unhappy. He may call you clingy or nagging. Whatever the case, if you can pinpoint what it is about your presence that’s bothering him, then you can evaluate if he has a valid concern that can be changed.

If so, set out to change it and allow the time to work for you. Sometimes, he gets his space and he comes back refreshed. Other times, he comes back and you’ve addressed the problem so that every one is happier. But in my opinion, the worst thing that you can do is to not only refuse the space, but to continue on in the same way that’s clearly not working as well as it could be.

I wish I had followed my own advice and given my own husband space.  I didn’t and he left.  It was very hard to get home to come home at that point, but I eventually did.  And I learned to relate to him in a much different and a much better way.  You can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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