Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from wives who find themselves in an unhappy marriage because their husband is just an unhappy person in general. And, it’s obviously difficult to have a happy or upbeat marriage when one spouse always seems determined to be miserable.

I recently heard from a wife who said, in part: “my husband is just a very unhappy person on a daily basis.  He’s always bringing me down.  It’s like he’s determined that he wants to be miserable even if there are good things in his life and even if we all try our best to make him happy.  I’ve started to notice this is affecting my children.  They will come home from school all excited to share something with us, and he’ll be his typical unhappy self and I can just the excitement fade from their eyes. I’m afraid that eventually, they will start to just shut down or check out in the same way that I have.  This isn’t the way that I want to live my life.  Nor do I want my kids in a negative environment.  I’m considering leaving him and filing for a separation or divorce, but the only thing keeping me from doing that is the fear that a divorce would be more painful for my kids.  And, sometimes I feel guilty that I’m considering just leaving him without first giving him the chance to change.  But the problem is, I don’t think he can change.  He’s been this way for years and I’m so very tired of it.  I want and deserve to feel happy again, but he drains all the joy right out of me.”

This is a difficult situation because there’s every chance that with a little effort on the part of both people, real change could be possible.  But, understandably, the wife had lost patience over the years.  Still, I did believe that there were some things to try before she just turned her back and walked away.  I’ll discuss these things in the following article.

Has Your Husband Always Been An Unhappy Person?  Or Is There A Root Cause Of The Unhappiness That Can Be Addressed Or Removed?: The wife described the unhappiness as a long term problem, but upon further clarification, it became clear that when they were first dating and first married, he was actually quite upbeat and pleasant to be around.  I asked the wife when she had noticed the husband start to become more negative and unhappy.  After thinking on it for a while, she admitted that she noticed a personality change after her husband finally decided to make a lifestyle and job change.  Her husband had a law degree that he didn’t intend to use and, when she met him, he was a struggling author.

Later though after they had kids, they both wanted a higher and more secure income so the husband dusted off his law degree and entered the corporate legal world.  The wife admitted that his job ran counter to his personality.  He was very introverted and nonconfrontational.  Yet, he had to constantly argue back and forth with other attorneys as he was a trial lawyer.  The wife sympathized somewhat, but at the end of the day, her stance was that very few people were in love with their jobs and most didn’t complain or mope over it on a daily basis.   The bottom line was that they needed the money and he was the major source of their income.

Her stance was every bit as understandable as his. But, since his personality change so perfectly coincided with his career change, there was a good chance that if they could eliminate some of the stress and conflict from his job, she might see more of that happy go lucky and very creative person that she used to love so much.  In short, her husband felt as though he had to stifle who he was on an almost daily basis.  This would make even the most upbeat people unhappy, at least some of the time.  By no means is it my intention to defend the husband, but I can see how spending every day pretending to be someone that you are not would weigh on you after a while.  And I felt if the wife respected this rather than constantly telling him to put on the happy face that he didn’t feel, she might get much better results.

Because there actually was a lot of good news here.  Her husband wasn’t unhappy because he didn’t love her anymore, was stuck in a bad marriage, or who just had an unhappy personality.  These things can eventually be changed or fixed, but their situation was potentially easier to manage.

Don’t Remain Silent.  Bring Your Husband’s Attention To His Unhappy Behavior As Soon As It Bothers You: The wife was pretty much suffering in silence.  She didn’t want to constantly complain because she felt that, if she did, she would just be adding more misery to their home life.  But remaining silent doesn’t really help either.  It just ensures more of the same. You can bring your husband’s attention to his behavior without sounding as if you’re complaining.

And here’s something that few spouses who are living in this situation realize.  Very often, the unhappy person in the relationship isn’t content with the way that things are going either.  They are often suffering just as much as their spouse.  They don’t like being unhappy all of the time, but they aren’t sure how to change things.  And this frustration just leads to more unhappiness.

I suggested that the next time the husband’s attitude brought everyone else down, she might say something like: “honey, I’m not sure if you realize this, but your unhappiness is apparent to everyone in our family.  It hurts me to see you this unhappy and it affects our marriage and our kids.  We have to do something about this because I’m afraid that eventually none of us are going to be happy if we continue to live this way.  And I know that you don’t want that because you love us and want us to be a healthy and happy family.  What can I do to help you right now?  What would lighten your load?  I hate to see you hurting this way.”

Notice that I was careful to sound compassionate rather than accusatory.  I know that approaching things with this tone can be a challenge, but it’s often the way to get what you truly want.  And, I think that it’s a potential mistake to turn your back on your marriage before at least trying to fix it.

Coming Up With Compromises That Make You Both Happy: The wife was understandably reluctant to change her lifestyle in the hopes that it would change her husband’s happiness level.  She didn’t think it was fair that she had to make drastic changes just because he “chose to be unhappy” with his job.  But often, even small changes will help.  Her husband could change specialties so that he could use his creativity more and have to engage in conflict much less.  Being a litigator for a shy and introverted person can be a huge challenge.  But other areas of law might be a better fit and might make the husband much happier which would in-turn bring about huge changes at home.

The real key is to approach this with compassion.  You want the unhappy person to know that your goal is truly to help them rather than to accuse them of bringing everyone else down.  Just showing compassion will often start the process of positive change.  And, if there’s not an issue that can be addressed or removed and depression is at play, counseling or even self-help can do wonders before either person just walks away.

Unfortunately for me, the source of my own husband’s unhappiness wasn’t depression or an external situation, it was me and our marriage.  There was a time when I thought for sure this would lead to our divorce.  But thankfully, even though I had doubts, I decided to try one last thing and approach it from another angle and this eventually worked. If it helps, read more of that story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com/

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