I often receive emails from wives of husbands who have just left (or are about to leave). Some of the most common questions I get asked are: “What are the chances that my husband will return?” “How can I get my husband to go home faster?” “What will I do if he leaves and doesn’t come back?”; and “how can I prevent it from leaving in the first place?”
The answer to these questions depends on the circumstances, but with that said, how you play it while your husband is away or is contemplating leaving will have a huge effect on the results you get. There are things that I see wives doing that almost always push the husband further, and there are things that commonly work. I will discuss both in the next article. But the quick answer is yes, the men are coming back, but the chances of this happening are better if you play it correctly.
Just because it’s gone, this doesn’t mean it will never come back: I can’t tell you how desperate I feel in the emails I receive. I understand this, because I was in the same situation once. But it is important that you do not admit defeat even before you start playing. When I was going through this, I had a girlfriend who one day very honestly told me that I was “the walking wounded man.” He was depressed and exuded a vibe that said he knew I had been beaten up and that I wasn’t worth it. Obviously, this is not attractive to anyone or conducive to luring anyone back.
The point is, don’t let your panic and despair show. If you need to let out these feelings and fears, keep a journal when you are alone. But it’s important that you play a person who wants to save the marriage or the relationship, but who respects and believes in himself enough to know that he will make it and is worthy no matter what.
This is way more attractive than someone who is clingy, needy, floating, or acting quite embarrassing in the hopes that the drama will force him back.
You can’t “make him come back”, but you can help him want to come back: Many women ask me how to “make” or “make their men come home.” The implication of this is wrong in many ways. First, “forcing” someone to do something they really don’t want to do will not produce the lasting results that you want. You don’t want him home because he feels guilty or reluctantly comes back when his heart isn’t really in it.
Under these circumstances, you will revert to this issue in the near future. Instead, you want him to genuinely want to come back with all his heart, fully committed to working with you to fix things once and for all and make sure this doesn’t happen again. So instead of arguing with him, giving him ultimatums, spilling the drama, or playing games, focus on creating positive interactions between the two of you that will help make him want to go home.
Now, I don’t mean that you should degrade yourself or give in to the things that are important to you. What I mean is that you should carefully evaluate the qualities that first attracted your husband to you or the things that you first enjoyed together and focus on those things.
Because often people make mistakes or don’t really understand why the husband has left. They think of it as external, third-party kind of things, like personality clash, stress, money worries, infidelity, etc. What almost always is, instead, is the loss of connection and closeness. Think about it. When your husband is in sync, the problems you face seem small. You will ignore them because you are happy and have your needs met. You want to work with this person because you know that both of you are in this together and are a team.
But, once the connection starts to fade, you’ll start to see yourself as an individual rather than as part of your team. Things you used to ignore or find attractive are suddenly driving you crazy or becoming a deal breaker. So instead of focusing on sorting out fights, fixing money problems, etc., tackle the loss of intimacy first. Now, you will need to address these external things later. I’m not telling you to ignore them indefinitely. But there is no point in putting a Band-Aid on something that hasn’t really healed. If you do, the same old problems will keep popping up and will be harder to fix each time they reoccur.
Get him back faster: The best thing to do when your husband leaves or threatens to do so is to remember to always be aware of your actions. It’s so easy to panic and overreact and these things will only drive you further away. It is fair to say that if he left it is because he sees things in a very negative way at the moment and does not believe that things can change. Simply put, your goal should be to change your perception from negative to positive and to show you through the things that happen that, in fact, things can definitely change.
So you want to behave with dignity and grace. You want to keep a smile on your face and keep your heart open. It is easy to argue or try to make you feel guilty or convince you that you are wrong. But this will not help your cause. It is better to validate it from the beginning. Tell him that he is right, that things are not acceptable right now, and that you both deserve better. Explain that you don’t know how this will end, but the two of you can control how you interact in the next few days. Do you remember the things that first attracted him to you? Now is the time to put them in view. You want to be that confident, happy, competent, and seductive woman you couldn’t live without.
When you see that she is still there and that you can reconnect with her, the rest will gradually fall into place.