Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane:  Many recently-separated wives feel that they should be elated that their husband has finally come home from a trial or marital separation. After all, it seems like they’ve been struggling to get him to come home for a very long time. But unfortunately, the reality is often not in line with the fantasy.

One might explain: “my husband and I separated nine months ago. From the beginning, I made it clear that I wanted to preserve our marriage. I knew that we had some serious issues. But I felt that we could overcome them if we worked together. So, during our separation, I worked very hard at making my husband feel that it was in his best interest to come home. He was very hesitant from the start. But I kept at it. Finally, last week my husband agreed to leave his apartment and come home to our house. I was very excited and I couldn’t wait to start our new lives together. But now that he’s home, I’m seeing that this isn’t what I hoped that it would be. He’s very cold and resentful. He doesn’t seem to really want to be here.  I almost like his attitude is ‘well, you wanted me home so here I am and now you can do all the work.’  I now realize that I’ve become used to going about my activities without someone standing over me. Whenever I got to do something or to plan to go somewhere, he’ll demand to know where I’m going and he always has an attitude about it. The thing is, he never wants to come along. I always invite him to go where I’m going but he declines and then he pouts. He doesn’t want to have much to do with me. He’s clearly unhappy. I don’t know why he even wanted to move back home if our marriage was going to be like this. I thought that we were going to be so happy but we’re so miserable. It turns out that we have the same problems all over again. He’s still angry and I’m still sad and we’re right back where we started. I still want to save my marriage, but only if it’s a happy one. What can I do now?”

This is not an uncommon situation. There is often an adjustment period when a spouse comes back home from a martial or trial separation. Things can be awkward and expectations can be high. And when things don’t turn out as expected, there can be resentment, confusion or anger. But even if things begin less than perfect, that doesn’t mean that you can’t get things on track. You can go from miserable to content if you handle this correctly. And frankly, getting him to come back home is an important part of the battle. It may not feel like it right now, but it’s a huge victory. I will discuss this more below.

If You Didn’t Solve Your Problems During The Separation, Now Is The Time: It’s very common for people to gloss over their issues while they are separated. After all, one of them is often desperately trying to get the other to come back home. So it makes sense that no one wants to dwell on troublesome problems that make a reconciliation less likely. The problem with this though is that when the couple does attempt to reconcile, they find themselves struggling with the same old issues and now, since they have been estranged, the stakes seem much higher and there can be even more stress when things feel off or wrong.

However, it’s like that both people are unhappy, then there can be more of a motivation to solve the issues so that the unhappiness and misery don’t continue. Please go ahead and address the issues that keep coming up. Because if you don’t, it’s not likely that you are going to see any real or meaningful improvement. And you don’t deserve to continue to be unhappy. You deserve a fulfilling marriage and so does your husband.

Try To Negotiate A Better Reality: People are often tempted not to complain in this situation because they are afraid that their spouse will leave again. But, you can bring this to your spouse’s attention in a positive way without making it sound critical.

An example might be something like: “I’ve noticed that you seem a little frustrated. I am too. I notice that we both seem to be having a little trouble adjusting to living together once again. I know that this can be normal, but I would like to work together to make things better for both of us. You and our marriage are so important to me and I just want this to work out so badly. What can I do to make the transition easier for you? For my part, I’d like it if you’d spend more time with me just having fun and reconnecting. I want for us to have some fun and enjoy one another. What can I do to help make this happen?”

It’s very important that you try to reach out to your husband and not just pretend that things are fine when they clearly aren’t. Things can’t improve if you don’t speak up. And he may assume that if you remain silent but resentful and unhappy, that you just don’t care enough to make a change. This obviously isn’t true so it’s better to be proactive about your own happiness.  Your husband didn’t come home to be miserable, so if you approach this correctly, he should be receptive.

It took such a huge effort to finally get my husband to come home, that it never occurred to me that there would be even more work to do once I got him there.  But, it soon became clear that we still had some work to do.  I was willing to do whatever was necessary because I wasn’t willing to let him walk out the door again.  If it helps, you can read that story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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