If you were to ask a separated wife who was living without her husband if she wanted him back even if he didn't 100% want to be there, many separated wives would say that yes, she would want him back however she could get him. However, if you are a wife who knows that your husband doesn't want to be with you, but he feels too guilty or obligated to leave, then you might feel differently.
You might hear a wife say: "my husband has all but told me that he is no longer in love with me and that he is no longer invested in our marriage. He doesn't engage with me in any way. He comes home, eats dinner in the living room, doesn't say two words to me, and then watches TV until bedtime. I try to talk to him, but he pretty much ignores me. The other day, I told him it was obvious that he had no investment in our marriage anymore. I told him I wanted to know what he was going to do about this. He said that he wasn't going to do anything about it, although he didn't deny that he wasn't invested. I asked him why he was doing nothing and his response to me was: 'I can't leave you.' He says that he would feel too guilty to leave me on my own. He says that he knows that I would struggle. His dad left the family when he was a boy and he knows the pain of living in a house with no main income and no father figure. So he insists that he will not leave. But he also admits that, in a perfect world, he would not stay. Where does this leave me? I mean, I suppose there is some comfort in knowing that he isn't going to leave immediately. But what sort of victory is it when I know that he would rather be anywhere else? He doesn't want to be with me. But he has too strong a conscience to leave."
I understand why this is so upsetting. Whether he leaves or not, it still feels like a rejection when you know that he would want to leave if the situation were different. And regardless of what the future holds, it hurts to know that your spouse isn't present in your marriage anymore. Plus, who knows if one day he will change his mind and decide that leaving isn't so impossible after all?
Use The Time That You Have: With all of this said, though, I do want to stress that you have an advantage here that you may not realize. Yes, it stinks to only have him home because of his conscience. But he is home. This gives you something to work with. I can tell you from experience that when your husband isn't living with you, it's very tricky to save your marriage. (We actually separated. More on that here.) It is a little easier when he is still at home - because at least you have access to him, even if he's not exactly attentive.
Believe That Things Can Change: The key here is to change the dynamic. Yes, he is not happy right now. And admittedly, he is not invested. But, quite frankly, if you can figure out what has contributed to his drift and to his unhappiness and then you can fix it, you might have a husband who is one day committed and invested again.
I am not going to tell you that this process is easy. But I know that this process is possible. I've done it myself. You have to be careful with your pace. Because you don't want for it to appear that every effort and change you make is only for his benefit and is only temporary. You want everything that you do to appear absolutely real and completely genuine.
But, on the plus side, you have time. He has said that he isn't leaving any time soon, and this isn't always the case for everyone. Many wives are working against an almost impossible time frame, which causes them to try desperate things that don't often work.
Work Through This Methodically: You have the luxury of time. I know that it may not seem like a huge advantage now, but it is. Write down the possible things that have soured your marriage (especially from his perspective) and rank them. Then, ask yourself what you could do to make them better. It may be unrealistic to think that you can completely eradicate them in a short period of time, but even small gestures can make things significantly better. If you tackle them one by one, eventually, they will all be gone.
And gradual improvement that comes over time is real. It gives your husband something to believe in. Keep at this very methodically with each item on your list. At the very least, the situation should gradually improve. And before you know it, you might find that you have a husband who is staying because he very much wants to, and not because he feels that he has to.
I understand that this process might seem daunting. But what is really daunting is not having hope that things will change. Things can change. It takes work and continuous effort. But it is worth it. I know this first hand because I changed my marriage from the ground up during my separation. In short, it was my own determination that saved my marriage. If it helps, you're welcome to read more about how I handled this on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com
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