I have many frustrated women who contact me and say things like, “My husband says he wants a divorce, but he won’t say why” or “He won’t tell me why he wants a divorce.” Am I supposed to agree to this without him giving me a valid reason?” I completely understand your frustration. I was in this situation too. You can’t help but think that if you could identify his reason for wanting a divorce, you could properly address the issues and save the marriage. But, her reluctance to talk about it means you’re either flying blind or just groping in the dark. It’s hard to formulate a plan when you can’t even figure out what you’re up against.
However, it took me a long time to realize that fixing and thinking about this (and annoying my husband endlessly) was only doing me more harm than good. I’m certainly not saying that his reasons for wanting the divorce don’t matter. They certainly do. But, the truth of the matter is that you will have to do and say the same things no matter why this is happening. So while it’s good to know, it’s not required to save your marriage.
Know that even he may not know or understand why you are doing this (and if he does, he may not say it because he knows you will disagree with him and try to change his mind): Often when I tell women that a husband is sometimes not counting the beans about divorce because he can’t articulate his reasoning, even to himself, they look at me like I’m crazy. But listen to me for a second. I have some men who contact me through my blog. Many of them want to know how to deal with their wives once they have filed for divorce or want to know how to tell their wives that they want to end the marriage.
Of course, I can’t resist asking them what caused this. I’m looking to find out if the problem is big or small, and if I think the marriage can be saved. The vast majority of them (I’d say over 85%) can’t articulate a concrete answer, even to me, someone who knows nothing about them or their marriage. They will mutter general reasonings like “well we just broke up” or “I just don’t want to be married anymore” or “I want to start over.” Sometimes I’ll even push and ask things like “Well, what triggered this?” But even then, I’ll get vague responses like “we just drifted apart” or “we’re not in love anymore.”
The point I’m trying to make is that men know these reasons seem pretty silly and blanket, and I can hear their hesitance to say this out loud even to a stranger. And, they also know that the moment they say it, they will pounce immediately, with a laundry list of why they are wrong. There will be more fights. More tension will be present. By wanting a divorce, they want to escape these negative emotions, not create more of them. In essence, locking lips is your attempt to get out without a major confrontation or debate. They don’t want to give you ammunition to try to change their mind or tell them that they are wrong.
It’s important that you understand this, because the plan that I think works best is based on this. We know you don’t want an argument or any attempt to change your mind, so we’re not going to give you that, although you’re going to be pretty surprised. No, we are going to agree with them and throw them off balance a bit.
Go with the flow instead of against it: A reader once called what I’m about to tell you “going with the flow instead of trying to swim against it.” What she meant by that is that if you’re constantly trying to swim against the current, you’ll eventually lose your strength and give up anyway. It is an impossible task. But, if you go with the flow, you allow it to effortlessly take you exactly where you want to go. So how does this relate to her marriage and her desire to divorce her?
Because I want you to go with the flow and agree with him and forget about trying to get the reasons for the divorce out of him. Listen to me. You and I both know that this plan is designed to save your marriage, but we’re not going to share that with him. Why? Because if we did, he’d just shut his ears to anything you had to say. He doesn’t want to let her change her mind, so you’re going to stop trying.
Am I telling you to just grant the divorce? Absolutely not. What I’m telling you is that in order to save your marriage, you first have to get them to let their guard down. So you’re going to stop pestering them with what’s on their minds. You’ll agree that marriage, as it stands lately, hasn’t been a field day for you either. You will tell them that you would also like to have some time for yourself. You are going to behave with class and respect for yourself. You’re going to stop killing yourself swimming against the current. And do you know what usually happens when you do this? They are absolutely shocked. This is not the reaction they expected.
And then they get curious. Is there anyone else? Don’t you love them anymore? They will need to know the answers to start snooping around. And what do you do when this happens? You are still the most elegant, fun, joyful and loving version of yourself. You make sure they see the woman they first fell in love with and you have patience. You can’t straighten this train overnight, but you can do it one step at a time. You can know that each and every little win will build on itself until you’re looking forward to every encounter and start thinking that this whole divorce talk was a big mistake.