Recently, I heard from a wife who felt like her marriage was perhaps reaching it's end. The husband was in the early stages of moving out and had told her that within the next couple of weeks, he had planned to file for divorce. The wife couldn't put her finger on any one single thing that caused the break up of her marriage. Rather, she described it as "dying a slow death," and basically described it as the two of them "growing apart" until the distance became too much to bear.
And if she was being honest, she had to admit that she had thought about being the one to leave at times. This separation was not really unexpected. But, now that it was actually happening, she realized how much she didn't want to end her marriage and how much she wanted to get him back. She asked me, in part: "during the course of our growing apart, I've tried many things to grow closer to him and to get the marriage back to a healthy place. Nothing has seemed to work. Sure, things sometimes improved for a little while, but eventually, we would always begin to take each other for granted again and the same patterns continued. I'm trying to think of something new and different to get him back. But, I'm out of ideas. Is there anything that I can do that will bring him back for good? Because now it's very evident to me that I don't want to let him go."
During the course of our conversation, the wife threw out a few strategies that she had been considering. One was attempting to get pregnant without telling her husband. (I felt pretty sure that this was a bad idea on so many levels.) Another strategy that she had considered was hooking up with an old boyfriend (and one of her husband's friends) to make him jealous. Like with the pregnancy idea, I felt that this idea might just make more problems for the wife and for the marriage. However, there are a few things that I have seen work in this situation. I will discuss them in the following article.
If You Want To Get Your Husband Back, You Have To Understand That It's Usually A Gradual Process That Builds Upon Itself:It was very clear that this wife had a lot of ground to make up. It was also very obvious that she was looking for something that was going to work almost immediately. The problem with those types of strategies is that they are only a quick fix. Sure, she could create some drama and maybe trick him into coming back in the short term. But eventually, she was going to be right back to where she was now because this was what always happened. She and her husband had a very distinct pattern and each person was continuing to play his or her parts perfectly.
In order to get her husband back, she was going to need to change these patterns and focus on the long term instead. Because I strongly suspected that her husband wasn't expecting or counting on any real change. He had left and was going to start a divorce because he felt sure that this was the end of the marital road. They had tried different things to improve the marriage, but nothing had changed. The key for the wife right now was to show and not tell him that things were going to change in a way that he finally began to believe it. And, this just takes a bit of time because he's probably going to have some serious doubts early on.
The Things That You Can Do When You Want Your Husband Back Usually Involve Creating New And Positive Perceptions And Realities:If I asked the husband and the wife in this scenario to describe their marriage, I would likely get two very different answers. And, at least in terms of saving the marriage, the husband's perceptions are the ones that matter most (at least right now) because he is the one who wants to end the marriage.
So in order to get him back, you have to chance his negative perceptions about the marriage and about the wife. Her getting pregnant or hooking up with one of his friends was not likely to do this. Instead, she needed to show her husband the positive things about her that caused him to fall in love in the first place. And, she had to show him that she had enough respect for him to make some meaningful changes that were meant to last.
The wife understood this concept, but doubted if she could pull it off. She responded with something like: "I understand what you are saying but I think it's too late for that. He's not listening to or responding to me anymore. So I sort of feel like I have to do something very dramatic to get his attention." The wife's perceptions here were so common. So many wives fall into this same trap when they are trying to save their marriages. But, usually the dramatics are only reinforcing his negative perceptions.
So, you will need to do something to reinforce his positive perceptions. Sometimes, this involves having a conversation where you tell him that you've decided to cooperate and to work with him from this point on because the relationship is too important to you to risk losing it, even if that means the definition of it changes. By doing this, you're likely giving yourself more access to your husband, which you're going to need in the days and weeks ahead.
Make Every Interaction With Your Husband Count, But Don't Over Do It:The wife was going to be in contact with her husband in the coming days. And when she was, it was very important that she only participate in behaviors that changed his perceptions for the better. It's easy to try to over do this and to come on too strong. If you do, you risk the husband suspecting that you have a plan and then trying to thwart it. So, you have to gradually make your move and take little victories as they are given to you.
It's best to make any changes and attempts very gradually and to feel your way to see what's working and what's not and then adjust any strategy accordingly. Always strive to show him the best version of yourself, the one he remembers but thought he might never see again.
How do I know this? Because I've lived it. But, through making a lot of mistakes, research, and trying new things, I decided the best thing to do to get him back was to strike a new course of action. Eventually, (though commitment and lots of effort), I was able to not only save the marriage, but make it stronger (when I was the only one interested.) You can read a very personal story on my blog at /
