His wife kept telling him she was unhappy but it wasn’t until she finally filed for divorce that he took her seriously. By that time, it was too late. He says she didn’t tell him she was that unhappy. He says he would have done things differently if she had.
Like most of us, his spouse told him she was unhappy, but he didn’t take heed until it was too late. How much plainer could his wife have stated how she felt? Would he have listened to her if she would have said in the beginning “I can’t live like this, I want a divorce”? Anyone who has ever spoken these words knows you don’t say them unless you’re ready to accept the consequences your words may bring.
What intermediate steps can someone take in order to show their spouse how desperate they are about their current marital situation? We don’t all react the same way to the things that bother us the most. Some people make loud noises, getting their frustrations out in the open.
Other people take a quieter approach, hoping that their partner recognizes their unhappiness, that he or she will really understand that “I can’t go on like this” means exactly that. Neither way is foolproof. Neither way is the answer to getting a spouse to really hear the cry for help.
The person who is highly verbal may eventually have their outbursts minimized with “oh, he’s always that way when he pays the bills” or “must be her time of the month, again”. Even when they shout “I want a divorce!!” it becomes just the latest in their little fits of temper.
And the quiet ones? They keep hoping for change, and they keep saying they need change, but when nothing happens and they’ve had enough, when there’s no hope left, they just leave.
Anne gave her husband warnings that he didn’t heed, most followed by her leaving and then returning to the marriage. Fed up, she gave him one final chance before leaving. She regrets not going through with her divorce the first time, but for her, since there was even the slightest shred of chance the marriage could be repaired, her decision to give it another try was the right one. For her, she had to overcome the insecurities that came into play after she told her husband she wanted a divorce.
Insecurities about the permanency of the marriage aren’t the only pitfalls. Realizing that their spouse could actually leave them, some people will begin establishing their own escape plan, instead of trying to save the marriage.
Other people begin a course of action that completes the destruction of their marriage as one woman’s husband did when he let their home go into foreclosure and ran up huge credit card balances. The financial hole he dug was the last straw.
Are you facing divorce now because you didn’t take action when there was still time to salvage your marriage? Or, is there still time? What do you do, stay or go? Do you have a choice?