Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: When you are a parent and your spouse threatens you with a divorce, one of the first things you will often do is to consider your children. Many people are fully aware that a separation and divorce is hard on children. Occasionally though, people will tell me of a spouse who insists that separating or divorcing is going to be more beneficial to the kids than living in a home with all of the conflict.

When this happens, it can be difficult to come up with a sound strategy. Because it can be harder to show your spouse a benefit to staying together when he believes that doing so is going to be detrimental to your family. Someone might explain: “I will admit that life in my house has not been great over the past year. My husband had what I think is an inappropriate relationship with someone at work. I won’t go as so far as to say they slept together or even got physical, but they definitely were closer and more important to one another than was appropriate. And they definitely snuck around and spent time together without telling their spouses. I won’t call it an affair, but it has made me question my husband and treat him differently. As a result, our marriage has struggled and we have been fighting more than we normally would. Things are admittedly tense in our house. But I always had the hope that we would work it out. Well, I was shocked when last night my husband told me that he was pretty sure that he wanted a divorce. I told him how shocked I was and I asked him how he could even bring this up because of our kids. We both come from divorced parents and we have always said we would never put our children through a divorced home. My husband’s response to me was that he thinks separating or divorcing is actually better for our children since they are seeing a lot of fighting and drama. I admit that I’m not proud that my kids have seen us fighting. But if we could just work out our issues, the fights would stop. Our kids know that they are loved and I’m sure they would rather stay put then see their parents divorce. We discussed this for quite some time, but for the most part, he wouldn’t budge. He said he would consider a separation instead of a divorce, at least for right now, but he insisted that ultimately, he doesn’t think that we are going to make it. I’m devastated. First, I deal to deal with the inappropriate work relationship and now this. I feel like everything has been taken away from me.”

A Spouse Who Initially Wants A Divorce Does Not Always Follow Through, Especially If Positive Changes Are Made: I am sorry that you are going through this. But maybe I can offer some positive perspective. A husband saying that he wants a divorce does not always mean that a divorce is definitely going to occur. My husband talked about divorce almost constantly before our separation and we are still married, although we had some very rocky and scary times. There was a time when I was sure that my separation was going to end in divorce.

And I fully realize that some marriages can’t be saved. But some can. The way that your husband feels now may change if you can make some progress in the days to come. It’s going to be important that you do not panic and allow the fear to drive you to do regrettable or desperate things. You don’t want for the fear to make you paranoid and apt to pick fights.

Your goal should be to fight less when you may be tempted to fight more. You have to train yourself to take a step back and evaluate what you’re going to say or do. You have to ask yourself if what you are considering is going to bring you closer to a reconciliation or further from it.

Taking The Kids Out Of It: I know that your kids seem paramount to this process. But I think that for now, you want to focus on giving them access to two calm parents who love them. You can’t foresee what the future is going to bring. And if there is a separation, you want to make sure that they see both of their parents often. And I think that everyone knows that being in a two parent household is best for children. Yes, a home with drama is not ideal.  And you never want to put your kids in a situation where they are being damaged or hurt.  But it doest sound like this is the case.   And with counseling or some of help, the drama can be erased. I believe that it is certainly worth it to try to erase the drama before you break up your family.

Getting your husband to agree with this might be tricky, but I think that the first step is going to be showing him that the drama can be decreased and eventually erased. Sometimes, counseling can definitely help convince him of this.

Other times, a break can actually be beneficial because it makes people more willing to be flexible and to compromise. Sometimes, this is the first step toward tacking the drama. But lessening the conflict is key because if your husband can see the household starting to calm down, then he may see that the two of you living together can become beneficial to your kids again.

At this point, I don’t think that your best strategy is focusing on the kids, since he’s already rejected that.  I’m no expert, but I think the best strategy is focusing on lessening the conflict.  When I was able to change the focus away from negative things and towards positive things during , this made all of the difference.  There’s more to the story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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