Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: When you have a spouse who is pretty much telling you that he will not lift a finger to save your marriage, then the logical response is that you will do everything on your own. Most of us would give anything to have a cooperative spouse who was going to work with us, but since we don’t, what choice do we have but to attempt to try new things and make some changes on our own? We know that this isn’t ideal. But we’ve tried everything in our power to make him see things our way and it has failed. So, we figure, we have to make the best of it and focus on what is within our control – ourselves.

Sometimes though, even this strategy is put into jeopardy. Sometimes we tell our husband what we are doing or he gets wind of our efforts and he announces that we are wasting our time because he’s not going to be receptive. This makes us wonder why he cares so much. If we aren’t asking him to do any of the work or to make any of the effort, what is it to him?

I might hear a comment like: “I knew early on that if my marriage was going to be saved, I was going to have to do it all on my own. This wasn’t my first choice. I would have loved for my husband to agree to go to counseling. I was willing to look at my behavior and my attitude, but he was not. This wasn’t a great situation. I knew that. But I was willing to take the whole thing onto my own shoulders, go to counseling on my own, and implement any changes suggested.  However, when my husband got wind of this, he told me not to pursue this. He said that I am wasting my time. He insisted that our marriage is just a shell of what it was and isn’t going to change. I disagree. I think I can change it. But I believe he is looking at the past and will not open his mind. I did promise to make some changes a few years ago and I didn’t. So I think that now my husband doubts me. I am sincere this time and I have researched and educated myself on the best way to go about this. I have already invested a lot of time and effort, but he is shutting me down nonetheless. I don’t understand why he cares what I do. It doesn’t affect him either way. I am the one doing all of the work. I am asking nothing of him, but just to let me prove some things to him and see how much I have changed at the end of the process. Why won’t he even let me try?”

I can’t possibly know what your husband might be thinking, but I can speculate based on some of the husbands who I hear from (and from some of the comments that I hear over and over.)

It seems to me that many husbands who resist a wife’s solo attempts to save a marriage are resistant mostly because they don’t actually believe that anything is going to change and also because they highly doubt that this process is not going to require anything of them. They figure that somewhere along the way, you are going to ask them to change and that makes them uncomfortable. Also, many just can not envision a healthy and different marriage at this point in the process, so they believe that the effort is just a waste of time.

Having gone through something similar, I was faced with a couple of different choices. I could listen to my husband, accept his opinion, and shut my attempts to save my marriage down. Or I could go off on my own, doing what I had intended in the first place and being careful not to make too much noise about this, knowing that if I did, my husband was going to discourage me, if not outright try to thwart my efforts.

I can’t make the decision for anyone else. But I ultimately did decide to go on my own. I felt that this was the only logical choice for me as I just was not yet ready to give up on my marriage. And I told myself that even if it didn’t work, it was OK to make that investment in myself. I told myself that even if my marriage ultimately did not work out, it is never a bad idea to improve and work on yourself.

At that time, I had no idea if it would work. But I did decide not to announce every effort to my husband. He knew I was in counseling and I believe that very slowly, he began to see some changes in me. But I didn’t blatantly bring this to his attention. I knew that if I told him about the changes, he was going to immediately assume it was all fake. Instead, I let him see for himself. I believe that this was key because it showed him that I was completely being genuine.  I was implementing changes as much for myself as I was for him.

I think that ultimately, my husband didn’t join me in my efforts to save my marriage (and didn’t encourage me to do it on my own) because he truly felt it would be a waste all of the way around. However, in my mind, it was not going to be his waste. It was going to be mine. I was the one who put in the time and the effort. And I didn’t ask for his help or his permission. What I do with my life is my own business because I am the one living it. Yes, in the end, the future of our marriage was going to be a joint choice.  But working on myself was no one’s choice but mine.

Where to go from here is going to be an individual decision that only you can make. I think that it is important to make the distinction that this is truly for you. Sure, when we improve and change ourselves, the hope is always that he will see this and then join us on our quest to save our marriage. But there are no guarantees. He may or may not come around. But in the end, you have to be doing this for you. And if you make improvements for the better, then it can only benefit you – even if you have to wait and see if it is going to benefit your marriage also.

When I set out to work on myself, I had no idea if my husband would notice or care.  It took him a while to even turn his attention my way.  But I firmly believe that my self work was the first step toward a reconciliation.  It didn’t look like a “marriage saving effort” at the time.  But that is what it turned out to be.  You can read the rest of the store on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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