Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: I sometimes hear from people who are quite confused at to why a spouse who was previously so unhappy that he began to pursue a divorce would now want to come back home or reconcile with his spouse. Often, even though every one appears to be happy that a divorce isn’t going to happen immediately, there can be worries as to what brought about the sudden and dramatic change.

Common comments are things like: “my husband filed for a divorce about three weeks ago. He said that although he had tried very hard to be content with our marriage and with our lives, he just wasn’t happy. He said that it wasn’t fair for him to continue on with a marriage that his heart just wasn’t invested in. I begged him not to leave, but he left anyway. I was so lonely and scared at first, but I eventually accepted it as best as I could. But then yesterday my husband called me and said that he had a change of heart. He said that he wanted to come back to me and call off the divorce. I’m very happy about this, but I also have concerns. Why the sudden change of heart? I worry that he found out how difficult it is to do household chores or he calculated how expensive the divorce was going to be so that he’s only coming back to me out of convenience and not love. Am I right to be worried? Why else would a man who wanted a divorce suddenly want to come back?” I will try to address this concern below.

Although I don’t really see this from the side of the unhappy husband, I do hear from a lot of them on my blog and I feel that I have some insights as to why they might change their minds. I will outline some of the possibilities below.

He May Be Reacting To The Fact That There’s A Void Without You: I do understand why this wife assumed that the husband had changed his mind because of practical reasons. After all, this wife had tried numerous strategies to get her husband to reconsider the divorce and nothing had worked. So, of course it seemed suspicious and odd that he would suddenly change his mind.

I can tell you that many people report that they missed their spouse much more than they anticipated. Waking up alone and having to listen to silence when you are used to sharing your life with someone can create a very disturbing and scary void. This can motivate you to reevaluate your assumptions that you no longer have loving feelings toward your spouse or that your problems are insurmountable.

Also, it is often easier to put your issues in perspective when you are no longer face to face with your spouse. You often realize that you should have been more patient, accommodating, or flexible where your marriage was concerned. So, he can begin to ask himself if perhaps he should give your marriage one more try before he makes the very drastic decision to go ahead and end it.

Where Do You Go From Here?: This situation often brings about very conflicting feelings. Many are ecstatic that their spouse has come home and that it appears that they might get another chance to save their marriage. But, these same folks are often quite reluctant to get their hopes up for the fear of being hurt again. They don’t want to have to go through this painful adjustment period again, so they are sometimes hopeful but also guarded.

My opinion on this is that any time that you have the opportunity to attempt to save your marriage, you should go all in and give it your very best. Yes, I know you have worries about his motivations and about the chances that things will actually work, but I believe that it’s worth it to take a chance. With this said, I also believe that it’s very important to do the work necessary to make sure that the marriage actually recovers so that it can endure. Because how painful would it be to go through all of this again in the future because you didn’t take the steps necessary to really fix what lead you to separating in the first place?

Sure, this husband probably was motivated by the fact that he missed his wife desperately, but this didn’t mean that he would suddenly be happy in a marriage that made him so unhappy before. So while there was a lot of reason to feel optimism and hope, I felt that it was also vital that this couple do the work in order to understand and then fix the husband’s discontent.

To answer the question posed, though, there are various reasons that a divorcing spouse might change their mind and chose to come back. Often, they find that they miss their spouse and their marriage. Other times, they decide that perhaps they acted too swiftly and that they owe it to themselves to try to save their marriage before they just walk away. Sure, some spouses come home for more practical reasons also. But in my opinion, the most important thing to focus on right now is not why he came home, but on the fact that you now have an opportunity to save the marriage which you feared was lost.

I would have given anything if my husband had wanted to come home shortly after we separated.  It took many mistakes and countless tries before I could get him home.  But once I did, I made absolutely sure that we did all the necessary work to ensure that we would never separate again.  If it helps you can read more on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com

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