Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I’m often told (and I know from experience) that the world would be a much simpler place if both spouses were on board with a divorce at the same time. However, this is rarely the case. In my experience, more often than not, one spouse is ready to throw in the towel while the other wants desperately to pick up the pieces and fight for the marriage.

However, saving your marriage when you are the only one who wants to can be a very difficult task. Often the divorcing spouse won’t listen to (or isn’t receptive to) anything that you say or do. They only want to move forward with the divorce and will block out any attempts that you make to change their mind. You’re often left feeling like your only choices are to: demean yourself and plead; try to pull out all of the stops; try to manipulate them into changing their mind; or just giving up / or giving in. But, there’s another way to handle this that often works better in the long run. It’s approaching this situation from another angle and it requires controlling the only thing that you can control right now – yourself.

Take A Careful Look At What You’re Really Saying Or Implying To Your Spouse. Don’t Dismiss His Needs: Obviously, you’ve given your spouse the verbal message that you want to save the marriage rather than getting a divorce. But is that the only thing that your words, gestures, and nonverbal cues are saying? Often the way that you say things and the action that you take speaks just as loudly (if not more so) than any words that you could say. Often, divorcing spouses tell me that they believe the spouse who wants to save the marriage has tried to “beat them down” to get them to “give in.”

And many times, (although neither of you may consciously realize it) your tone often implies that they are just wrong and not entitled to want things to be better. They will often read this as your not thinking that their needs or wishes are as valid as yours or that they are gravely mistaken about their own life. This is certainly not the message that you want to send to someone that you are trying to convince to stay.

Make Sure That The Message You Are Sending Is The One They Want To Hear: Stop and think about it. Why is it, really, that your spouse is blocking access to them right now? Because you are saying what he doesn’t want to hear. You are trying to change his mind and get him to “give in.” No one wants to emerge the loser in this standoff, of course. So, he’s going to do everything that he can to block out your words and actions. Clearly, this is not what you want. To save your marriage, you’ll need him to be available and receptive to you. So, how do you get around this and how do you move from where you are now to where you eventually need to be? You change your message so that you are (for right now) telling him the message that he wants to hear.

Before you think this advice is just crazy, please know that I’m not telling you to give up or give in. Not at all. I’m telling you this because this is the way that you are going to regain access to your spouse. So, at a time when no one is rushed and everyone is calm, convincingly tell your spouse that you’ve been thinking about the marriage and you now agree that it is seriously flawed, not working for you both, and that your spouse is absolutely right for wanting to change things. Tell him that although you both know that you want to save the marriage, you have to admit that a truce could do you both good. Explain that no matter how this ultimately works out, that your spouse is too important to you to part with anything but good terms. Vow to act in such a way that is going to ensure that (at least from your end) you will have no regrets about the way that you have handled this. Believe me, regret feels very bad.  I am embarrassed of how I initially acted during my own separation.

Now, I doubt very seriously that this alone will bring on a miraculous change at first. Your spouse will likely not instantly believe your change of heart. That’s OK because you are prepared to wait it out and to prove them wrong. You proceed by doing exactly what you said – you give them their space, you conduct yourself in a way that you can be proud of, and you make sure that they know that you are using taking full advantage of the space yourself.

Putting Your Best Self On Full Display: I have many spouses tell me that the real, true reason that they want the divorce is because they feel that the marriage has gone cold and they don’t see how this could ever change. They believe that is too late for any real and lasting change. Many times, they miss the spouse that they used to have before responsibilities and life got in the way. They long for the way things used to be –   when you would listen intently to what they said, laugh at their jokes, and care deeply about their happiness. They often tell me the spouse who used to have the easy laugh and open heart is now closed off.

Why is this important for you to know? Because you have the ability to change what you are showing them. You are the person they want back. You’ve just buried the part of yourself that they love the most. You both may think it’s too late, but it’s often not. The key for you right now (once you’ve changed the message you are sending) is to put the light-hearted, vibrant person they first loved on full display again so that he knows she still exists. I don’t mean putting on a show when he doesn’t want to see one. I mean going out with friends, conducting yourself as the best version of you, and making sure your spouse knows about this. It’s very likely that once he does, he’ll want to see more for himself. When this day comes, you keep right on doing what is going to work, little by little, until your marriage is back on solid ground.

All of these lessons were hard-won.  I had to learn them during my own separation.  I learned them because I made mistakes that made them necessary.  But I was eventually able to save my marriage.  That story is at http://isavedmymarriage.com/

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