Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I often hear from wives who want to know how to broach the conversation about saving their marriage. And, they want to make sure that when they are having this discussion, their husband is agreeable to what they are saying. No one wants to feel as though they’re speaking to a brick wall.

Some wives become very frustrated because their husbands shut them down before they even have the chance to have the conversation. Some husbands just refuse to discuss your marriage or even listen to you when you’re willing to be the only one doing all the talking.

You might hear, “my husband just refuses to talk about saving our marriage. In his mind, it’s over and he’s not willing to meet me halfway and discuss this. And, when he cuts me off and says things like ‘we are not having this conversation,’ I will respond by telling him that it’s fine if we don’t have a conversation. Because I am willing to talk if he is willing to listen. I don’t mind doing all of the talking if that’s what I have to do. But he makes it clear that he’s not willing to listen either. Usually, he will get up and walk away or interrupt me and swiftly change the subject. I want to save my marriage more than anything, but I’m starting to think that it’s completely a lost cause if he won’t even listen to me, much less talk to me. What are you supposed to do when your husband shuts down every conversation that you try to have about saving your marriage?” I will try to address these questions in the following article.

Sometimes When Your Husband Won’t Hear Or Participate In Any Conversation About Saving Your Marriage, It’s Time To Stop Talking: I know very well that when your marriage is in danger or on the line, it’s natural to want to talk it out. We women are talkers. We want to express our feelings. We want him to hear us because we want to be validated. And we sometimes feel that if we can just string our words together correctly and touch the right chord within him, we might begin to slowly chip away at the armor that’s making him reluctant to work with us on saving our marriage.

But part of the problem is that, unlike us, men are not talkers. Men are doers. They have very little patience for talking and sometimes even less for listening because both of these things feel idle to them. They would rather actively fix a problem than continuing to talk it through.

I’m not saying this to frustrate you. I want you to understand that in order to have a better chance of getting what you want (saving your marriage,) you might have to abandon the talking or listening strategies. This is especially true at first. You might want to consider coming at him with what he will respond to the best (which in my experience is the doing strategy.)

Moving From Talking And Listening Into Taking Decisive Action: I’ve dialogued with men about this topic. Many of them express that they are so tired of talking. They feel as if you are going in circles with no resolution and so to them, this is both frustrating and a waste of time. So continuing to talk is probably going to cause more frustration and make your husband even more and more skeptical of what you have to say over time.

In fact, if you are at the point where your husband is no longer listening to or talking with you about saving your marriage, then it’s probably safe to say that taking action might be a better alternative. So what do I mean when I say “taking action?” Mostly what I mean is taking small steps to show your husband that saving your marriage isn’t as impossible and as difficult as he fears. See, men tell me on an almost daily basis that they feel that any efforts to save the marriage now are too little too late. They tell me that they’ve heard your words but they don’t see any real changes. They may have even gotten their hopes up a time or two and yet, here you both are again. I’m certainly not saying it’s your fault that you’re both still here. But I’m telling you that your husband wants to see something change. He often needs to see you go beyond just talking.

Does this mean that you have to do something overly dramatic or try too hard to overcompensate? No, that’s definitely not what I am suggesting. But I am suggesting doing small things to show him that the two of you can get along, have some fun together, and interact in a light-hearted way that might make him want to spend more time listening and less time shutting you out.

Yes, this means backing way off, which will likely result in your joking and laughing more. I’m not suggesting you turn your back on your problems – at least not forever. I’m just suggesting that you shine a light on what your husband most wants to see right now – and that is an open-hearted, easy-to-relate-to person who isn’t pressuring him quite so much. When he sees that you’re no longer asking him to do what he’s reluctant to do, his resistance will lessen and you’ll notice that he’s listening to you a little more.

When you see this improvement, force yourself to continue to move slowly. The last thing you want is for him to think that your new change of attitude was only to get him to drop his guard so that you could pounce again into conversations about saving your marriage. The idea is to get him to want to save your marriage because he once again relates to you and wants to spend his life with you, not because you had an enlightening conversation about the same.

I tried to talk my husband’s ears off when our marriage was struggling. I didn’t get the hint and he eventually moved out so he didn’t have to listen to me. It wasn’t until I totally dropped this conversation and changed my approach completely that I was able to gain some ground. If it helps, you can read that entire story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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