How to Rebuild a Relationship with Your Wife: Small Steps

Are you becoming discouraged attempting to rebuild your relationship with your wife? How would it make you feel if you could start to make little improvements? You can do that this week, and I will tell you how.

Understanding the Emotional Distance in Your Marriage

By the time clients work with me, they are typically discouraged about their relationship. Their wives have said things like:

• “I love you, but I’m not in love with you.”
• “You will always be my friend, but I want a divorce.”
• Or worse yet, “I am done.”

Typically, they heard their wives say those things anywhere from two weeks prior to one year, with the average being about two months. Before coming to me, they have typically tried a few different approaches:

• Trying to convince their wives to give them another chance
• Working on being very helpful
• Expressing a lot of love and affection toward their wives
• Going no-contact
• Arguing

Why These Common Relationship Fixes Fail

These strategies often backfire when your wife is not in love and wants out. They are the opposite of what she wants, except perhaps for the no-contact and arguing, which actually make her feel better about leaving you. Going no-contact will only make someone miss you if they already have strong positive feelings toward you.

Do you miss anyone from your past that you had a bad relationship with?

Arguing just confirms to her that the two of you are too different for your relationship to work. While you can build connection with agreement, you will never do it with arguing—even if you call it debating or discussion. No matter what you call it, invalidation is invalidation and does not build relationships.

Timing Matters for Marriage Counseling or Loving Gestures

What about trying to get her to go to marriage counseling, being very helpful, or expressing a lot of love and affection toward her? Why do these good behaviors result in rejection? They are positive actions when done at the right time—when your wife wants those things from you.

For most of my clients, the right time to do those things would have been at least two years earlier, before their wives shifted from working on the marriage to preparing to leave it.

How to Reconnect with Your Wife and Restore Trust

Does that mean your marriage is hopeless? By no means! If you want to rebuild your marriage, you need to shift from:

• Persuading her to do what she does not want to do
• Giving her what she does not want to receive
• Expressing feelings for her that she does not feel for you
• Trying to show her how her feelings, behaviors, or thinking are wrong

The right time to do any of those things is never if you want to build your relationship. Imagine if you were single and interested in a woman. Would you think it was a good idea to try to persuade her to do things she didn’t want to do? Or to make her feel wrong about her thoughts and feelings? Some guys think you should tell women you love them even if they don’t feel that way about you, but that won’t work.

When we express feelings that are different from someone else’s—even if they are positive—it invalidates the other person’s feelings and creates distance. If you want to tell a woman you love her, wait until she feels that way about you. When you say “I love you” at that time, you will match her, validate her feelings, and make your relationship closer.

Communication Tip: Ask the Right Question

The first thing you should ask yourself whenever you say something to your wife is:

“Is this something she will like to hear?”

This means you not only have to have the right message, but you also need to say it in the right way and at a time when she would like to hear it. Otherwise, don’t say it—not if you want to build your relationship with her.

When to Initiate Activities in a Failing Marriage

The same is true for initiating activities with her, whether it is going for a walk or having sex. Ask yourself first:

“Is this something she would like to do?”

Don’t ask yourself if it is something she would be willing to do. Willingness without desire means it is work. The more you make a woman work at an activity, the less she will want to do it. Many men end up in sexless marriages by either having sex more often than their wives desire or by pressuring their wives to have it. Either way makes sex a job rather than a pleasure. Not only will she eventually stop having sex under those conditions, but her loving feelings will stop as well.

Anyone who makes a relationship feel like a job will become someone we lose any desire to be with.

Progress Starts by Meeting Her Where She Is

How do you make progress in your relationship when your wife doesn’t want to hear what you want to say? How do you make progress when your wife doesn’t want to do what you want to do? First, you need to stop seeing her as she used to be and start seeing her as she is right now.

She used to be in love with you. She is not now. She used to want to have sex with you. She doesn’t now. So, you don’t start there.

You must always start at the emotional level where the other person is to build your relationship.

It’s just like going for a walk. You can’t walk together if you are far ahead. You have to go to where the other person is, and then you can walk together. The open expression of feelings only builds relationships when it matches how the other person feels. The same is true for the open expression of ideas. Honesty doesn’t mean saying everything on your mind—it means being honest with what you do say.

A Success Story: How Charlie Rebuilt His Marriage

Let’s consider an example of a man I will call Charlie. Charlie was a nice guy who spent years of his life providing for his wife and family, only to hear his wife say one day that she was not in love with him. She said she appreciated him and that they would always be friends, but she wanted to separate.

Charlie initially begged and pleaded with his wife and had many long discussions, which never moved his wife an inch in his direction. In fact, he seemed to be losing ground as his wife became colder and more businesslike. She was starting to actively avoid him when he signed up for coaching with me.

Key Coaching Steps to Save a Marriage

I helped Charlie to see the reason he wasn’t having success was because he was now emotionally way ahead of his wife. His wife appreciated him and valued their friendship but didn’t want to encourage his feelings of love because she didn’t have them.

I told Charlie that, just like in a new relationship, the fact that his wife did not have those feelings for him now was no different than her not having those feelings when they first met. He had to work his way to those feelings at that time, and he needed to do that now. He had to help his wife see him as more similar rather than more different.

Small Actions to Restore Love

I had Charlie do several things:

• Agree with his wife that their relationship was not close anymore
• Treat her in a friendly way without pursuit behaviors
• Be more relaxed with her
• Interact with her less
• Sincerely agree with her whenever she said anything (without any rebuttal)

These were all actions Charlie agreed his wife was likely to like. They were also small, positive changes that would not make her feel pursued. That was important to reduce any fear that his wife might have of giving Charlie false hope about reconciling.

Building Trust Through Consistency

Although Charlie needed help doing these initial skills better, when he did do them, his wife gradually became less rejecting. That showed us we were on the right track, but his wife didn’t fully trust his behavior. I encouraged Charlie to continue the same behaviors.

Charlie, like most men, had to learn these lessons about being consistent the hard way but was encouraged by the partial results he got. As trust was rebuilt, Charlie and his wife started walking together. It became their daily ritual that Charlie used to build more connection.

Key Question: What is the Smallest Step You Can Take?

A helpful question for Charlie was:

“What is the smallest thing that I could do to help my wife enjoy me more?”

If Charlie had a big idea, I told him it was the goal, not the path. He needed stepping stones to that goal.

The Path to Rebuilding Love

In the beginning, when things are at their worst, the steps need to be very small. The idea is to help your wife first feel more comfortable with you, then to enjoy you more, and then to start being attracted to you again. Each stepping stone along that path needs to be small enough that it:

• Seems natural
• Is in her comfort zone
• Isn’t mentioned by her

The last thing you want your wife to be saying to you as you build your relationship is, “Why are you doing that all of a sudden?”

You also want to make sure that you are not wearing out your welcome or making the relationship a job for her by being with her too much. How much is too much? More than she enjoys. In other words, it depends on how close you are.

Any time you get distancing behavior from your wife, you are either:

• Invalidating her
• Not being enjoyable, or
• Having too much contact with her

Conclusion: Build Slowly and Start Where She Is

Going slow, working on having a single mindset, and starting where your wife is emotionally are three keys to avoiding rejection and rebuilding love.

I don’t know if it’s for you, but many people find it helpful to get my Re-Connections Coaching package to help them with these small steps. You can find details on my website at coachjackito.com.