Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane:  Many people who are especially frustrated and confused during their marital separation.  Of course, all separations are confusing and frustrating.  But, this becomes especially true when your spouse keeps changing their mind about the future of your marriage or about their feelings for you.

Someone might explain: “my husband moved out and called it a marital separation when we could no longer stand to be in the same room together.  We were fighting all of the time and neither of us liked the other very much. My husband indicated that he planned to file for divorce in about six months after the separation. However, after we’d been separated for a couple of months, my son had a crisis with his health.  My husband and I ended up spending countless hours together because of this.  We were worried about my son so we pulled together and became closer as a result.  After this, my husband said he’d changed his mind and didn’t want a divorce after all.  I was relieved about this because I didn’t really want to end my marriage and raise my children mostly myself.  The problem is now that every time we argue or things get rocky, he threatens divorce again.  He still hasn’t moved back home, so I never know what our future holds.  One day he thinks we’ll make it and then a couple of days later when we fight, the divorce is on the table again.  Some days, I just feel like telling him that he might as well go ahead with the divorce because I’m sick of living in limbo while he constantly changes his mind.  What can I do?”

This is a difficult situation because it can begin to feel like you are at the mercy of someone else’s feelings (which at this time are swinging like a pendulum.)  But, there are some things that you can try in order to feel more in control and to try to improve the situation and give it more stability.  I will discuss this more below.

Try To Agree To Take Divorce Off Of The Table Until You Truly Try To Deal With Your Marital Issues:  This couple had gone through a great deal of stress in a very short amount of time.  A separation is stressful all by itself.  But, add a sick child to the mix and the situation is doubly as bad.  It’s no wonder that this couple had no time to try to identify, sort through, and then work out their problems.  They were so focused on their son, which was completely understandable and undoubtedly the right thing to do.

Since their marriage hadn’t had any time to recover, the wife might have suggested taking divorce off of the table until they gave it a fair chance.  When things were going well she might say something like: “I feel relieved when things are going well between us.  Because when you tell me that you’re back to wanting a divorce it scares and frustrates me.  We really haven’t had the chance to work through our problems so making decisions about our marriage until we have the chance to do that isn’t fair to our family.  Can we agree to not make any decisions about a divorce until we’ve had time to work through our issues?  How about we agree to meet once a week to talk about this and then reevaluate in six months?  This way, we will know that we have had enough time to make the right decision and we will know that we’ve done all that we could.”  At this point, you could also suggest counseling.  If your spouse is resistant to that, you should at least find some self help resources that can help walk you through improving your marriage.

The truth is that until you address and begin to work past your problems, there’s a real risk that your husband will continue to change his mind because the state of your relationship just isn’t stable or clear. But once you find that you have hit a stable pattern, you will hopefully find that he’s no longer changing his mind since the situation isn’t constantly in flux.  He won’t need to because things are stable and he has come to know what to expect.

I’d like to make one final point.  The fact that this husband hadn’t yet made an effort to come home was probably a pretty good indication that he still had some doubts, no matter what he was claiming at the time. Frankly, though, him coming home before he was sure about the marriage wasn’t a great idea either.  It’s better to wait until things are truly stable and truly good, or at least looking much better.  Because if a man leaves twice, the chances deteriorate that he is going to come back a second or even third time.  But if you can solve your issues for good while you are separated then you have a much better chance of him not needing to ever leave again because this just isn’t necessary.

I know that him constantly changing his mind is hurtful and frustrating.  But it only tells you that you have more work to do.  And he hasn’t filed yet, so it’s time to get started.  I can honestly say that I wish my husband had shown any doubt about a divorce during our separation.  He was sure he wanted one and I had to try many strategies until I finally found one that saved our marriage.   If it helps, you can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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