Sometimes I hear from wives who feel they have the almost impossible task of saving their marriage all on their own because they are the only ones who believe saving the marriage is worth the effort. Your husband has told you that he is not happy and that he is considering a divorce, or that he has moved away to seek a separation. Either way, she’s been pretty clear about the fact that she doesn’t currently hold her marriage in high regard. He may use adjectives like “broken,” “damaged,” or “struggling” to describe the marriage, while he himself is distant and cold. These wives know that they have much more than an uphill battle. But the first logical step seems to be to make him receptive to the fact that saving the marriage is possible. And in the end it will also be worth it. Figuring out how to do this can be a challenge.
A wife might say, “My husband isn’t that interested in talking to me, let alone saving our marriage. We are technically separated, at his insistence. The great irony is that even he admits I haven’t done anything.” wrong. He says that we just drifted apart and that he doesn’t feel close to me anymore. As a result, he doesn’t want to live his life without the love and excitement that he believes he deserves. “I’ve asked him not to rush into his thought process, but I don’t know if I’m getting to him. He thinks it will be a waste of time. I get the impression he sees our marriage as something that just needs to be snapped out of his mind.” misery. I don’t agree with this assessment at all. I know we have a long way to go to restore our marriage, but I think if we both put in the effort, we could honestly make it work eventually. I just don’t know how to get it when he resists So much to me. How do you convince your husband that your marriage is really worth saving?”
I agree with you that this can be extremely complicated. I myself performed this task both before and during my separation. Since my separation did not end as quickly as I wanted, I must admit that I was not immediately successful in convincing my husband. In my experience, the more you try to wear your husband down with logic, debate, and pleading, the more he will resist. The more you try to go through with it, the more he can sense your desperation and desire to “discuss” it, and the more he will determine that you will not succeed.
Do not rush to try and prove him wrong: I learned too late that it was better to give as many points as I could to my own husband. At the end of the day, I was much more successful when I was able to side with him instead of trying to impose my own opinion on him. Once I realized and implemented this, he resisted me much less. For example, if I were in his situation, I would immediately agree with my husband that he was correct in his perception that life is too short not to be truly happy in his marriage. That was a mistake I made. I tried to convince my husband that his wishes were unrealistic. I implied that he was selfish in expecting his life to be all sunshine and roses when, in fact, that is not true for most people. It would have been better to tell him that he had every right to want to be happy, and then offer suggestions on how he could be happy with me. And that’s my recommendation to you. The faster you can find something to agree on, the better off you are overall.
Have a plan and then explain it calmly and succinctly: When you have this conversation with your husband, you want to make it clear that you have thought and cared for her a great deal. She wants him to know that she already has a viable plan so she just has to accept it. She examines what her biggest problems are and then decides how she will address those problems. That could be counseling or a change in her lifestyle or behavior. Whatever it is, calmly explain why you think ending your marriage would be bad for both of you (and your family if you have kids), and then explain how you plan to have the happy and fulfilling marriage he wants. Emphasize that he is willing to do whatever it takes, including giving advice if he is willing.
Know when to stop: Assuming your husband gave you his attention the first time around, you don’t need to keep pressing your points, although I know it’s tempting (and frankly that’s exactly what I did). I say this because the more you repeat something, the more likely it is to start ignoring you. You really only need to say it once and then turn your attention to making things better between you, which brings me to my next point.
Try to stay away from a heavy atmosphere: Once you have expressed your opinion and he has listened to you, you need to work on the atmosphere between you. He’s much more likely to consider what you said when you showed him that things can be lighthearted and easy between you. The goal is to create a light-hearted interaction so that he feels comfortable being with you and talking to you on a regular basis. The more you can build the easy closeness, the more likely he is to believe that your marriage is not only worth saving, but can actually be saved.
In my own experience, I found it best to save our most troublesome issues for the end of the process. The reason is that their marriage is too fragile to be torn apart when they separate. Instead, I’ve found it’s best to create an easy, relaxed atmosphere and build on that. The idea is to rebuild the closeness and intimacy first, and then have the tough discussions. This makes her husband literally see that her marriage is worth saving, so he doesn’t really need to make a formal presentation about it over and over again.