There are few things as painful and as frustrating in a marriage as when you know your spouse is unhappy and wants to leave. I get a lot of emails asking for advice on this and I've experienced the same thing in my own marriage. This situation is truly a slippery slope. On the one hand, you have the threat of him leaving breathing down your neck but on the other, you suspect that acting desperate or making all sorts of promises only gives your power away and won't truly stick in the end. Many wives fear that once their husbands walk out the door, divorce will be the next logical step and they give up before they even formulate a workable plan.
Don't let your panic allow you to give up before you even give your best effort. There are many things that you can do in this situation, and if you play this correctly, many of them work quite well. You will need to be conscious of what you're projecting and how you are reacting at this time, but if you provide your husband with what he really wants (and he often won't tell you what this is), there's a good chance that you can ultimately fix this problem before it escalates to something else entirely. I'll tell you how to begin in the following article.
Mistakes That You Don't Want To Make Right Now:Fear and desperation are two emotions that can completely cloud your judgment. When you're under their cold, hard grip, everything can seem so finite and immediate. You feel like you have to do something significant RIGHT NOW. It's so common for the plan that you come up with to seem totally logical at the time and so you pull the trigger on it, but then once you've had a bit of distance and time to calm down, you deeply regret taking this dramatic action. Of course, by then, it's too late and you can' t take it back. The damage is already done.
If I could have you remember one thing, it would be to act and react as calmly and as rationally as you can right now. Understand that your husband hasn't left yet and you've not yet started a divorce. Don't dig a deeper hole for yourself by begging, ranting and raving, or reacting with anger or offering ultimatums. These things may temporarily relieve some pressure and allow for you to vent, but ultimately, they only drive him further away and only make him want to leave sooner.
Always try to act in a way that elicits positive (or at least neutral) feelings rather than negative ones. It's the negative feelings that you have to overcome and change right now and you don't want to give yourself even more of these to overcome.
Why You Need To Validate His Feelings And His Right To Have Them:It's human nature to want to win. So, if you make this situation an argument where there is going to be someone who has won and someone who has lost, your husband is of course going to dig in his heals and insist that he's not going to "lose" by letting you change his mind about leaving.
Do not set yourself up for this situation. It's a huge mistake. Instead, you need to find some common ground, but you also need to be sincere about it so that he's not feeling that you're manipulating him. I find that the best thing that you can do is to validate his feelings. Ask him if he'll explain why he feels this way or what contributed to it and repeat back (in your own words) what he's said to see if you're reading him correctly. Not all men will do this for you, but this can be a very powerful tool. It lets him know that you're listening and that you're trying to understand and partner with him toward a solution.
If you can't get him to explain, then just go ahead and concede that you agree that the marriage isn't what it was and is no longer satisfying to either of you. Tell him that he deserves to be happy and that you'd like to try to help him achieve this. He may not believe you at first. He may smell a trap, but that's why you have to keep coming at him with calm validation until he sees that you are serious.
Validation is so important because many people who want to end their relationships (or at least want a break) do so because they don't feel heard, understood, and valued. It's so important to change this perception if you're going to save the marriage.
What He Really Wants From You. What Would Make Him Stay:Many people want to leave because they are at the end of their ropes and no longer have any patience with the situation and no longer believe that things can change. Usually, promises have been made and things have been tried, but both have been unsuccessful and by leaving, the person is hoping to compare life with you and life without you.
Obviously then, you want to create a situation in which things are steadily getting better, changing, and proving them wrong in a non combative way. But again, you can't be obvious or fake about this.
One thing to try is to offer them "space" or "a break" without them having to leave or move out. You may have tried this already, but were you calm, sincere and rational when you offered this up? Once you've laid the foundation and have been acting genuinely like a spouse who wants them to be happy, explain that you could give them some space (and take your own) for a while. Or, you could offer to stay with friends so that both of you could get some distance.
Now, for this to work, you'll actually have to give them what you've promised. And, it's very important that you take the space too. Get out with your friends. Take up the things you've been putting off and show them that you respect yourself enough not to hover. In truth, you're wanting to show them the person that they first fell in love with.
You're showing them an agreeable, non combative, self respecting, accommodating, but strong person who wasn't present before. You're showing them that things can in fact change and weren't what they seemed. Many men will become quite curious about this change in you and will start to come around to determine just what happened. When they do, it's so important that you continue on with this person – who really is you, but the version of you that they fell in love with, before life got in the way.
At that point, you'll need to move very slowly. Your best case scenario is to lay a foundation of positive exchanges and interactions that are light hearted and leave a smile on both of your faces so that you'll want to continue on rather than parting ways all together.
When I was trying to save my own marriage, my husband's mind was made up. He was going forward with moving out and then the divorce. I let him walk out the door and it almost cost me my marriage. This was only one of the many mistakes I made. Thankfully, I realized my tactics were not working and changed course. Eventually, I was able to not only restore my husband's love, but save our marriage. You can read a very personal story on my blog at /
