Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I often hear from people who had such high hopes for their reconciliation. It is usually something that they have been waiting on (and hoping about) for quite some time. So when this doesn’t go as seamlessly as they had hoped (and there are significant challenges along the way,) this can be quite disappointing.

I might hear a comment on my blog like: “I have been trying to get my husband to reconcile with me for the whole seven months that we were separated. At first, my husband resisted my attempts to reach out to him. He wanted lots of time alone and lots of space. I tried to respect this, but it was very difficult for me because I missed him so much. Over time, he became more receptive to me until eventually we were seeing each other regularly. The reason that we separated in the first place was that when we have differences of opinion, we fight. We can’t seem to just discuss our issues like normal couples. We will take it to the extremes and the next thing that you know, we’re both yelling and getting all upset. Then one argument will turn into a string of arguments so that before you know it, we are barely speaking. It got to a point where neither of us wanted this type of drama in our lives anymore. We always felt like we were walking on eggshells around each other. Now I’m starting to wonder if things got better only because we weren’t living together. Because after weeks of begging him, my husband finally agreed to come home for an attempted reconciliation. For the first couple of weeks, things went great. But after that, the old issues came up again. And we reacted in the same old way. Fights ensued. My husband became furious and said that he’s going to leave again and never come back. What can you do when the same old conflicts always resurface? Does this mean that we are just not meant to be married and should hang it up?”

Problems That Were Never Addressed Will Come Back: I will admit right from the start that I never encourage people to “just hang it up,” especially where their marriage is concerned. Because of my own experiences and because of the transformations that I hear about, I believe that most marriages can be fixed. And I believe that once this happens, it is more than worth the effort. However, I also know that good intentions and just wanting to reconcile are often not enough. When the couple have been apart for so long, it can seem as if the problem is gone since they aren’t experiencing it on a regular basis anymore. But, if you’ve done nothing to address and then fix it, how can you really expect it to just go away?

There Might Be A Honeymoon Period Before The Old Conflicts Rear Their Ugly Heads: What generally happens is that as soon as the same stressor or the same set of circumstances is present, then the same old argument and conflict will ensue. This doesn’t always happen right away because the couple can be in a “honeymoon period” when they attempt to reconcile. There can be so much relief at finally getting back together that their inclination is to ignore what is wrong, hope for the best, and pretend that everything fine. Usually though, this can only last for so long. No one wants to live this way forever. Eventually, your true feelings and your old habits are going to come forth.

Does this mean that you don’t love each other or that your marriage will never work. I certainly don’t think that this is what it means. But I do think that it possibly suggests that you need some outside help in order to navigate your reconciliation so that it actually sticks and so that you are once again happy. This outside help can take the form of counseling or you can use self help (and a lot of determination) in order to learn new skills and better conflict resolution.

Many times, couples will tell themselves that they will just try to avoid or even eliminate the conflict. In other words, if they always fight about their in laws, then they will try to not bring them up or they will try to not see them as much so that there is no need to fight. Unfortunately, this just isn’t realistic. If it’s not the in laws, it’s going to be something else. And, until you learn conflict resolution and how to relate to one another when the arguments surface, things will continue to deteriorate every time you have conflict. And all couples have conflict. Even wonderful marriages have conflict. This is just a fact of life. The difference between couples who are able to sail through this and couples who are not is the way that they approach it.

And these skills can be learned. It does take time, repetition, and practice but I am living proof that you can learn another way and you can keep using it until your marriage (and your reconciliation) is transformed. If you’d like to learn about how I navigated this process, you can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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