Leslie Cane Articles

By: Leslie Cane: Few wives who read this blog think “good riddance” when it comes to their husbands’ unhappiness. Usually, either the husband has left or has hinted that he is getting ready to do so and this breaks the wives’ hearts because they are not yet ready to give up on their marriages.

They still love their husbands very much and their number one goal is to get him to want them, and the marriage, back. I believe that there is most definitely a right way and a wrong way to go about this. In fact, women who go about trying to get their husbands to want them back in the wrong way just make the job much more difficult, if not impossible, in the end. So in the following article, I’ll go over what in my experience is the right way to accomplish this.

Try To See Things From His Perspective: It really doesn’t matter if you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your husband is wrong about you and your marriage. If things have deteriorated this far, he likely believes that his perceptions are 100% accurate and it isn’t likely that you’re going to be able to change this. And often, the more you try to change his mind, the more he is going to be determined not to let you. So, trying to strong-arm him, guilt him, or trick him into wanting you back is often going to backfire in a bad way.

It’s better to try to be calm and ask yourself what is behind his feelings and perceptions. Because, you’ll have more success if you’re playing to a captive audience and are tailoring your message (your sincere message, of course) around what he really wants to hear. For example, a man who is frustrated or stressed is going to respond better to messages of reassurance while a man who is angry and scared is going to respond better to a message that is meant to diffuse his negative emotions.

Here’s a hint. Most men want out because they believe that the intimacy or the spark is gone. Overwhelmingly, it’s not the job or the stress or even someone else. It’s that they feel that you are no longer connecting in a meaningful way and they don’t see or can’t fathom a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Men will often describe to me scenarios where they feel like a roommate to their wife or they play second fiddle to the kids or the job.

Now, I know that your first inclination may be to think that your husband is selfish and immature for expecting to be your first priority at all times. Your thinking most definitely has merit. But often men will think back to how things were in the beginning, before all the stress and obligations, and they will feel quite frustrated that things look and feel so different now. The truth is, when things were good, your husband very much felt like he was on top of the world. A man who is in love feels much better about himself and his competence than at any other time in his life.

But when he perceives that his wife doesn’t have the time or patience for him, he resents this (and feels worse about himself for it), even if he becomes angry with himself for doing so. And suddenly his positive feelings and favorable perceptions begin to get crowded out by doubt and fear – or other negative emotions that will cloud or choke out all that is right with your marriage. I tell you this because I want you to know that even if his perceptions are incorrect, you aren’t likely to change them and you must know what you are dealing with because the truth is, in this case, perception is reality.

Validation First, Changing Perceptions Second: The first thing that you should do, if you haven’t already, is find some common ground. You want to find a place where you can agree with your husband and make some concessions so that he will know that you’re not going to continue to try to change his mind or be combative. This can be as easy as agreeing that the marriage doesn’t feel right or isn’t fulfilling to either of you. Then, you want to make it very clear that you respect both of your rights to be happy and don’t plan to do anything to delay or change this.

It may feel like you are making all the concessions, but this is a very important step because you want to lessen the tension and set the stage for him to be actually listening to you rather than avoiding you. And, you want to get to a place where it doesn’t end in disaster or anger every time you are together. Ultimately, you have to change his perceptions and this must be your first priority.

Changing His Perceptions Of You And The Marriage So That He Wants You Back: First off, you are never going to be able to trick or strong-arm your husband into wanting you back. In the end, he will resent you and this will plague your marriage until it is its undoing. Sure, you may win short term, but long term there will be a very high cost. Your best-case scenario is for him to want you back and to come to that conclusion on his own because of his genuinely changing feelings.

So how do you change his feelings? You give him what he really wants (assuming that you want this too and can be comfortable with it.) You show him that you are still the woman that he first fell in love with. You change your encounters from ones that end badly to ones that keep things light and easy so that he doesn’t want to avoid them in the future.

You want to take a long, hard look at who your husband married and then show him that this woman still exists. Really examine what it was he loved about her – whether that was her easy laugh, her easygoing attitude, the fact that she understood and appreciated him like no one else, or that she was an excellent listener.

No, you may not have his undivided attention right now, so you’ll need to make even small exchanges count, but you can build slowly onto the small gains that you are able to make until eventually, he will wake up and decide that he’s more likely to get what he wants with you than without you. And this will be the day when he decides that he 100% wants you back all on his own.