Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Since I often write about saving your marriage, I’m sometimes approached by people who want help fixing or escaping their “unhappy marriage.” Most of them don’t want to blow up their lives, but they also have to admit that they’re quite unhappy. Still, they cared enough to seek information that might help them avoid divorce or separation. That’s important, because it tells you they haven’t checked out of their marriages. If they knew in their hearts that their marriage was really and truly over, they wouldn’t be seeking out information on how to potentially change things.

So this article is for people who are honestly unhappy in their marriages but are looking for things to try before they begin considering a separation or divorce. Please try these things before you give up on your marriage.

Do You Really Know Why Your Marriage Is Unhappy?: It’s important to identify the main causes for your unhappiness so that you can determine how to fix them. You can do this by getting a piece of paper and writing whatever reasons come to your mind. They can be completely serious or totally petty. It doesn’t matter. List everything that comes up, and leave nothing off-limits. Write until your fingers cramp.

Many people see a pattern when they look at their list. No matter who you are or what situation you are in, your list will often paint a picture of a person who doesn’t feel seen, appreciated, understood, or loved. People describe this in various ways with phrases like, “We only go through the motions in our marriage,” or “My husband doesn’t understand the real me,” but all of these phases equal the same thing – you feel like you don’t matter as much as you used to with your spouse. And that hurts. 

I know that this is going to sound crazy, but this list will often give you good news. Typically once you know what you are up against, you can begin to fix it. And frankly, most things on this list ARE fixable. (And some are not related to the marriage, but still need to be addressed to restore your normal level of happiness.) 

Fixing Your Marriage Starts With Controlling The Only Person You Can, You:  I’m willing to bet that your list detailed the many places where your spouse has been falling short. This is human nature and nearly everyone identifies their spouse as the main culprit. It’s perfectly okay.  

But here is what is not okay: thinking that to fix your marriage, your only option is to fix your spouse. Many people think their job is showing their spouse where he’s wrong or lacking, and then thinking that he is just going to be immediately receptive to this.

Although this is a reasonable and understandable assumption, ask yourself how you’d feel if your spouse came to you with a long list of all of your shortcomings. Would you be happy to read it? Would you fall over yourself to make sweeping changes? Probably not.

Embrace Self-Change To Get Him To Change: There is one thing that you must not only understand but embrace – the only person in this equation over which you have complete control and the ability to change is yourself. 

So, instead of trying to change your spouse before he is even on board, you want to start by changing your own behaviors. If you can showcase positive behaviors and loving actions, he may eventually mirror what you are doing. Or he may see that because real change is possible, it now makes sense for him to implement his own changes. 

Here is what that looks like. If one of the things on your list is that your husband doesn’t show you much affection, then you will just start offering him the affection that you want. It will feel weird, but it will also dramatically improve the odds that you will get you what you want because he will eventually return the affection. 

If you think that your husband doesn’t appreciate you, start by appreciating him. Treat him exactly how you long to be treated. I know that you may think that I’m asking you to do all the work. And I suppose that this is technically true. But I’m also suggesting a strategy with a much higher success rate. 

By giving your husband what you want, you’re showing him that you’re serious about change, which you’re going to prove is entirely possible. And you’re much more likely to get exactly what you give. That is how it works in a reciprocal relationship like marriage.  

If you can make your spouse feel understood, loved, respected, and appreciated, he’s much more likely to change many of the things that were on your list – the things that were making you unhappy.  

Be Deliberate In Replacing The Bad With The Good:  I want you to add to your original list and layout all of the feelings you experienced when you first fell in love with your spouse. You’re likely to list things like “beautiful,” “valued,” “safe,” “understood,” etc. I want you to notice how the second list is likely nearly the opposite of the first list.

Why do you think this is? I can tell you my theory, and it’s true of myself and my own marriage and separation. When we first date our spouse, we are more than willing to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and enthusiastic. 

We are more than willing to devote tons of free time to this new relationship. And we get what we give. Those positive feelings combined with lots of time and effort produce a happy and exciting relationship. 

You can’t literally make your relationship completely new again BUT you can devote more time to it. You can allow vulnerability within it so that it FEELS new. 

Yes, I know that you have more obligations today then you did then. But we can all make the time for the things that are truly important to us. 

But What If It Feels Too Late Or There’s Too Much Negativity?:  Sometimes I have people who respond that my suggestions make sense, but they fear that none of this will work because their situation is REALLY unhappy. They’ll tell me that they fight all of the time, or that their husband always seems so annoyed with them.

This can honestly be okay because it indicates that your husband still has strong feelings. He’s not yet completely indifferent so that there’s no response at all. Sometimes strong emotions mean that they still care. If they didn’t, you’d get no reaction at all.  

Of course, the process may need to be more gradual and slow, since you may have a little more work to do. But none of this is impossible, although you must always be very sincere in whatever behavior you use. Never make your spouse think that they are being played or manipulated. 

When I was in an unhappy marriage, I didn’t take any of these action, but unfortunately, my husband did – by initiating a separation, which didn’t make either of us any happier in our lives.  What did improve our happiness was improving our marriage.  It took some finesse to get him on board, but I was eventually able to do this and we reconciled.  You can that story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com/

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