Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: We’ve all witnessed it. We’ve all known couples who everyone else was jealous of. They were the ones who seemed the have the perfect marriage. They were the ones who you just knew were going to grow old together. They were the perfect couple. Until they weren’t. Somehow, someway, they separated and the husband moved out. Friends and family took bets as to how long it would take until the husband came crawling back, begging his wife to overlook his mistake. But this didn’t happen. Much to everyone’s surprise, he didn’t come back. Not ever. And the couple ended up divorcing. And this leaves everyone scratching their heads. Why do some men never come back when the marriage always seemed solid, while other marriages that seem to be barely hanging on survive? I’ll tell you some of my theories on this in the following article.

Things Aren’t Always What They Seem:  First things first.  The “perfect” couple likely doesn’t exist.  No one is perfect all of the time. Appearances are not reality.  A couple may look rough or appear to fight, but at least there is honestly and an investment.  A couple may look perfect and never fight, but only because they gloss over or deny some really vital issues that are going to come back to bite them later.

During The Actual Separation, The Couple Grow Further And Further Apart: I know that I often sound like a broken record when I harp on the need for setting up a regular communication schedule during a trial or marital separation. But because of my own experience, I know that it’s very vital. I also see a lot of couples gradually sort of lose touch and drift away from each other. You mean to talk or call. You truly do. But then you look around and you find that so much time has passed since the last call, and so you fear the awkwardness. Things just deteriorate from there.

So while the couple may have started out being only slightly estranged and still showing a decent amount of promise, the deterioration accumulates until one or both of them feels that there isn’t enough left. And they eventually give up.

Not Enough Has Changed: Many people separate in the hopes of “shaking up” their marriage or of “scaring” their spouse into change. The idea is that neither party can pretend that things are fine anymore. Neither party can just stick with the status quo. Once you are separated, it becomes pretty obvious that there needs to be change or your marriage may well end. People can go into this with good intentions. But real change is hard. It can sometimes require outside help. Not everyone is able or willing to bring it about or to maintain it. And some spouses are not willing to be patient and wait around for this to take place. They become frustrated and begin to believe that, no matter how long they wait around, nothing is going to change to their liking and so it is a waste of everyone’s time to continue to wait.

They Have Decided That They Are Happier Living Alone: This is probably every separated wife’s worst fear. And this is another reason that I stress frequent communication. Sometimes, a separated husband will think that he feels liberated and happy once he lives alone. This can particularly be true if there was a lot of tension and drama in the house when the couple lived together. It can feel like a relief. And he can feel as if he much prefers living alone and that he doesn’t want to go back to the drama.

He Thinks That He’s Found Someone Else Or He Enjoys Dating: This isn’t as common as you might think, but it does happen. Sometimes, he meets a new woman and even if he is not particularly serious about her, he takes this to mean something. He will feel that his interest in her might mean that he is not meant to be married anymore. He will tell himself that if it was right and “meant to be” with his wife, then he wouldn’t be interested in or comfortable with dating. (For the record, I disagree with this. I think that anybody can date and feel excited about “getting out there again,” only to eventually find that they miss their spouse.) But they’ve already thrown it away and then feel as if it’s too late – which leads me to my next point.

They Are Receiving Outside Pressure From Somewhere: I hear from a lot of wives who tell me that their husbands were being pressured by friends, co-workers, and family to “be free” or “get single.” Often times, he’s receiving much more input from these people as he is from you – because he isn’t living with you or seeing you at work, as he might be with them.

I don’t mean for this article to make you feel hopeless. I don’t like for wives to feel hopeless. I felt this way and it made me miserable. In hindsight, it was a waste of time. My husband eventually did come back. It was not in the time frame I wanted. It took much longer than I anticipated. And I was often ready to give up. But eventually he did come back. And I think that a big reason for this was that I did finally initiate change. And I did eventually back up and stop some of the possessive and clingy behaviors that were driving my husband crazy. I finally learned that there was a difference between regularly communicating and annoying my husband crazy with my clinginess. This made a big difference.  So sometimes the whole “never coming back fear” is just that – an unfounded fear. The whole story is on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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