Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: When we are adults and meet the person who we are sure that we are going to marry, many of us sort of set a goal at that point.  We want to control the circumstances so that, eventually, he will want to marry us.  This can be true even if he shows some resistance. Many of us believe that if we can just change his mind, he will see how wonderful marriage can be and, once we overcome that obstacle, then we will have a long and happy marriage.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out this way. Even when you think that your marriage is a good one, the man who didn’t want to get married in the first place can become the husband who isn’t sure he wants to stay married later. This can be painful, but it can also be very confusing, especially when you have a built a life together or there are children involved.

A wife might explain the dilemma like this: “my mom says that if I had listened to my husband when we were dating, then I wouldn’t be in the mess that I am now.  I dated my husband for nearly five years before I could convince him to marry me.  And even then, he was very open about the fact that he did not really believe in marriage and did not want to do it.  I chalked it up to the fact that his parents had a very nasty relationship and that he has no idea how a healthy marriage works.  I thought that I could teach him this because my parents have a wonderful marriage.  I honestly think that our marriage is pretty solid.  It is not perfect, but no marriage is.  We have a small child now.  We should be counting our blessings.  But my husband is not. He still only tolerates marriage.  He has starting suggesting that we separate and take some time apart and when I get annoyed by this, he will say: ‘you knew I didn’t want to get married.  I did not lie to you about this.  I made it very clear.  But you insisted and now here we are and I still don’t want to be married even though I love you and our child.  Marriage just doesn’t work for me.’  Because of our child, it’s not as simple as just going our separate ways. I love him and I don’t want for our child to grow up with only one parent.  Is there any way to make someone who doesn’t embrace marriage happy?”

Well, I don’t know your husband or the situation, but I would have probably tried what you did – I would have hoped that having a fulfilling marriage would overcome his objections. That’s a reasonable thing to hope for.  And we’ve all known couples who had one reluctant party going into it and who eventually changed their mind when the marriage was fulfilling.  I don’t think that you had an unrealistic goal. And the fact that your husband was willing to ignore his reservations and give marriage a try probably says a lot about his feelings for you.  He likely would not have been willing to do this if he did not love you and if he did not want it to work.

That said, there is obviously some reservation that is still at play.  I agree with you that I would not want to just give up before I tried everything possible to get the marriage back on track, especially since there is a child.  I admit that I am very old fashioned about marriage, but I think that if you’re in a situation where both people love one another and treat each other with respect, then it makes sense to try different things to turn this around before walking away.

In this case, I would think that seeking counseling would be a great place to start.  You may get some resistance from him and if so, you may have to go alone at first and then ask him to accompany you later as he sees how much it is helping you.  Many people ask their spouses to go in support of them as the first step toward joint counseling.  They sort of ease their spouse into it and there is nothing wrong with that.

I am suggesting counseling because I believe that a professional would have the best chance of uncovering what issues in the past are leading to your husband’s reluctance now.  He may not even know himself what is most contributing to his unhappiness.  Not only could a therapist help him pinpoint what is truly wrong, but he or she could also help both of you deal with this and then build the marriage that is going to work for both of you.

I know that not everyone loves the idea of counseling, but some issues just lend themselves to third party help.  Issues from childhood and issues that you’ve tried to work out on your own but can’t are good examples of this.

I know that you may be feeling as if you should have listened to your husband’s reservations when you were dating.  But you can’t turn back time.  You now have a family and a husband who admits that, despite his reservations, he does love you. To me, it makes sense to try and fight for it before you just give up.  There was a time when I had to fight for my marriage and I’m very glad that I did.  You can read more at my blog located at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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