Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: It’s understandable that when you come home to find that your spouse has left you, the first question you ask yourself is why. Some spouse’s are very upfront about their motivations and some are not. Sometimes, the reason that they give is even somewhat understandable and sometimes it is not. One  example of when it is not understandable is when the reason or excuse given is “I couldn’t make you happy.” This can either leave you tempted to insist that you are happy or insist that this is no valid reason to put your marriage in jeopardy.

A wife might say: “last week, I came home to silence and to nothing. My husband wasn’t there. Many of his clothes were gone. There was no note. I began texting him to ask where he was. Quite frankly, I was very worried. Eventually, he texted me back to say that he is staying with his coworker for a while. He says he thinks we need to live apart. I asked him why he would do this and his response was: ‘no matter what I do, I can’t make you happy.’ That response is absurd. I admit that our marriage has been rocky lately. In this economy, my husband had to take a cut in pay. This has made things difficult financially. I haven’t complained, but I guess my husband has seen that I’ve had a little difficulty adjusting. Also, we seem to be at different stages in our lives. I want to focus on my career and start a family soon. And my husband acts like he’s still in college – going out with friends and showing up to work tired the next day. I admit that I am not happy about this, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not happy in my marriage or happy with my husband. But, when I try to tell him this, he acts as if he just doesn’t buy it. Sometimes, he won’t even let me finish my statement before he interrupts me and once again insists that he was never able to make me happy and that I am still miserable now. I don’t know how to address this. I can’t insist that I was completely happy because I wasn’t. When I try to insist that I was happy enough, he disagrees. What now?”

Please know that this is only my opinion and it is based on very limited information. I wouldn’t use my own suggestion in place of what you already know about your husband and about your marriage. However, I would think that it is probably not going to be effective to keep claiming that you were happy. He’s made it clear that he doesn’t buy this and continuing to use it makes it appear as if you have no other valid arguments. I would suggest giving this a little time to calm down before you continue on with the debate. You don’t want every limited conversation that you have right now to be based on a disagreement or on debating the merits of your argument.

Instead, you want to give yourself something to build upon. That means that you’ll want to be pleasant and receptive when you talk to him. I know that this is going to be a challenge when you think that he is wrong. But I am suggesting this because I’ve seen this situation go bad so many times when the people involved couldn’t communicate in a positive way when they were apart.

When you are separated, there is so much potential for hurt feelings, anger, suspicion, and misunderstandings. If these things become intense enough, it’s not unheard for a separation to turn into a divorce for reasons quite different than the original reason for the separation.

You obviously do not want this. I understand that you feel very strongly that he is wrong. But you don’t want to harp on this so much that it turns into a huge disagreement that makes things even more distant between you.

Instead, you may have to agree to disagree so that you can get to the part where you start to strengthen your relationship while he is gone. This can be tricky and it often happens only when both people are receptive to one another during the separation.

I also think that it’s important that he sees you being reasonably upbeat and content. Because this will allow him to realize that you don’t need everything to go perfectly in your life to be happy. Dial down the criticisms and make sure you aren’t drawing attention to every single thing that goes wrong. Focus on what is going right. This is vital. It shows him that you are more than capable of making the best of things and that you can be happy even when things are going in the exact opposite direction than you had hoped.

There will be a point where you’ll need to talk about and work through his feeling that he is responsible for your happiness. Because he absolutely is not. But I would not have this conversation until the marriage is back on solid ground. And if you are successful in showing him that you are perfectly capable of providing your own happiness, this conversation won’t be a big deal because all of the pressure has been removed.

I know that it is very scary and frustrating when your husband isn’t home.  It’s easy to focus on the negative.  But it is vital that you focus on the positive.  He needs to see that you can cope even when things aren’t perfect.  Once this happens, you can begin to rebuild.  This is the process I had to use when I saved my marriage. You can read more about this process on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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