Let’s go through a thought experiment. Let’s think for a moment that I really want you to read this article, but you are not that much interested in reading it. Me, as someone who wants you to stay and read this article, have very little control over it. But, you as the person, who are just looking for a reason to click away will be the one to make the ultimate decision.
What little power do I, the person who wants you to stay, have here?
The only thing I can do is create the best article possible, give massive value to you and then just hope for the best. That’s the best approach I can take here.
The worst approach would be to just keep telling you to read this article, keep going on and on about what a great article it is without providing any real value and then when it seems like you are going to click away, bombard you with pop ups trying to guilt you into reading it.
This analogy is very similar to what is happening with your wife. You want her to stay and try to make this marriage work. But you have little power over her decision since she wants to leave. Maybe she has already decided to leave and she is just hanging around until logistics are taken care of. Or maybe she has already left and decided to leave the marriage.
Whatever the situation is, you, the husband who wants his wife back, can only do so much to influence her decision. And the things you do to influence her can backfire if you don’t understand what can work in your favor and what can’t. Especially if you are panicking and your instinct is to act out of desperation.
The Healthy Way To Win Your Wife Back
A marriage only works when two people make a commitment to be with each other. But if your wife is thinking of separation or divorce, that important pillar has weakened.
And as such, the only way to make your marriage work again is to let your wife make a choice to be committed to you again.
And again, it needs to be her choice. You can’t make it for her. You can’t convince her, coerce her or guilt trip her into making this choice.
But you can try to understand her, incentivize her and show her what it would be like if she chooses to recommit to you. And here’s how to do that in 7 steps –
- Stop Reacting out of Panic and Show Acceptance
- Understand your wife and Validate Her Feelings
- Give her space to breathe
- Level up as a man and a husband
- Show changes consistently
- Ask her on a date
- Recommit
It’s important to note that during this entire process, you are respecting and prioritizing yourself as much as you are doing your wife. This process is not so much about getting your wife back to the same old marriage that she was dissatisfied in. But about creating a better relationship for both you and your wife. It’s about you accepting the situation you are in, and doing what you need to do to move forward in life, even if it means trying to save your marriage. And if it doesn’t work, this process helps you accept that your marriage is over and move forward in life.
Let’s go over these steps in more detail –
Step 1 – Stop Reacting Out Of Panic and Show Acceptance
The incomprehensible has happened. The person you thought would be with you for the rest of your life has decided to leave. And as a result, your mind panics. Heck, it feels like every cell in your body is panicking. For many men, they find it hard to eat, hard to sleep and they cry at the slightest reminder of how gloomy their life would be without their wives.
As a result of this emotional state, we react to the situation instead of responding to it. A reaction is highly emotional while a response is something that’s well thought out.
Here’s some common ways men tend to react out of panic and desperation –
Mistake #1 – Being Dismissive
Not really seeing her problems as a big deal. Trying to minimize the impact the issues in the relationship has had on her. Thinking that just reminding her of the good times will balance out the negative and make her consider coming back.
In truth, your mind is just not willing to accept that this is really the truth. And as a result, you are being dismissive of the entire situation and your wife’s feelings.
This, in reality, makes her feel unheard and ignored. It confirms her feelings that she could not feel connected to you and that you don’t understand her.
Mistake #2 – Reasons That Seem Like Excuses
You may actually have very valid reasons for the things that went wrong in the relationship. You had to spend the weekend playing video games because you busted your ass all week trying to get that raise. You couldn’t make it to your son’s soccer game because you had an important work meeting.
But the truth is, those reasons aren’t going to make her change her mind when she is not committed to making it work. They are just going to look like excuses. Every valid reason you give will give rise to another reason for her to leave. If you couldn’t make it to the game, why didn’t you make it up with your son over the weekend?
These are things you should talk about when you are working as a team to come to a solution. Right now, she is thinking about leaving the team.
Mistake #3 – Convincing her with logic
The kids will suffer, we will have to sell the house, our parents will be devastated. All these are very logical reasons to try to make the marriage work. But the fact is, she has already thought about it. And she still made a decision to leave. You can be sure it wasn’t easy for her to come to this decision. So reminding her of these things will just remind her why she made that decision in the first place.
Her decision is emotional and it will always trump any logic you throw at it.
Mistake #4 – Showering her with affection
Telling her you love her unconditionally makes sense. Sure, your love is pure and good and the best thing that this world has to offer. But remember, every time you tell her that you love her, she will feel a pressure to say it back. And in her mind, she is going to remind herself why she doesn’t love you anymore.
Every time you show affection in a desperate way, it makes her feel pressured and repulsed because she can sense that desperation.
Mistake #5 – Putting yourself down
Lastly, you take all the blame, swallow in misery and put yourself down for being a terrible person.
This is not the same as acknowledging your mistakes and leveling up as a man. It’s letting your mistakes and shortcomings define you as a man. When you swallow in misery and put yourself down, she may feel pity for you, but she won’t see you as someone she can look up to lead this relationship. She needs strength and confidence, not misery and self-pity.
Mistake #6 – Begging and Pleading
This may have been your last resort or your first line of defence, but a lot of people when reacting to the news of their wives leaving them, end up begging or pleading with their wives to stay. But the fact is, the decision was hard for her to make and when she has made that decision, she is prepared to go through your begging and pleading. The only thing it does is make you look needy and desperate. And even if it works momentarily, she won’t have the respect and admiration she needs to make it work long term. In other words, she would always feel she was manipulated or guilt tripped into staying and that will fester over time and lead to another separation later on.
What if I’ve already reacted this way?
It’s very common to have made these mistakes and a lot of men recover from it once they realize how it works against them and stop. So if you have made these mistakes, it’s important that you realize these type of reactions will only push her away and stop right now.
What should I do instead?
The best way to handle this situation is to show acceptance and courage. Accept that your marriage has reached this point and the only way forward is through it. You may end up in a divorce or you both may come back stronger. Whatever happens, you are prepared to face it. With your head held high and heart in the right place. The rest of the steps will teach you how.
Step 2 – Understand your wife and Validate your Wife’s feelings
This is your first step towards acceptance, taking responsibility for whatever happened and becoming a better husband. It’s to truly listen to your wife and acknowledge whatever she is feeling. This makes her feel validated and heard. As a result, she feels like you truly care about her as a person and not just getting her to stay.
The difference between caring about her as a person vs caring about her to stay is that the former is about her and the latter is about you.
When you care about keeping her in the marriage, you see her need to leave and see it as a threat. As a result, you try to attack that need and she tries to defend it.
When you care about her, you acknowledge that she feels the need to leave this marriage and you see that need, and you are trying to understand it. As a result, she feels comfortable with opening up more and exploring this need with you.
How do you acknowledge her and make her feel heard?
Here are a few tips –
Listen Intently – Whenever she shares how she feels, listen carefully. Every feeling she shares is information gold for you. Ask her why she felt that way. What you could have done differently.
Don’t attack her, try to prove her wrong or win the argument. Instead, listen as if she is telling you the most important thing you ever needed to hear. Because quite frankly, it may just be that.
Acknowledge and Repeat what she said back to her – “I can see how I disrespected you in front of our friends by ignoring your needs.” Doing so makes her feel heard, gives her time to process what she said and expand on it more if she needs to.
Apologize when appropriate – Apologies don’t mean much if they are thrown around all the time. Only do it when you truly feel you did something wrong. A genuine apology should not be followed up with a demand for her to stay in the marriage. An apology should always be without any condition or it loses it’s meaning.
There are layers to her need to leave this marriage
Every conversation you have with your wife should be seen as an opportunity to understand her more. Remember, whatever she said to you initially may just have been what she was feeling on the surface. But a marriage is a complicated social contract with many things that make it work. As such, there are many factors that lead to the decision to separate. So anytime your wife shares something, listen carefully as you may learn something new about what made her stop being in love with you. Be patient as not everything reveals itself immediately. This takes time, understanding, patience and consistency.
Step 3 – Give her room to breathe
This part is a bit difficult because if you are panicking, you would want to get your wife back as soon as possible. But the fact is, it’s going to take time. And the more space you give her, the more you are showing her that you are letting her feel things for you.
For guys trying to get their wives back, here’s what I recommend –
- If she reaches out, talk to her. Always be cordial and listen. See Step 2.
- If she doesn’t reach out, don’t reach out for 3-5 days.
- If she stays with you, give her space, treat her cordially.
- If she has asked for no contact, then respect it for at least 30 days.
What space does –
Absence makes the heart grow fonder. As time goes by and she is allowed to process everything, she is going to stop giving so much weightage to the negative things about the relationship and start remembering the positives. In psychology, this is because of something called the “Fading effect bias”.
But that doesn’t mean she will forget things or choose to come back. It just means that she will be more open to the idea of a resurrected marriage because she wouldn’t see those negatives as a complete deal breaker.
Space also gives you, the husband, time to regroup, take care of your mental health, take action to fix your mistakes, take action to fix your issues and level up as a man.
So every time she speaks to you, you can show her those changes and create positive memories together.
This is why it’s paramount that you use this space strategically to build yourself up, heal from the pain of this separation, and become a confidant and happy man.
Step 4 – Heal and Level up as a man and a husband
The key here is to level up as a man before you level up as her husband. For that, you need to take a hard look inside yourself and ask yourself what type of man you want to be.
Do you want to be someone who can be a leader?
Do you want to be someone who takes care of his health? Someone who is healthy enough to run around with his grandchildren and play in the park?
Do you want to be with someone who has a strong social circle? Someone who has good trustworthy friends?
Do you want to be someone who is financially stable and disciplined?
If so, then it’s time to start working on all those things. And then, ask yourself deeper questions about how you can be a better husband?
Can you be a better listener? Can you improve your communication skills?
Do you need to face your childhood issues/trauma to fix the root cause of any anger issues you may have?
If you were insecure or controlling in your relationship, what caused you to be like that and how could you change that?
If you cheated, what caused you to seek external validation when you loved your wife so much?
All these are difficult questions to answer and may need a lot of work. For a lot of men, getting therapy can be a great starting point to work on these issues. Coincidentally, getting therapy also shows your wife that you are serious about change, that you have accepted the situation and as a result, she may start considering coming back.
Step 5 – Show changes consistently
As you and your wife continue to interact, she will notice these changes in you. The key is to be consistent and to not put any pressure on her to reconsider.
In most cases, this phase lasts for many months. Sometimes up to a year. During this time, you treat your wife with respect and kindness. And you stay very patient with her.
But at the same time, you keep working on yourself and leveling up as a man. Your relationship with yourself improves, your wife processes everything and starts thinking clearly, your wife starts seeing changes in you and eventually you both start thinking about getting back together.
Step 6 – Ask her out on a date
The key to getting your wife back after a period of separation is to ask her on a date instead of asking her to come back. A date implies that you respect her decision to leave. That you are not asking her to come back or trying to convince her. Instead, you are asking her out the same way you asked her out when you both just met.
A date signals a new relationship. Or in this case, a reconciled new relationship.
The important thing is to only do it after enough time has passed and you have done all of the above steps. Here’s a simple template you can use to ask her out –
“Hey, do you want to go out for coffee with me tomorrow? I know we are separated and you don’t owe me anything, but I just thought it would be nice to catch up, just the both of us.”
You don’t have to explicitly mention that it’s a date. But if she asks, then don’t be afraid to call it a date. If she wants to know in detail, then you can say something like,
“I still think you are amazing and I would like for us to see if something is still there. I don’t want you to feel pressured into coming back so don’t think of it as us restarting our marriage. But maybe just think of it as both of us casually seeing each other with no obligation or responsibility.”
Step 7 – Recommit
As you both start spending a lot of time together, going on dates and maybe even getting intimate with each other, then it’s time to talk about recommitting.
For most couples, they talk about the issues that led them apart in the first place. This includes talks about resentment, grudges, trust issues, fights that happened etc.
And the best thing you can do during this time is be as honest as possible. Remember, you are both starting a new relationship and the best thing you can do is start this relationship on the foundation of honesty, communication and trust.
Everything else will automatically come later. When she sees you are being genuinely honest, that you have actually made a lot of positive changes in yourself, that you are the man who she always wanted you to be, then she will want to commit to you.
And if needed, this is the time you can propose couples counseling if you feel it will benefit you both.
What To Do Now?
If you’ve read so far, then you have a good idea how to approach this separation and maximize your chances of getting your wife back. If you want more support, then I recommend you subscribe to my emails by taking this quiz.
