How to Reconcile after a Long Marital Separation
Updated June 9, 2026
You absolutely can reconcile with your spouse even if you have been separated a long time. To do that, you will have to take steps to prevent an indefinite marriage separation.
Are you at the point where your relationship with your separated spouse is stable, you both get along, but your spouse is content to keep things as they are? Let me help you learn the actions that can motivate your spouse to live with you again.
What are your chances of reconciling after a long separation?
I often receive email from people who have been separated for anywhere from six months to five years. Typically they ask me what the chances are for reconciling their marriages.
It really isn’t possible to tell them what their chances are based just on this information. All I can say is that it is best to have a marriage separation of no more than three months–unless their relationship is actively growing. If it is actively growing, my advice is to stay separated until it stops growing. If they get a consultation, then I am better able to assess their situation and make recommendations.
Both short and long separations hurt your chances to reconcile
Many people reconcile after their relationship has improved just a little, with the plan to continue working on it after living together again. They often have the false belief that relationships build better when we live together. In actuality, relationships stop growing once we live together, which is why we need to build them all we can before ending a separation.
On the other hand, continuing a separation past the point where your marriage is actively growing takes away the motivation to get back together. That is the point where your spouse finds a balance between togetherness and freedom. That stability is hard to give up. Just continuing the separation at this point provides no motivation for relationship building or living together.
If you have been separated a long time, your spouse is getting enough from you emotionally or practically, without needing to give up the benefits that separation brings.
Why your spouse may prefer a long separation to reconciling or divorce
If I am working with someone who has just separated, we have two goals which occur simultaneously:
- To make a stronger connection, and
- to have good separation boundaries.
The stronger connection is necessary to give the separated spouse some desire to maintain the relationship, even if only for friendship (we must start somewhere).
The separation boundaries are to prevent the separated spouse from being able to have his or her cake and eat it, too.
If we simply were to work on connection without boundaries (as some coaches do), this tends to promote the separation rather than end it. Without boundaries, the separated spouse will have never had it so good–often being able to have an affair partner, part-time marriage, part-time kids, and part-time spouse as well.
You may be continuing to provide financial support, friendship, or sexual services that your spouse occasionally needs or enjoys. You may be the financial, emotional, or sexual ATM that your spouse needs when these things aren’t available elsewhere.
Unfaithful men often separate rather than divorce in order to keep their wives faithful–even when they are not. Their wives’ fear of divorce allows them to have their cake and eat it, too. Fear of being alone or needing to survive on one’s own keeps many people married, regardless of how unhappy they are. The solution is to work on being more emotionally independent–a process I call overcoming neediness. It is essential to living and loving without fear and anxiety.
When the momentum changes, so must the intervention
There will come a point after a marriage separation when people stop becoming closer. If your relationship is pretty much at the same place it was two months ago, then you are in this plateau phase now. All relationships eventually plateau or cycle between ups and downs.
However, even a cycling relationship can become a steady cycle with no further improvement. If you have had ups and downs for years without ever getting closer, then your relationship is not growing, even though it feels like it is every time you come out of a bad period.
How long should you wait?
If you don’t want to continue your separation indefinitely, then you need to consider how long you are willing to wait. While waiting could result in a miraculous re-connection, it could just as well result in your spouse eventually leaving you for someone else.
If you wait so long that your spouse eventually leaves you, you will regret all the time you spent just being patient and hoping. Exactly how long each person can tolerate this situation depends on the person. For those who no longer want to wait, there is a good action step to prevent indefinite separation.
An intervention to end an indefinite separation
If a plateau continues more than two months (two months with no improvement) and you have all that you could do in the way of being desirable and using good connection skills, I recommend you take some action toward divorce.
If your spouse is neither moving forward nor moving backward, it means your spouse is exactly where he or she wants to be. Requests for more time are only to maintain the status quo.
Movement toward divorce, after a two-month plateau, is an intervention in order to pull the separated spouse further into the relationship. It is a major action which helps to reconcile after a separation, especially a long one. If this is not done, the separated spouse will continue some contact, while continuing to maintain some emotional distance as well.
Never threaten to divorce if you don’t plan to actually divorce. Most spouses will just wait and see if you actually follow through. If you can’t (i.e. you are too needy), you will have shown your spouse how committed you are to just hanging in there indefinitely.
Often, it is only our willingness to leave a bad marriage that creates the conditions for improving our marriage. (Don’t do that until you have done all you can do to build it otherwise).
If the intervention does not create any movement toward connection, then you can be fairly sure that you never would have reconciled anyhow. You grew your relationship as far as it could grow and your spouse was still unconcerned about losing you. Divorce in this case seems like a better choice than a paper-only marriage.
Sometimes it is better to stay indefinitely separated
If you would rather maintain your relationship indefinitely as it is than divorce, you do not need to make any move to divorce. In this case it is better just to accept that things are not going to change and make the best of it. There’s no right or wrong choice about this–it is a matter of personal preference. The Bible doesn’t say we have to live with our spouse. For some people, their relationship works better with continuous separation than it would if they lived together.
Where many people go wrong
Many people threaten to divorce without actually following through with filing. Other people make the mistake of dropping the divorce before the relationship is mostly rebuilt. That results in their separated spouse just reverting to the previous level of relationship.
When you file for divorce and your spouse wants to reconcile, do not drop the divorce action. Just put a stay on it while you and your spouse work to re-create a loving relationship. In this case it is the separation and the divorce action which is supplying motivation. Drop either too soon and you will end up where you started.
Picture this: A wife has been separated from her husband for a year. They sometimes hang out together, but he refuses to move back home. After two months with no improvement, she stops waiting and begins moving toward divorce. She also lets him know there will be no continuing friendship post-divorce. If he becomes more serious, she keeps connecting but does not drop the divorce action until and unless there is real improvement and commitment.
The two requirements for ending a separation
There are two requirements for reconciling any relationship, whether separated or not. Most people think these requirements are agreeing to work together and talking about the relationship. These are not the requirements and the belief that they are keeps many people endlessly talking about their marriage problems without ever seeing improvement.
For you to reconcile your relationship means creating the conditions that make your spouse want to be together. That is the same for people who are single and wanting to get married.
Self-reflection that leads to reconciling:
- What kind of person do I have to be in order for my spouse to not want to lose me?
- Am I that kind of person?
- Do I want to be that kind of person?
- Does my spouse feel that he or she could lose me?
People who want to reconcile, but do not work on becoming a desirable person for their spouse will not reconcile. Neither will people who seek to please their spouse without any requirements for respect or reciprocation.
People who focus on convincing their spouse to be with them, love them, or work with them, actually decrease their own desirability while making their spouse feel like they are overly committed.
Restoring loving feelings in a separated spouse
Do you remember when you found out your relationship was in trouble? How at that time your feelings of love for your spouse intensified? That is because feelings of being in love are partially provoked by the feeling that we could lose our spouse.
If you have only pursued your spouse or submissively stood by, you have done your spouse a disservice. You have failed to produce the fear necessary for him or her to fall in love with you again. Playing “easy to get” never provoked anyone to feelings of being in love. It has gotten a lot of people used and abused.
If your spouse feels like he or she could easily reconcile with you at any time, then he or she is not going to fall in love with you. If you are needy, then you will have to work on becoming more secure in order to get the love you want.
Be the change instead of continuing to wait for it
Do you need help becoming the person your spouse desires and would not want to lose? Do you need help with making your spouse feel like he or she could lose you? Remember, these are your keys to preventing an indefinite separation.
My book, Overcome Neediness and Get the Love You Want, will help you to interact with your spouse in ways that make you more desirable. It’s a good place to start if you tend to say things that make your spouse want to get away from you rather than look forward to being with you.
For more intensive help with all the skills for connection, desirability, and boundaries, I recommend my Re-Connections Coaching Package. It will take you away from the approach of waiting and hoping for your spouse to change, and instead put you in control of building your relationship and reconciling.
It is okay to continue to be separated if that is working for you. If it’s not, then take action to create change one way or another because life is too short to spend sitting in the waiting room.
FAQ
If I have been separated a long time, is reconciling hopeless?
Not at all, but it will be necessary to create the conditions needed for change. Just continuing to wait is more likely to end in divorce than reconciling.
How available should I be for my separated spouse?
No more than you would if you were single. Being too available allows your spouse to remain comfortably and conveniently separated and removes desire to reconcile.
If I really work hard to make myself desirable, will my spouse want to live together?
Probably not. It will help your spouse to enjoy his or her relationship with you more. You would still need to have good boundaries to create the feeling in your spouse that you will no longer be available and that your spouse is likely to lose you completely if reconciling doesn’t happen.
For further study:
Brown, S. L., Lin, I. F., Marino, F. A., & Mellencamp, K. A. (2025). Marital separation, reconciliation, and repartnering in later life. Journal of marriage and the family, 87(1), 182–200. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.13024
