Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Many wives are trying to come up with the best response to their husband’s request to end the marriage.  Many don’t buy (or even understand) their husband’s vague reasons for wanting out.   Some example of these vague justifications are things like “wanting to start over,” “needing to be on his own,” and “wanting to live his own life.”

A wife might have a situation like this one: “three weeks ago, my husband announced that he wanted out of our marriage.  At first, he wouldn’t really elaborate on his reasons for wanting to end things between us.  But I continued to ask about his thought process.  I felt that I had a right to know just what he was thinking.  At this point, all he will say is that he feels like he “wants a clean slate.”  I have repeatedly asked him what, exactly, this means.  He never gives me a straight answer.  What does it mean when a man says that he wants a clean slate and must give up his marriage in order to get one?”  I will try to answer these questions in the following article.

What He Might Really Mean When He Says He Wants A Clean Slate:  Different men will use different phrases or terminology.  As I said before, you might hear vague type of phrases about your husband just not being happy or needing to just begin again on his own.  He may use vastly varied words but often the meaning is the same.  In essence, it often all comes down to the fact that they feel that they might be happier or feel less tied down if they were to go off on their own and end the marriage.

Please understand that I’m not saying this to make you feel bad.  Nor am I implying that any husband’s assumptions are correct.  He might be dead wrong.  It might turn out that he desperately misses his wife or finds himself every bit as unhappy once he is single.  But, whether these things are true or not, at the time when he says he wants out, he generally perceives that in some way, his life is going to be better once he ends his marriage.

Now, what has brought him to this conclusion will often vary.  Sometimes, there is a lot of conflict within the marriage and he has decided that he no longer wants drama or turmoil in his life. Other times, there’s some anxiety over having the responsibility of a wife depending on you.  And some men will tell you that for whatever reason, the marriage just isn’t making them happy enough to continue on with it.

What This Means If You Want To Save Your Marriage:  I realize that I’ve thrown a lot at you.  But if you can even generally pinpoint if any of the above justifications ring a bell for you, then that will likely help you decide how to approach this.  A husband who can’t deal with the responsibility of being married will need a very different approach to the husband who is tired of the conflict and the drama.  Because whatever it is that is making your husband believe that he can’t live his best life while you are married is going to need to be addressed as soon as possible.

With that said, the biggest mistake that I see wives make is that they make their approach or their plan so very obvious.  In other words, if the husband says he doesn’t like the conflict in the marriage, suddenly the wife will expect him to believe that she’s become super accommodating and agreeable overnight.  It’s not realistic to think that you can just erase or fix things in a very short amount of time.   Because in order for him to change his mind and no longer need that “clean slate” that he’s been talking about, he is going to need to be thoroughly convinced that any change is both genuine and lasting.

That is why you want to attempt believable and gradual changes.  You don’t necessarily need to panic or try to sell him overnight changes about which you are both bound to have some doubts.  Sit down and ask yourself where you can make very workable and very lasting changes that are going to directly address where your husband has the most concerns and doubts.   Choose changes that you can genuinely and comfortably make.  Because if you attempt to pretend or change who you are, know that the truth will always become apparent in the end.  That’s why it’s so important to address things in a very genuine manner.  This is going to need to be a long commitment, so it has to be something that you can maintain.

If you make promises that you can’t keep, it’s likely that your husband is going to eventually start talking about his clean slate again and then changing things once again so that he actually believes you are going to be even more challenging the second time around.

When my husband wanted to begin his life again so that he could have a “clean slate” without me, I admit that I absolutely panicked and I promised him everything under the sun.  This was apparently a turn off because it only made things worse for me.  It wasn’t until I got real about myself and about my marriage that things begin to change so that eventually I could save my marriage.  If it helps, you can read about our reconciliation on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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