I read an incredible article in the NY Times the other day, a true story of love and strength that didn’t involve sunsets and romance and star gazing. It was a story of courage and commitment and selflessness.
When I teach women about marriage I often point out that once in a while their husband may walk into the house at the end of the day in a very bad mood. (Let’s stipulate up front that the reverse could also be true; of course women are sometimes in bad moods too!) He may yell or otherwise express displeasure. Our instinctive reaction is to be defensive. We feel attacked and we respond in kind. The situation rapidly deteriorates.
The wise wife (the one with an abnormal amount of self-control) recognizes that she is NOT the source of her husband’s frustration. The wise wife patiently replies, “It seems like you had a rough day at work. What can I do to help you?” This is the absolutely correct response. And almost never practiced.
Yet the woman in the NY Times piece (08/02/09) went above and beyond. When Laura Munson’s husband of 20 years told her, “I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out,” she didn’t react out of emotion. With a tremendous exertion of will power (this is more difficult than the adrenaline-charged lifting of a whole car!), she stated calmly, “I’m not buying it.”
She knew it wasn’t about her or the children, and refused to play her scripted part.
She was able to see beyond herself. She was able to recognize that her husband was “in the grip of ...a profound and far more troubling meltdown that comes not in childhood but in midlife, when we perceive that our personal trajectory is no longer arcing reliably upward as it once did,” that “his new endeavor hadn’t been going so well, and his ability to be the breadwinner was in rapid decline. He’d been miserable about this, felt useless, was losing himself emotionally and letting himself go physically.”
It wasn’t about her or the children and she refused to play her scripted part. She refused to participate in this all too common and destructive scenario.
Instead, like the woman whose husband comes home snarling at the end of a hard day at the office, she patiently and quietly repeated, “I don’t buy it.”
And then she waited. For four long months where each day must have seemed like an eternity. For four long months where she was a single mom. She waited while he didn’t come home for dinner and missed important family occasions. She kept her mouth shut (she deserves a medal for this alone) and she waited.
In the end, her husband came back. Slowly, gradually, not in a dramatic moment of realization, not in a grand epiphany.
She recognized his return in the little things -- in mowing the lawn, in fixing a door, in speaking of the future.
He is one lucky man, to have a wife who wouldn’t allow him to throw away his family, to denounce the past 20 years, to allow mid-life confusion and discouragement to destroy his life.
And she is one wise and tough woman, to have the courage of her convictions and the patience to wait him out. With just an iota of her selflessness and self-control we would all have dramatically better marriages.
(35) Anonymous , November 21, 2009
my ex husband is not coming back
he is not coming back, 18 yrs he has not been talking to me for each three months, but me forcing him to tlak to me following him around the houes to talk to me, but the more i do that the more he lost his love to me and now we are heading for pending divorce. He said he will get counseling but he plan not to come back home and fiel for divorce. he lost money each year around 20,000 and he is very stubborn, you have to follow his rules or else he will be quiet and here i am wanted him to talk to me. I don't knwo why i still love him. I know the strategy you did is very effective, but i never learn.
(34) SingleDad , November 16, 2009
When a man loves a woman... what does he do when it doesn't work?
Well, in my situation, I worked in a very high stress career, and it definitely took it's toll on my wife. When I realized, what it was doing to my marriage, I chose wife and family over money. We relocated to an area where the cost of living was low, but standard of living very high. But it was a little to late. The wife decided to do her own thing, made new friends, partied, doing anything and everything outside the home, away from family and children. In my case it was not 4 months that I waited, but a very long and miserable 3 years. Even going through the divorce I still had hope that she would come back and never did, and the divorce ended up going through. Today, I have no regrets, I've always done my best for the children, I've always brought home the bacon, cooked, cleaned, nurtured, look after and care for teh children. Well at least, there is one less person that I have to worry about and clean up after. So remember the road goes both ways but most of the time, most of the traffic is on the other side...
(33) Anonymous , September 13, 2009
What about if you are married to a husband that never listens to you? What about a man who doesn't treat you like a woman? How about being married for 5 years and never once having sex??? Then can the woman leave the man? Do you think that if a woman left a man that he would have the same response and wait around? No way! He would find another woman in a heartbeat.
(32) Hadassah , September 6, 2009
Some of us wives not given that choice
I had been with my husband 20 years when one day, out of the blue, he gave me a letter and left the house all day. The letter said he wanted to leave us. Needless to say, it was devastating. He had never let on that he was unhappy. Didn't lose his job. I cried and tried to tell him that I would do whatever it took to stay together for us, our marriage, and our kids. I still loved him and was blown away by all this. He got angry and still left. His unilateral decision was the most hurtful thing to ever experience. I almost didn't make it. Then while we were going through the divorce, which I didn't want, I found out he was always with my best friend, who left her husband at the same time. Of the five children involved (her three and my two), four have had to see therapists. As soon as the divorce was final, he announced their engagement. And three months later, they were married. It's been one year since then, and 4.5 years since he destroyed our family. Clearly I know now that he had to been having an affair with her, but he has never admitted it to me, our children, our the community. I feel that I could never trust anyone again. And I was also cheated out of all the joint assets, and the month before he left, he tricked me into co-signing a refinance of our mortgage, and walked away with a huge cash-out. There are several sins that he committed that are completely unforgivable. How can one "move on" when there is no closure? When he doesn't even admit to what he did? I feel also that it is quite likely that the husband in the article must have had an affair. The lawyers and other researchers have found that the vast majority of men who do this sort of thing are having an affair. My silver lining is that I do not have to live with my ex-husband's temper and verbal abuse anymore.
(31) Anonymous , August 31, 2009
My wife held our marraige together, too
My wife directed me to this article on Aish. You see, I too, did the unspeakable, and my wife didn't throw in the towel. I must say, it was the most harrowing years of my life, and now we are slowly rebuilding. I feel that she believed and believes in me to be able to come back and be myself. Yes, mid-life shattered dreams are very potent and they make even good people do terrible, unforgiving actions. Thank you, darling, for not giving up on me.....