Why Does My Husband Want Me To Be The One To Decide About His Moving Out?
By: Leslie Cane: From the correspondence that I get, I find that in many cases, when a marital separation is on the horizon, one spouse may be more invested than the other. What I mean by this is that although both spouses may be unhappy and may want change, one person may be pulling away more than the other.
For example, you may have a wife who is well aware that her marriage is seriously deteriorating. Her husband may be constantly complaining about how unhappy he is. And she may have no doubt that something is going to have to change if she hopes to be married next year. Even so, she may have no intentions of walking away or moving out. The hope may be that with work, she might find that stimulus to make things better. Unfortunately, her husband may not feel the same. He may agree that the marriage is in a steep decline. But unlike his wife, he is not willing to just sit tight and hope for change. Instead, he wants to take action and insists that one person moves out or a separation takes place.
Having said all of the above, there are some instances in which the spouse who is motivated to take action just can not bring themselves to be the who makes the ultimate decision to leave the home. Here’s a scenario to demonstrate what I mean. A wife might say: “listen, I’m not going to pretend that I am thrilled with my marriage or that nothing is wrong. I’m not and there is. My marriage is in big trouble. I’m not happy with it. But I would not walk away from it. Because I have my children to consider. My husband acts as if living here with me is intolerable. He acts like the marriage is so broken that the living conditions are like a prison. He’s made it very clear that he wants to move out, but he doesn’t seem to have the guts to do it. He will pick fights with me and then when I get angry, he will say, ‘do you want me to move out?’ Sometimes when we argue, he will mutter, ‘well maybe I should just move out.’ Sometimes I will answer that if moving out is what he wants, then perhaps that is what he should do. And then he will tell me that him moving out should be a joint decision. The thing is, I can’t bring myself to tell him to move out. Because I ultimately do not want that. But my pride will not allow me to beg him to stay, either. Why does he insist on making me decide if he is going to move out? Shouldn’t this be his decision?”
Indeed, it should. But I have to tell you when someone puts a decision in someone else’s hands, to me, that indicates doubt and indecision. It almost indicates that they want you to talk them out of it. In my experience, if someone is so unhappy in their marriage and in their home that it is truly unbearable, they are not going to ask permission to move out; they are just going to do it.
Sure, they may have hesitation, doubt, or regret about doing it. They may not really want to. But when things truly get unbearable, they act. They do not give you the opportunity to veto their decision, if in fact they have truly made a decision.
Of course, this is just one person’s opinion. I don’t know your husband, so I can only speculate. But it seems to me that by not only asking your input, but also basically asking you to make the decision for him, he’s leaving room for you to either attempt to talk him out of it or to tell him that you truly don’t want for him to go.
Unfortunately, there can be a good deal of posturing that goes on during or before a separation. Both people are hurting, have raw feelings, and also have their pride. Because of this, both people hesitate to share their true desires and intentions. No one wants to be rejected. So one way to sort of “flesh out” your spouse’s feelings is to make threats or to float a scenario in the hopes that your spouse will oppose your threats or try to thwart your scenario.
It’s not an ideal plan, but the hope is that, by trying to talk your husband out of moving out, he’s gotten you to admit that you don’t want a divorce and perhaps there is some relief in that.
It may seem quite unfair that he is putting you in this position. I would agree that it would be easier if he took responsibility of his own decisions. But if you say this, you could fuel the fire, so to speak. So it may be better to have a conversation like: “I understand that you want my input about this, but I’m not comfortable making a decision that really has to be yours. You would be the one moving out, not me. My physically staying put should be an indication of how I feel about things. I realize that our marriage needs work. I am not denying that. But I’ve never threatened to move out. You’ve asked for my input on this and so here it is. But I can’t make the decision for you. And I’m not asking you to go.”
Short of begging him to stay, this conversation makes your point pretty clearly. You’re denying responsibility for the decision and you’ve indicated that you’re staying put, but know that there needs to be change. Should your husband not move out, my next step would be bringing about real change. In my experience, that is what people are looking for just before they move out. They want to see that, should they stay, the marriage will change enough and make enough progress so that moving out is not necessary.
I wish I had tried change rather than negotiation or debate before my separation. It only lead to separate homes, which made it that much more difficult to get my husband back once we weren’t living under the same roof. I eventually saved my marriage, but it was much harder, and took much longer, than it needed to. There’s more to the story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com
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