Any good salesperson will tell you that “no” just means “not now.” By reacting in a good way, when your spouse says he or she wants a divorce or is done, you can still save your marriage.

Saving Your Marriage

Today, I’m going to help you know how to respond to this type of marriage crisis in a way that prevents conflict and builds emotional connection.

Understanding Spouse’s Feelings and Intentions

A lot of people think what their spouse says is a good indicator of whether their marriage can be saved. It is not. It’s just an indication of their current feelings.

Also, what your spouse says he or she is going to do is just an indication of current intentions. For most people, their current feelings and intentions have little to do with what actually happens, especially when it comes to making big changes. Saying, I’m going to drink a bottle of water is far more likely to lead to action than saying, I’m going to give up drinking coffee and drink water instead.

(Did you know you could also watch this on YouTube?)

Most people take action throughout their lives based on intentions and feelings for small actions, but never actually accomplish the big ones, no matter how much they intend to do these things. For this reason, how sincerely your spouse says he or she will always be faithful, will always include you in financial decisions, will never shout at you again, will change in ways you want, or will divorce you has little to do with what actually happens.

Women tend to be more susceptible to influence by the sincerity of their husband’s words.

This is because women are more influenced by words and are better able to empathize. They can hear how sincere their husband is. Men often disregard words, no matter how sincerely their wives say something, until their wives are taking action.

In the course of a troubled marriage, many people say lots of things they absolutely meant at the moment, but later changed their minds about. That doesn’t mean that they were insincere or lied when they said they were going to do something. I can tell you that I’m hungry right now and intend to eat lunch, and then this afternoon I can tell you I’m not hungry.

This is natural. People are not hungry all the time. Neither are they in love all the time. Your spouse could feel honestly in love with you last night, but not this morning. Emotional connection is like food, how hungry you are for it depends on how long ago you last had it.

The Importance of Perceived Value

Did you know that how you behave when your spouse says these things, as well as how valuable of a spouse you are, is going to have a significant influence on what your spouse actually does?

This is true even if they are dead sure about what they want at the moment. When it comes to action, a husband or wife is not about to divorce if they believe their spouse to be very valuable, and if they believe they will no longer have access to their spouse after divorce.

That is how you stop a divorce.

No one wants to lose someone they value and will only do so if they have to in order to keep someone or something else they value even more. This is an important key to affair prevention, ending a spouse’s affair, preventing separation and preventing divorce.

You must increase your perceived value over time. It can’t be done in a moment.

Building Emotional Connection

Building emotional connection and trust take time. So whenever possible, don’t try to change your husband’s or wife’s mind in the moment. That leads to conflict, which reduces connection and will make you even less valuable. Instead, lead them to new feelings over time. That is what actually changes people’s feelings.

Their feelings change, then their thinking changes. This is the order of things when it comes to marriage reconciliation. A little emotional connection and validation will do what hours of logical reasoning and arguing won’t, and that is make you more enjoyable to be with.

“But you don’t know my husband,” you say.

“Once he says something, he never changes his mind.” Oh, really? What about the time he said he would always love you and those other promises he made on your wedding day? Was he just kidding? Don’t be the naive person who thinks that if someone says they’re being honest, they’re actually being honest.

Or if they say they’re not going to change their mind, that they can’t change their mind. Your husband’s or wife’s promise at one point was to love and cherish you, and now it is to divorce and dump you. He or she has changed. If your spouse is a person who never changes his mind, then he wouldn’t be divorcing you.

The Reality of Change in Relationships

Now, one constant in life is change, and what we do influences the change that happens, particularly in our personal relationships. The fact is that even the most adamant person will change their mind under the right circumstances.

Given the right circumstances, people will move to the other side of the world, join a cult, become friends with their sworn enemy, or even reconcile with their spouse. I’m sure there are some things you’ve done in your life that if someone had asked you at an earlier date, you would’ve said that you would never do. Most people who have affairs said at one time, they never would.

But because of the right circumstances, many people have come to do these things and a whole lot more.

When we are talking about your spouse reconciling with you, it’s not a naturally repulsive thing for your spouse to do. If it were, your spouse would never have been with you in the first place.

Your spouse has come to a place of low desire, low connection, and low commitment through long experience and repeated frustrations.

This lack of desire for you was learned from your lessons and taught by your behavior. Given the right lessons from your improved behavior, your spouse can learn to value you again. He or she has to if you’re going to save your marriage and reconcile.

If you are already a really good spouse and your husband or wife wants divorce, then he or she has learned it is possible to do that and still keep you.

You have taught your spouse that through lack of good marriage boundaries. It’s not too late to start using them and help your spouse to learn that divorce means losing you.

But that’s only if you are already valuable. If not, you have to work on that first.

My job as a reconciliation coach is helping people to make the changes that make them more desirable, enjoyable, and secure.

That combination can save any marriage provided you can also be better than the competition. People always want the best they can get, and that is going to vary from spouse to spouse. Some people will need to work hard to beat the competition, while others don’t need to do much. The more you need to do, the more help you will need doing it.

Starting the Reconciliation Process

How do you get started saving a marriage with a spouse who wants to divorce? You don’t do that by going out on dates or having sex with your spouse, because your spouse won’t want that either. You can’t start to emotionally reconnect by persuading someone to do what they don’t want to do, or by giving them what they don’t want to have.

If you do these things, you’ll just get rejected and your relationship will become even more distant. Go down this path to the point of no contact and it will be done, and I won’t be able to help you either. No contact means no marriage left to save. It doesn’t need to be this way.

The place to start for any goal is from where you are, following the steps to where you want to be.

That’s the only way I can help my clients to reconcile. We must see where their relationship is on day one and help their spouse to have a better experience at that level so that they can go on to another step, and another step. The more damaged the marriage, the more steps there are. It’s the same path. You just have to start more towards the beginning of it.

Effective Communication Strategies

Just how can you start to reconcile with your spouse? You could argue with your spouse hoping to convince him or her that he or she is wrong in the way that they think, in the way that they feel or desire. It’s a common approach that never works. It’s simply not possible to argue your way to reconciling, preventing separation or stopping divorce.

And while we’re at it, I want to say that there is no such thing as healthy arguing. If you want to have healthy relationships, learn how to never argue again. My book, Connecting through “Yes!” can help you with that.

Even if you are not arguing, hopefully you won’t keep trying to persuade your spouse to reconcile or work with you. The longer you do that, the more distance you will create. Some people continue this approach right up until the time they’re separated and having no contact. If you want to try it once, it’s worth a shot. If you keep trying, then you aren’t paying attention.

Do not continue on the wrong path.

If you are getting scratched up from the brambles and pricker bushes, you are on the wrong path if that is happening. Conflict is not a sign of improvement. Either find a better way or stop what you are doing until you do. No action is better than a bad action. Of course, a much better action is to find a better path.

Figure out what is right or understandable about your spouse’s plan or feelings. And give a well thought out empathy message.

This is something many of my clients do after our first session.

That helps things to start going better before their second session, even if their marriage has been bad for months. For sure such a message will in no way change your spouse’s mind, but it will be much easier to work on the little steps that will get your spouse to that point.

Practically speaking, this means that you will connect with empathy and agreement working cooperatively, and not reluctantly to do what your spouse wants, without being needy or playing the victim. Your spouse will never feel so sorry for you that she will change her mind and just stay to take care of you.

Behaving like a victim is a very unattractive role. No man or a woman is going to be desiring to stay with a person who does that.

Here’s a simplified example of what connecting with empathy and agreement might sound like.

Wife says: “I want a divorce. I’m not in love with you anymore, and I have no interest in working on our marriage, I’m done.”

The husband responds: “I really can’t blame you. In fact, our marriage hasn’t been very good for me either. I don’t see the point of either of us continuing in this roommate style marriage.”

The husband here is both agreeing and empathizing.

Some people will be shocked at my idea of responding that way. After all, I’m a Christian and God hates divorce. Well, the reason to empathize this way is that it starts the process of rebuilding. It making divorce less likely.

A convincing or argumentative approach is what actually leads to divorce.

So yes, I’m a Christian, and yes, I want people to reconcile and have loving relationships. That is why I am against arguing and convincing, which dead ends the relationship.

Steps to Rebuild Trust

Following the empathetic message, the next steps to reconciling with a rejecting spouse involve stopping all pursuit behaviors while being relaxed and friendly. Done well and consistently. This will take you another step.

The step after that is small talk. The step after that is talking about common interests, and so on. Relationships, just like everything else, are built and rebuilt step-by-step.

The biggest difference between initially building a relationship as a single person, and rebuilding a marriage as a married person, isn’t the steps you follow. It’s the speed at which you follow them. Rebuilding is slower because, while trust can be lost quickly, it can only be built slowly.

Conclusion and Resources

I’ve given you the first couple of steps. If you do them well, they will get you started, and if you are not in a hurry, you may be able to keep going down that path on your own.

If you have a hard time starting or knowing what the next step is, then you’ll find my Re-Connections Coaching Package to be helpful. It will take the mystery out of what to do next, and you’ll get to practice with me before doing something with your spouse.

For further study: Gender Differences in the Use of Message Cues and Judgments. Meyers-Levy & Sternthal, Journal of Marketing Research, 28(1), 1991.