What Does It Really Mean When Your Husband Tells You “I Don’t Want To Be Married Anymore.”
By: Leslie Cane: Many wives get a very unfortunate, and sometimes sudden, message from their husbands. Sometimes, this message appears to come out of nowhere and other times, there is some very obvious unhappiness and tension within the marriage before it comes. Regardless, it can be devastating when your husband mutters the words: “I don’t know if I want to be married anymore.” Most people’s first and natural inclination is to demand more information. What does this mean, exactly? Is he going to seek a divorce? Is he going to wait and try to evaluate his feelings to see if he can go from “not knowing” to being sure? The problem is that although most wives ask for this information, not all of them get it. Many husbands will tell you that they can’t provide further information because they just don’t have it. They will tell you that they don’t know what the future is going to bring. All they can tell you is that for right now, they are having some doubts.
A frustrated and confused wife might say: “I will admit that the last three months of my marriage have been pretty bad. We’ve had our challenges because we’ve had a lot of stress in our lives. It seems that there has been one disaster after another that we have had to navigate. As a result, our marriage has had to take a back seat, with disastrous results. However, I thought that once things calmed down, our marriage would eventually recover. Unfortunately, it seems that my husband may not be willing to give our marriage that opportunity. This weekend, we were bickering and my husband suddenly blurted out, ‘I’m not sure if I want to be married anymore.’ So I asked a slew of questions. I asked him if he was divorcing or leaving me. I asked him if this meant that he was going to be a bachelor for the rest of his life or if this just meant that he didn’t want to be married to me, specifically. He says that he can’t answer any of these questions because he just doesn’t know. So what does it typically mean when a man says he doesn’t know if he wants to be married anymore?”
I can certainly give you some theories. But that is all that they are going to be. You can certainly see if any of them ring true for you. Or, when the time is right, you could ask your husband about them.
He Isn’t Sure That He Wants To Married Anymore If Things Don’t Change With Your Marriage: This one is very common. And husbands often drop these little phrases in order to get your attention. Because they are trying to initiate a change. Sometimes, change doesn’t seem to be happening quickly enough for their tastes so they will begin to question if it is ever going to happen at all. And that’s when they will start to question if they want to continue on with the marriage. One way to test this theory is to ask yourself what bothers your husband the most and then make a fast and concentrated effort to try to change it. If this seems to make your husband at least a little more agreeable or receptive to you, then you’ll know what you are dealing with. I unfortunately did not give my husband my attention in a similar scenario and I ended up separated as a result. I eventually got him back, but it was a painful and stressful process. So I can not stress enough the importance of being proactive.
He’s Starting To Wonder If He Is The Type Of Person Who Thrives In A Marriage: Sometimes, especially in mid-life, people start to evaluate whether or not they are suited to their current lifestyle. They will generally start examining their job, their marriage, and their place in the world. They will begin to think that perhaps some of these things no longer suit them. The sad thing is that they will often overreact because they don’t realize that it is not the external things that are causing the discontent – it is something inside of them instead. So they will make all of these drastic changes and they will later figure out that it wasn’t the external things that were causing the problem after all. They’re still unhappy, but now they have cast off the people and things that were most important. If you suspect that this is the case, it sometimes helps to give your spouse a little space. In my experience, it is not helpful to tell him that he is selfish, wrong, or in a laughable mid-life crisis. Even though this is frustrating and it’s normal to be angry, you want to come at him like you’re looking to support him instead of looking to change him. Because if he senses you are being critical or that he is not being heard, he is only going to get defensive and isolate himself. And this doesn’t help you, your marriage, or him.
Instead, you want to create the stance that encourages him to come closer to you rather than drifting away. It took me entirely too long to hear this. You can read more about my separation and eventual reconciliation at http://isavedmymarriage.com
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