Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Any wife who is separated but wants to save her marriage can have a daunting task ahead of her. But the process is at least a little bit easier when her husband is somewhat open to reconciliation somewhere down the line. Not all husbands fit into this category, though. Some of them will adamantly tell you that there isn’t much you can do to save your marriage because they have already given up on the idea of being married.

A wife might describe this unfortunate situation: “my husband has come to the conclusion that he is not the type of man who thrives in marriage. To be honest, he did express this when we were dating. His parents had an awful, abusive marriage and he told me that he never wanted to live that way. We dated for years before I finally convinced him to marry me. Our marriage was not abusive in the least. We had our problems like anyone else. But we always spoke and acted cordially toward each other. However, for the last couple of years, things have cooled between us. My husband wanted to try a separation and I fought on him on this. But he would not be talked out of it. Now he is telling me that he will not be talked out of a divorce. He says that I should not take it personally because I did not do anything wrong. He concedes that our marriage was a good one, as far as marriages go. But he has decided that he never wants to be married. He says he just doesn’t want to live his life having to consider anyone else. He says that he is a very introverted person who enjoys being alone. I told him I thought that this was all some lame excuse to get out of our marriage. I told him there was probably someone else who he already had his eye on. He said that this could not be any further from the truth. He promised that I would see that he would never marry again. I feel like this basically means that I have no control over what happens and I should just give up. It’s very upsetting.”

I certainly understand why this is upsetting. There was a time when my husband was also telling me that there was basically no hope in our marriage. And I remember feeling really helpless about it. I can offer some suggestions, but you have to decide what might be best for you.

Deciding That What You Feel Is Up To You: In my own case, I decided that no one could tell me how to feel or whether or not I should have hope. Yes, things did not look good. And no, I could not control what or how my husband was thinking or feeling. But I could control how I decided to proceed. I could control my own actions.

I decided to take a break from the process and to just focus on myself. This did eventually help with my reconciliation, but I can’t guarantee that this will always be the case. That wasn’t my original intention anyway. It was just to take care of myself and to focus on my own peace of mind – since he had made it very clear that I should not focus on him.

Another Option, (Although It’s Certainly Not Guaranteed To Work🙂 Here is something else that I have seen work. When a husband is demanding a divorce and telling you that there’s no choice, one option is to concede that you’re not going to try to change his mind, but you are instead going to suggest counseling to have a healthy split or to support you both through this time in order to ensure that you are proceeding in a healthy way.

I have seen this end up improving the communication and therefore the marriage – so much so that the divorce never happens. Of course, there is no guarantee. But often a counselor will help your husband see things that he is not able to see for himself (especially when he is resistant to listening to you, even when you see things clearly.)

He May Cooperate More When He Thinks That You Aren’t Trying To Change His Mind: I know that it’s tempting to try to tell him that he’s wrong and to try to convince him that if he would just give it one more try, he could see that marriage suits him. But rarely have I seen this work. When it is your idea, he is usually just that much more resistant.

In my experience, you will usually get a more open response if he believes that you are cooperating. He lets down his guard and then the counseling or the pause ends up doing its work. As I said, this doesn’t happen in every case. But backing up a little bit does allow him to lower his guard and it gives you a better chance of getting through to him when he has chosen this very rigid and resistant stance.

I’ll make one final point. People often change their minds during a separation. They sometimes start out being very harsh and eventually they calm down. I can’t promise that this change will happen. But not every one keeps the same stance throughout the separation.  That’s why it’s important not to have a very negative reaction that is going to fuel the fire.  As hard as it is, I think the best thing to do is to try to remain calm and keep the most positive relationship that is possible considering the circumstances. Because this will make things easier if and when he has a change of heart.  And if he doesn’t changed his mind, at least you’ve behaved in a way that you can proud of.

As I said, I was totally tempted to lose hope when my own husband was so negative.  But I decided to pause instead.  I don’t think that you can ever go wrong when you focus on yourself.  And this had unexpected benefits for my marriage and eventual reconciliation. There’s more about this on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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