How to Reconcile When Your Wife Is Angry and Doesn’t Trust You

Despite your best efforts to reconnect with your wife, she just can’t bring herself to trust you again and is frequently angry. Do you need to give up? No, but you do need to help her let go of the anger before you get too frustrated and give up.

Justified or not, feelings are real. They can’t be dismissed or worked around. When your wife says she hates you, can’t trust you, or is behaving that way, it is an honest reflection of her feelings. You need to take her feelings seriously. They are real for her, even if you think her feelings are wrong. You have to deal with her reality.

If you take a logical, analytical approach to convince your wife that you are now trustworthy, you may be able to persuade her temporarily. Unfortunately, although she can understand the merits of what you are saying, she can’t turn her feelings of distrust off. We don’t have conscious control of our emotions, so logic won’t change them.

If your wife is Christian, pointing out that Jesus said if we don’t forgive others we won’t be forgiven by God (Matthew 6:14-15) is not really going to help. Like apologizing, it doesn’t get to the emotional level.

To get anywhere, you are going to have to give up the logical approach and take one that will impact her at the feeling level. This is what we always have to do for relationships. A lot of my clients are analytical and have needed to learn some new skills to reconnect with their wives. Today, I will help you to get started with that.

Let’s begin by understanding her reality a little better, by looking at some underlying motivations that can drive her anger and mistrust.

Reasons why your wife may be saying she hates you or can’t trust you

Motivation 1: Your wife wants to be reassured by you

Your wife wants to be loved by you. And although you may love her very much, she might want to get more reassurance of that than you are giving. People differ on how much reassurance they need to feel secure. Some wives may just “know” that their husbands love them, even if they are never told as much.

Others may need to be told and shown repeatedly. There are a few ways they may seek reassurance. One is to tell you they love you and see if you say it back. That’s a nice one. Or, they may ask you repeatedly if you love them. That can get annoying. And, they can also behave badly to see if you reject them or not.

The reasoning is that if we treat someone badly and they still put up with us, they must love us. This is a built-in type of test that even young children can have. They aren’t even aware that this is why they are doing it. If you ask them why, most likely they will just blame you. So, don’t ask.

The main problem with this kind of testing behavior is that it only provides temporary reassurance. It is like an addiction. The reassurance feels good until the feeling wears off. Then more testing is needed. Reassurance doesn’t permanently remove the itch of insecurity. It just creates an addiction to the scratching.

How can you discern anger from testing? Well, real anger creates distance and a lack of concern. If your wife is constantly checking your whereabouts and hates it when you go out without her, she certainly does not hate you. She is actually afraid of losing you. Otherwise, she wouldn’t need reassurance. So, how can you get her to stop?

How to reconcile with this kind of angry and distrustful wife

For this, you need to have a two-step approach. The first is increasing your display and expression of love when she is not trying to force it from you. The second is to use boundaries, rather than giving reassurance, when she is provoking you to test your love or interrogating you. Essentially, you stop scratching her insecurity itch, which will make her itch more at first, but then gradually decrease.

If you are not supplying reassurance when she is not demanding it or behaving badly, she will feel rejected by you. Then she will behave more aggressively to force reassurance from you. That may have already happened, getting you to where you are now.

My book on overcoming neediness also has help for ending a reassurance addiction in a spouse.

Motivation 2: Your wife is punishing you to satisfy her desire for justice

If you have wronged your wife in some significant way (or she perceives that you have), she may continue to treat you badly long after you started treating her better. It’s as if you need to have a certain amount of suffering for her to let it go. Unfortunately, the penalty can never seem to be enough, no matter how much you have done to change.

This is likely the case if your wife can have a good time with you, and often wants to, but keeps returning to how she can’t trust you or get over her anger. She wishes that she could (remember, feelings are not under our conscious control), but something deep inside is just never satisfied.

A spouse can be angry for a lifetime if we don’t help them get over it. They are stuck as much as we are. We have to help them turn it off.

You must help her to get over it for both of your sakes.

Responding to an angry and punishing wife

Let me tell you how I discovered the key to helping people get over deep-seated anger.

I have been coaching and counseling for more than thirty years. In that time, I have received many emails from women who were desperate to reconcile with their husbands and who also have a lot of regret.

They explain that years ago their husband severely broke their trust, often by cheating on them, but sometimes financially or with addictions. Then, after that, their husbands gave them heartfelt apologies and radically changed their behavior to be loving and loyal husbands. However, these women were unable to trust their husbands again and would often treat them badly out of anger. Finally, their husbands gave up and were divorcing them. And now, they no longer have any anger at all toward their husbands. All they feel is regret for the way they behaved and want to reconcile.

What I discovered from this and many other examples is that it is the fear of losing someone important to us that makes us give up the anger we have toward them. It also happens many times when someone has been angry at a parent all of their life, but was able to forgive only when they found out their parent was dying.

A two-step approach for helping her to let go of her anger

From these examples, you can learn this two-step approach. First, build your marriage as much as you can and be consistent for a good long time so that trust can really be developed. Then, if you are still being treated badly, gradually increase your boundaries until either your wife stops treating you badly or until you are actually leaving her.

It may sound strange, but often we need to be willing to end our marriage in order to save it. This is certainly true in the case of ending affairs, and it is also the case when a spouse can’t get over her anger.

Do not attempt to do this without first doing all the important relationship building. Also, never threaten to divorce to try to force your wife to behave better or stop being angry. Good boundaries are never threats, and they are done lovingly so as not to further damage the relationship.

The biggest mistake men make in this situation is to wait so long that they no longer want to reconcile. They are like the husbands of the women who write to me. At that point, it may be too late because you will no longer care.

Motivation 3: Your wife’s anger, hatred, or distrust may be helping her to protect herself

It is natural for people who have been very hurt to protect themselves from being hurt again. One way to do that is to be angry and rejecting. If you don’t attach to someone emotionally, they can’t hurt you as much.

Often, women will divorce to not be hurt by their husbands again, but some women can’t. They may not have the financial means, fear repercussions from their family, be afraid of what divorce would do to the children, or just be afraid of being alone. They continue in the marriage because they feel they have to, but will keep distance in the marriage by withdrawal, avoidance, and/or anger.

Connecting with an angry and fearful wife

Keep in mind that your wife is not trying to punish you–she is just trying to stay safe. That might make you feel angry because you are safe. Remember, you have to deal with the reality of her perception and those underlying feelings that she doesn’t have conscious access to.

Trying to fix problems and carry on with marriage as usual will not work. Even though you are married and living together, and she is not going anywhere for now, you need to take a marriage rebuilding approach.

That means starting at the level of just being acquaintances, and building your relationship gradually with validation, being desirable, and being careful not to spend too much time together. Spending too much time together prevents her feelings for you from growing.

You will have to be extra careful not to have any of the behaviors that made her fearful in the first place, as one recurrence of that can set you back to square one, even if you have been building your marriage for a couple of years.

Always invite–never pressure or push, or you will prevent your relationship from growing. Working with a coach is a good way to make sure you are using all the right skills.

Motivation 4: Your wife may be preparing to leave you

Anger is the emotion that helps us to emotionally push someone else away. People who are divorcing often become angry with each other, which facilitates letting go. It’s not really something we decide to do–it’s a built-in coping mechanism.

If your wife has been disconnected from you for a long time and/or has found someone new, she may start to remember only bad things about your relationship. This fuels anger and helps her to prepare for a more emotionally satisfying relationship.

You may see that your wife’s reasons for being angry have to do with something in the distant past that didn’t bother her much until recently. You may also see that she becomes angry about very trivial things.

She may not have decided to divorce you yet, but her unconscious mind is helping her to move in that direction. If it continues, she will probably start to talk about separating and will have little or no interest in marriage counseling.

Don’t try to get her to go to counseling, as that will soon turn into working on coparenting and amicable divorce. As I have explained elsewhere, couples counseling only helps when both people are motivated to improve their marriage. It does not work when one person is uninterested in doing that.

How to reconnect with an angry and rejecting wife

You must understand that her goal is to get something or someone other than you. Even if that is just her freedom. She is moving forward to what she believes will make her life better. That does not make her crazy or evil. She is just trying to get what she has been unable to get from your marriage. She no longer believes it is possible to get that from your marriage, and trying to convince her will just create resistance.

This is the most common situation that I help men with. It requires an empathetic response rather than an argumentative one, as that will just help her to feel even better about leaving. You must be able to empathize and be on the same page with her so that she can be relaxed enough with you for her feelings to grow.

At the same time, you need to give her a new experience with you that is not pushy. It starts at a friendship or even acquaintance level and gradually builds as she begins to enjoy you more. How long that takes depends on how much emotional distance there is in your relationship.

The biggest mistake men make is to ask their wives to reconcile after making only a little progress. Like asking a woman to marry you after the second date, it is more likely to create rejection. Coaching is recommended. Make sure you don’t tell your wife about it, as she will perceive any changes you make as unnatural, manipulative, and as pursuit.

You can reconnect with a woman who is preparing to leave you, but you can’t do it in a single step.

Major skills involved in reconciling with an angry, hateful, or distrusting wife

As you can see from these four motivations for anger, the major skills involved in restoring your relationship are:

1. Empathizing
2. Validating
3. Connecting
4. Attracting
5. Consistency, and
6. Boundaries

I only recommend you get marriage counseling if you are having communication problems or are confused about the reasons for her anger. The counselor can help the two of you to communicate enough to get clarification. After that, ongoing counseling is not recommended unless your wife expresses more desire for your relationship. You would start the counseling on the premise of clarification and understanding only, so as not to alienate your wife.

Marriage coaching will help you to learn five of the six skills necessary for helping her not to be angry, so that your marriage can be close, calm, and connected. That is what my Re-Connections Coaching Package does. The one skill I can’t teach is consistency. Your ability to be consistent depends on your ability to contain strong emotions as well as your self-discipline. Coaching isn’t for everyone. Counseling would be a better choice if you need support or help managing your emotions.

No one wants to feel angry, including your wife. Taking the steps necessary to help her stop being angry is a very loving thing to do.

FAQ

Why is my wife still angry if I have already apologized?

Anger usually does not go away just because you explain, apologize, or try harder. You will have to deal with her feelings at the feeling level, not just at the logical level.

Should I keep trying to reassure my wife if she does not trust me?

Not in the usual needy way. Repeatedly pursuing, explaining, defending yourself, or giving reassurance often makes things worse. Reassurance should come from your behavior, not from your words.

Can a marriage still recover if my wife is angry, distant, and rejecting?

Yes, but not by using the same approach that has already failed. Reconciliation becomes more possible when you understand what is driving her anger and respond in ways that build safety, connection, and attraction.

For further study:

Johnson, S. M., Makinen, J. A., & Millikin, J. W. (2001). Attachment injuries in couple relationships: A new perspective on impasses in couples therapy [PDF]. International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy. https://iceeft.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/AttachmentInjuries.pdf