I've been talking with some people at another web site that tries to help people out of divorces and I've been getting a huge number of questions from them over the last few weeks. The most common one by far is "My wife left and is now seeing someone else (or is having an affair and refuses to stop). How can I win her back?" No big surprise, right? Do you want to know what IS surprising?
It's not the answer to the question by a long-shot; indeed, the possible answers to that question are few and simple:
* Stop abusing your wife
* End your substance abuse, gambling, or fidelity problem and try to make a life with your wife instead of feeding your addiction
* Buy a copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" and learn how to evaluate and manage relationships, communicate well with your wife, and fire up her attraction mechanisms beyond the point the other guy has to get the honeymoon going again so that she is only interested in you.
One or more of those answers will take care of almost all cases. But the big question isn't what you should do to bring her back...
The big question, and the very first one you should ask, is "WHETHER you should bring her back!"
That's right! I've spent hours and hours recently cruising relationship and marriage help web sites, and everyone is frantically begging for help to bring their spouses back (and being advised on how to do it by others who are apparently in the same boat, giving a strong appearance of "the blind leading the blind," at least as far as the bulletin board threads and blogs go), but nobody is asking whether it's the right thing to do!
Right now, a great many of you are having a knee-jerk and responding, "Of course it's the right thing to do! She's his (or MY) wife!" If you stop to think about it, there will be some cases where it may not be!
For instance, what if you are the host in a codependent pair, and she is a substance abuser that has sucked the life out of you for years with the cost of feeding their habit, legal and medical costs, worrying you sick, making you feel responsible for all their bad choices and sucking the life out of you?
What if she's not a substance abuser, but still codependent and has kept you busy 16 hours a day every day of the week just to keep her out of a jam?
What if she's a spouse abuser, and married you to have someone to punish because the person who traumatized her is not available and you were both available and easily manipulated into taking and holding the job of whipping boy?
What if she's always exhibited a fidelity problem because she's a gold-digging hussy that married you for your money and has just moved on to somebody with more money?
What if she's always exhibited a fidelity problem because she has a self-esteem problem that she refuses to address, and would rather seek the attention and approval of other men because it's easier and more palatable than to admit the reason she feels crappy about herself is that she hasn't done anything in her life to feel good about?
What if the two of you got married because she was pregnant, never did get along and weren't happy, but comfortably numb and unhappy, and she was just the first one to wake up and realize that you never should have been married to start with and wasn't rejecting you, but making the same move that you should be making to rectify that age-old mistake?
What if she wasn't pregnant, but the two of you just were young and lonely and desperate, thinking that nobody else would have you?
What if one or both of you were trying to escape your parents' abuse and married the first person that came along that provided a way to get out of the house?
What if you've had such philosophical or value system differences that you've always fought and never been happy together and really don't know why you ever got married or stayed married?
There are a hundred more scenarios like that, but surely at this point you get the picture. The first question that needs to be asked when things look like they are breaking up isn't how to stop the break-up...
It's whether there is any reason for you to expect to be happy with that person if the relationship were to continue!
If there is no expectation of happiness to continue, why continue? There is no sense trying to save a marriage when the underlying relationship that defines that marriage is not a happy one and has no history or chance of being a happy one. The whole purpose of marriage is to bind yourself to a person for your mutual benefit - love, nurturing, friendship, watching each others' back, companionship, exclusive (and hopefully therefore safe!) sex, etc. -- is it not?
On the other hand, if you have been truly happy, and have just drifted apart, there's a very good chance that you can get things back on track, especially if things have just been in a rut and one or both of you have become "marritally bored": It's not at all rare for women to have affairs, leave home, and even file for divorce as a way of communicating to a man that he'd better straighten up and act like a man and be strong, fun, and interesting like he used to be instead of the chronically beer-swilling remote-jockeying couch potato who never pays any attention to her that he's become. And it's easy to tell the difference...
A woman who's completely done with you moves on immediately and completely. The divorce papers are delivered with a restraining order, and there are instant barriers up everywhere. A woman who's done with all parts of you except your checkbook still strings you along keeping you in approval-seeking mode and continues to be a drain on your resources, and may accept phone calls, go to dinner, etc., but you'll notice that you pay for everything, and she keeps having money trouble that you need to bail her out of, even if she makes better money than you...
It's the woman who leaves or files papers, but continues to say things like, "I still love you, but I'm bored/not 'in love with you' (how I hate that convoluted expression!)/I can't be with you right now/I can't go on like we are and you're going to have to show me you can change some things/etc.," that has acted badly to get your attention. She will tell you what it takes to win her back, and if you speak "girly-ese" you'll hear her when she does and know just what to do.
Like when she says she loves you, but the guy she's having an affair with makes her laugh, or is spontaneous, or anything about him that you are not, she's giving you the laundry list of things you need to fix. If she's moved out and/or filed for divorce, and talking about the things you used to do together or the way you used to behave toward her, she's telling you what she misses and what it will take to bring it back.
But again, you have to speak "girly-ese" to understand, because she probably won't just say, "you used to pay attention to me and make me feel special," she'll refer to things you did, like picking her a bunch of wildflowers, or cooking supper on the night that she had to work late, things that demonstrate how you did what she missed, and you have to be able to connect the dots to see what she's really saying, because women never state what to them is "the obvious."
How do you learn to speak "girly-ese"? The same way you learn how to evaluate and manage relationships and learning how to be that alpha male that every woman wants and your woman will be thrilled to have, by downloading your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage" at http://www.makingherhappy.com before you do another thing, and especially before you take any more relationship advice from somebody whose own marriage is on the rocks, because this information has worked for everyone who has ever used it, and it will work for you, too.
In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!
David Cunningham"Being a man is something to which one should aspire, not something for which he should apologize." --David Cunningham
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