What Makes A Separated Husband Want To Reconcile?
By: Leslie Cane: Often when wives are trying to get their separated husbands to come back home one of the biggest questions in their mind is: “what is it going to take?” What I mean by this is that they are looking for those magical set of circumstances that is going to make their husband want to reconcile on his own. Sure, they could try to wear him down or make him feel guilty, but neither of these things are ideal. The real win would be to get him to actually want to reconcile willingly.
To that end, many wives are looking to nudge him toward the things that would make that a reality. A wife might say: “I have only been separated for three weeks, but it feels like forever. I can’t say that my husband and I are on bad terms. We aren’t. And I’m very grateful for that. It’s just that he doesn’t know if he wants to be married anymore. He’s respectful and nice to me, but he’s not sure if he is still in love with me. I am trying to do the right things during the separation. But truthfully, I don’t always know what those things are. What makes a man want to reconcile? And how can I make my husband feel those things?”
I will share with you the things that I think contributed to my husband coming back to me. But I suspect that it would vary depending on the husband, the marriage, and the situation. This is only my opinion. So take what I am about to say with a grain of salt. But, of the men I see willingly return home (and this isn’t as rare as you might think here are the things that they seem to have in common.
He Misses His Wife And Family: This is probably the biggest indicator that a man might reconcile. And it brings on other improvements. After a while, a separated husband can realize that what he thought was freedom is actually loneliness. It seems as if one day, these men decide that they’ve gotten the space they needed and, quite frankly, it’s no longer all that great. When this happens, they find that they miss a stable and loving home to sink into at the end of the day. They miss seeing the people who are most important to them across the dinner table. When they realize what they are missing, they will often also realize that there were places they could have compromised but didn’t. It is at this point where they are usually more willing to make the compromises that seemed impossible before. You can help to make this happen by not coming on too strongly. Sure, you want to be in contact with your husband, but if he’s asked for space, you want to give it to him. You want to allow him the time to miss you. This takes trust. But if you push, he may end up wanting even more space.
He Sees Progress In The Core Relationship: Sometimes, once your husband starts to miss you, he begins to initiate more contact and more face to face meetings. Since at this point both of you are likely missing one another, this is the point in the separation where real progress can be made. People are more willing to compromise and to try to get to the real issues once and for all so that they can be a family again. They tend to be more brave and forthcoming because now they know what is at stake. You can help this along by being willing to compromise, by being willing to be a little vulnerable, and by being the one who gets the ball rolling – especially at first.
He Remembers What He Loves About His Wife And How She Enhances His Life: As I’ve alluded to before, going through a separation and feeling the loneliness can start to change the way that you see your spouse. You stop focusing on the flaws and you start to get nostalgic and maybe you explore the memories. You remember that your spouse was once the most important person in your life who you thought was pretty perfect. Many times, a husband will start to remember that you were the woman who drove him crazy with love not all that long ago. He may start to see you quite differently and appreciate those things about you that he’d recently forgotten.
You can help this to happen by displaying the best version of yourself. Ask yourself how far away you are from the women he first fell in love with. This was a game changer for me. And I’m not talking about looks necessarily. I’m talking about how you carry yourself, what is important to you, the confidence that you bring, and the way that you make him feel. The last one is vital – the way that you make him feel. Often, before our separations, there is something that makes him feel trapped and unhappy. And then when we separate, we make demands, we worry, we make him feel guilty, and we display our own desperation. Try to remember the earlier version of yourself and ask yourself if she would act this way. Try to portray confidence, playfulness, and a sense of cooperation. Once he sees you as part of your old self, he can act differently toward you. And this too can be an indicator of the first stages of a reconciliation.
I don’t want to imply that any of this was easy or automatic with my separation. It was a long, difficult process. But part of that is that I pushed too hard in the beginning. I didn’t understand how to back up just a little. Once I did, it made a huge difference. You can read the whole story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com
Filed under: Uncategorized by admin
