Marriage Reconciliation Mistakes that Push Your Spouse Away
Is the way you are trying to improve your marriage really helping? Many people fail not for lack of trying, but by trying too hard with methods that don’t work. If you are willing to stop doing what feels natural and start doing what works, you can begin rebuilding connection while making the process enjoyable for both of you.
Successful reconciliation requires methods that work
Some people seem to be able to get a lot of love, affection, and attention from their spouse while making it look effortless. Others use a lot of effort while getting little or no affection in return. What this means is that effort is not the most important factor for reconciling. Method is.
One of the most common marriage reconciliation mistakes is trying to get your spouse to change before changing the way you interact. Doing this is likely to create conflict without making any progress. Even if changing your spouse’s behavior is the solution to fixing your marriage, directly trying to change your spouse is the most difficult and least successful way to get your spouse to change.
It is necessary to focus not on who is to blame, but on what specific change is needed and what you can do to get you and your spouse to that place. Most of the time, this is something you will need to start without any cooperation from your spouse. The people who are best at improving their marriage are the ones who take responsibility for making and initiating changes.
People who are least successful at improving their marriage fall into two groups–those who continually talk about who is to blame, and those who wait patiently for their spouse to change. Patience is only helpful once we are using the correct methods. We must sow the seed before patiently waiting for it to grow.
If you have a loving mindset that sees your spouse as needing help rather than out to get you, creating change will be easier. You will have a softer approach that will be better received by your spouse, even when you need to use tough boundaries.
For example, rather than think:
“My spouse thinks work is more important than me,” think “My spouse doesn’t realize how much he is missing out on not spending more time with me.” If you do that, you will be led more in the direction of helping your spouse enjoy you more. The blaming approach would lead you more toward expressing your anger, making you less enjoyable, and getting you less of what you want.
Another example:
Instead of thinking, “My spouse is breaking our marriage vows and forgetting all that I have done for him or her,” think “My spouse needs help to enjoy being with me again.” That will naturally lead you to behaviors far better for reconciling than an approach based on convincing.
How to get started with marriage reconciliation
As a reconciliation coach, I never ask the question “What do we need to convince my client’s spouse to do?” That would only keep my client stuck. Instead, I ask two key questions that lead to marriage healing actions:
- “What does my client need to stop doing or do less of?” and
- “What does my client need to start doing or do more of?”
The first question will lead to stopping behaviors that damage emotional connection. Behaviors like criticizing and arguing are obvious examples. But behaviors like nagging, interrogating, and giving long explanations also damage marriages. Because we can’t fix a marriage while doing damage to it, we have to stop our damaging behaviors first.
The second question, “What does my client need to start doing or do more of?” will lead to behaviors like validation, becoming more desirable, and using good marriage boundaries. It is the combination of these two processes–eliminating damaging behavior while starting or improving on constructive behaviors that improve and reconcile marriage.
The need to be gradual and consistent
Making these self-changes does not lead to overnight marriage improvement or reconciliation. But, taking a gradual and consistent approach, checks off three boxes necessary for reconciling:
- Helping your spouse to feel comfortable with you,
- Helping your spouse desire to be with you more often, and
- Stopping any damaging behavior your spouse is doing.
As I said before, many unsuccessful people go directly to step 3: stopping any damaging behavior your spouse is doing. That fails unless your spouse already feels comfortable being together and already finds you desirable.
My client, Mary Ann, felt frustrated and angry with her husband’s critical and controlling behavior toward her and the children. They often fought about this with no improvement. I let Mary Ann know that her two good choices were either to separate from her husband or to follow the three-step approach that I outlined for you.
The most important consideration in deciding wasn’t whether Mary Ann wanted to separate or not. It was her ability to follow the three-step approach. If she could not bring herself to help her husband enjoy their marriage more before using boundaries, then she would either need to separate or stay stuck in a cold and conflicted marriage.
Our emotions can block progress toward reconciliation
While most clients believe they can follow the three-step approach, we really don’t know until we try it. If you find that, despite your best efforts, you are too angry or undisciplined to work on your own behaviors first, then separation, divorce, or a continued distant marriage are your remaining options. It is possible to reconcile after separation and sometimes that is the best choice we have. Repeatedly talking about your marriage problems on your own or in marriage counseling is not going to create the required change.
Talking about problems leads to clarification and understanding, but it doesn’t create change. Once we have clarification of what the problem is, we then need to take action that leads to improvement. When our spouse wants the same improvement, then we can work together. If not, then we need to create the positive change and allow time for our spouse to adjust to it.
Are you feeling stuck dealing with current marriage problems?
If you feel stuck in a current marriage crisis, you are either using methods that don’t work or no method at all. You must determine which it is and use effective methods in order to have improvement. My book, Overcome Neediness and Get the Love You Want, was written to help people identify ineffective ways of getting more love from their spouse. It is our failure to see that what we are doing is not working that keeps us doing the same damaging things over and over. We all have blind spots that can prevent success.
Mary Ann did not realize that repeatedly telling her husband how his behavior made her feel was not actually effective. Neither was her arguing with him. I told her that her husband already clearly understood that she didn’t like his behavior, and telling him more would just maintain the distance. She admitted that what hadn’t worked for years wasn’t likely to start working.
Stopping these behaviors and behaving more friendly toward her husband when he wasn’t being controlling were her first steps. Secondly, she learned how to help her husband to feel competent, capable, and powerful by validating his work and the good things he did with her and the kids. Even without boundaries, this resulted in an improved relationship.
A key point is that when you change the way you interact with your spouse, your spouse has to adjust to that change. Your spouse will have no choice. So, the single most effective way to get more love or respect is to change the way we interact with others.
Let’s take another example.
Suppose your spouse interrupts you during conversations. Here are two different approaches for dealing with that:
- Method 1: Share with your spouse how you feel when you are interrupted and clarify how you want your spouse to wait until you are finished talking before saying what he or she has to say. Keep doing that over and over, even if it is not helping.
- Method 2: Help your spouse to enjoy talking with you by using good validation skills, but end a conversation whenever your spouse interrupts.
The first method is likely to produce no change or more distance. The second method improves communication, makes a closer relationship, and ends interruptions. There is no ongoing conflict and no continuing resentment.
It is believing something should work that keeps us doing it, even when it is not working or only works a little. Even when it works a little, I recommend you give it up for more effective beliefs and behaviors.
Watch out resentful compliance masquerading as progress
When things are working a little, it is often not because your spouse is eager to treat you well. It is more likely that your spouse is just resentfully complying. Resentful compliance usually gets improvement in one area, while problems happen in other areas. It is the whack-a-mole method of getting compliance.
Does your spouse do things to please you because you are enjoyable to be with? Or does your spouse do things just to keep you from getting upset? The first one is a relationship builder, and the second is a resentment builder. You should behave in such a way that your spouse:
- Looks forward to being with you every day,
- Always feels that you are approachable and helpful, and
- Would be fearful of missing out on quality time with you if he or she ever cheated, mistreated, or divorced you.
If you are very hard to replace, you are very unlikely to be replaced.
Common false beliefs
Let’s do a quick check just to see if you have any of the common false beliefs that prevent most people from improving their marriage and/or reconciling:
- False belief: We solve problems by talking about them.
- False belief: If my spouse understands my feelings or reasons, then he or she will change.
- False belief: My spouse will always love me no matter what I do.
- False belief: Being open and honest keeps relationships strong.
- False belief: I should just be myself with my spouse and do or say whatever I want.
Following any one of these false beliefs can severely damage your marriage.
In a society that teaches that up is down and left is right, it should be no surprise if you believe these things. I think that getting older and wiser is the process of abandoning what does not work for what does. Life experience can teach us, if we pay attention.
Let me share with you what actually works.
What works with others is what works with your spouse
Many people are good at socializing with people outside of the family. Maybe you are too. If someone starts talking about a subject you don’t like, you might first try to shift the topic. Then, if that doesn’t work, you look at your watch and say, “Look at the time! I’m sorry, I need to go.” If you do that every time, they stop bringing up the bad topic with you.
This way of behaving is very effective and all done without discussing your relationship, talking about how you honestly don’t like the way they talk, having an argument, or refusing to talk to them for a week. If you did those things, you would harm your friendship.
A high percentage of my clients have good relationship skills at work and with friends that they do not use with their spouse. They have a false belief that our marriage relationship somehow works differently from other relationships.
They may believe that:
- It is important to always greet friends with a smile, but that doesn’t apply to spouses.
- It is important to agree and empathize with friends, but we must immediately debate any differences with a spouse.
- We nicely ask others about something we are expecting, but we nag our spouses and remind them of how they messed up in the past.
And so on. This two-rule system for relationships ensures good relationships at work and bad relationships at home. Often, we have learned from our parents to treat everyone better than we treat our spouse, and then we teach our children the same thing. What we need to learn, and our children need to see, is that we treat our spouse as loved and cherished. It is an old-fashioned notion that just happens to match what God tells us to do.
Here is a reality check for you.
Does your spouse wish that you talked to him or her the way you talk to your friends, coworkers, or clients? If so, then you have a blind spot here or a false belief that you need to change.
Can you do what feels unnatural, for the sake of your marriage?
The ability to give up damaging behaviors, no matter how much you feel like doing them, do loving behaviors no matter how much you don’t feel like doing them, and to use boundaries rather than control, blame, or avoidance determines your ability to have a good relationship–with anyone.
These are hard things to do, as the apostle Paul wrote about:
For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. Romans 7:15-19.
Fighting these urges to do the wrong thing is possible because the Holy Spirit will help us to love others as well as our spouse when we ask God to help us. For years before I knew how to help others to love their spouse, I would pray every day that God would teach me to love others. Other than accepting Christ as my Savior, that may have been the most important thing that I have ever prayed.
Nothing in your life that you do well came naturally. Your marriage is no different.
Are you ready to build your marriage effectively?
If you have identified a blind spot or false belief in this post, you have already made a good start on building your marriage more easily. If you would like to learn more effective ways of building your marriage, I recommend you start with my book, Overcome Neediness and Get the Love You Want.
If your marriage is severely damaged or time is limited, a consultation can help you identify the specific behaviors to stop, the relationship-building behaviors to start, and the next steps most likely to help your spouse become more relaxed and receptive.
If what you know is not working, that does not mean your marriage is hopeless. It just means you need a better method.
FAQ
Why should I start by treating my spouse nicely if I am being treated poorly?
Because blame creates greater distance that may push an already damaged marriage into divorce. If your relationship is already strong, then you can start with boundaries.
Isn’t it disingenuous not to be open and honest with your spouse?
While it is important to be honest, we need to censor what we say so as not to be unnecessarily hurtful. Once said, our words cannot be taken back and may never be forgotten.
Would you have different advice for non-Christians?
No. What works works whether you are Christian or not. Since neither society nor the psychology industry fosters healthy, loving relationships, you will have to look to some other source to discover what does work. I encourage you to explore, but to also consider the Bible in your explorations.
For further study:
Lavner, J. A., Karney, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (2016). Does Couples’ Communication Predict Marital Satisfaction, or Does Marital Satisfaction Predict Communication?. Journal of marriage and the family, 78(3), 680–694. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12301
