Man Buys Full-Page Newspaper Ad Asking Wife To Come Back
I would hope that I would never manage to screw my marriage up so badly that something this desperate would become necessary. Of course, I have to give this guy credit for having the courage and creativity to make his plea in a very public manner. It’s difficult to question someone’s commitment when they put themselves on the line like this.
Of course, if you get to this point, is taking out an ad in a newspaper really going to get you what want?
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — When five dozen roses didn’t work, an estranged husband took out a full-page newspaper advertisement to ask his wife for forgiveness.
“Please believe the words in my letter, they are true and from my heart,” read the ad in Tuesday’s edition of The Florida Times-Union. “I can only hope you will give me the chance to prove my unending love for you. Life without you is empty and meaningless.”
Larry, who declined to give his last name, sent the $17,000 apology to Marianne, his wife of 17 years. She left him almost two weeks ago, he said.
“It was a culmination of things,” he told the newspaper. “But I am desperately trying to save our marriage.”
Larry, who lives in Orlando, said his wife is staying with her parents near Jacksonville. But they blocked him from entering their gated community and she changed her cell phone number so he can’t get in touch with her.
A relative told him that Marianne saw the advertisement.
“She said my wife read the ad and started crying. But so far I’ve had no response from her,” Larry said.
It’s been said, and for this I can vouch from my own experience, that a marriage is seldom destroyed by a sledgehammer blow. No, a marriage is more often than not destroyed after a prolonged period of glancing blows from a rubber mallet, nibbling around the edges. Seventeen years is a long time to give up on. I hope that Larry and his wife will find it within themselves to remember what brought them together in the first place instead on focusing on what forced them apart.
I admire Larry for being willing to fight for his marriage. Susan asked me if I would be willing to do the same sort of thing. Of course, I pray though our marriage would never reach this point, but I wouldn’t want to give this up without a fight. I gave up on my first marriage without so much as a whimper. I was young and numb, and giving up seemed like the only real option. Yes, I do hope that I would put up a fight this time around, but I also hope that I’ll never have to put that theory to a test.
