Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I often hear from wives who feel sure that they could save their marriage if their husband would just cooperate and make the commitment to help them. And sometimes, if he is reluctant to commit or hesitates, the wife wonders if saving the marriage is even going to possible when she’s having to do it all on her own.

I heard from a wife who said: “a couple of years ago, I became very close with a male colleague. I didn’t cheat or anything, but looking back now, I can see that I replaced my husband emotionally with this other man because he seemed more available to me. After all, I saw him every day. As a result, my marriage greatly suffered. We have become almost like strangers and roommates. The other day, my husband told me he was considering walking out on our marriage because there just isn’t much left. This is the last thing that I want. I told my husband that I would give our marriage my full attention and that he would see that we could be happy again. He just sort of shrugged. I then asked him to commit to giving saving our marriage a real try. He said he couldn’t make that commitment and instead just wanted to wait and see what happened. What can I do now? Because I feel like if he won’t commit to saving our marriage, then that is good as saying it’s over.”

I understood what this wife was feeling. After all, I have gone through this too and just as this wife did, I attempted to get my husband to commit to saving the marriage. He wouldn’t. And I reacted quite badly and made things so much worse that we eventually separated. Eventually though, I was able to save my marriage (by myself) once I came up with a workable plan. That’s why I firmly believe that although having his commitment is nice and it makes things easier, you don’t necessarily need it. I’ll explain why below.

Why He Might Be Holding Out Before He Gives You Any Sort Of Commitment: Here’s the thing. In my experience and opinion, women are much more likely to commit to saving their marriage then men. The reason for this is that women have a lot more patience when things go wrong. Men often wait and observe. Women would rather take action. But, while men are waiting and observing, they are often becoming discouraged, which is why they would sometimes rather wait and see than to commit more time to saving the marriage when they have their doubts as to whether it will actually work.

I know that this may sound discouraging, but here’s the good news. If you show you that things can actually change, then his reservations may be overcome and you can save your marriage whether he makes a formal commitment or not. Another reason that men hesitate to commit to helping you save your marriage is because they worry about what, exactly, this is going to entail. Many are afraid you are going to have them sitting in a counselor’s office disclosing their deepest darkest secrets or exploring where they are an awful husband. The way to overcome this reservation is to just start saving your marriage in positive and painless ways so that he can see that his assumptions were essentially wrong or at least exaggerated.

Why You Don’t Need A Firm Commitment To Save The Marriage (Especially In The Beginning:) I know very few men who are going to put their heart and soul into saving their marriages in the way that a wife would. And I don’t mean that these husbands don’t love or isn’t committed to their wives or doesn’t want to save the marriage. I just mean that men aren’t nearly as in touch with their feelings. They are not nearly as good at identifying the problem. And they often aren’t nearly as decisive about fixing the problem.

So it’s almost a given that he’s not going to go all in at first, even if he truly does want to save your marriage. Most men will wait and see even if they are telling you that they are all for a reconciliation. So his having a reluctance to commit isn’t really as big of a deal as you might think. There is plenty that you can do to save your marriage on your own. You can approach this in a positive way. You can identify the problems. And you can begin to address them in painless ways. Once your husband sees that actual progress is being made and that the process isn’t painful, he just may want to save your marriage even if he doesn’t declare it out loud.

So to answer the question posed, if I were this wife, I would just proceed to try to save the marriage on my own. I wouldn’t pressure or guilt him. I wouldn’t add negative emotions into the mix. Instead, I would try to show him that the marriage could be saved instead of telling him. And I would make the process fun for him so that he would be a willing participant.

Of course, I am saying all of this with confidence now. This is what I did in the end to save my marriage, but it isn’t what I did in the beginning when I made many mistakes that almost cost me my marriage.  No, in the beginning, I made more mistakes than I care to admit.  But luckily, I was eventually able to clean up the mess.  If it helps, you can read the whole story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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