So, you want to turn your relationship around, but you have very little access to your spouse right now. She’s not communicating with you. How do you do it?
Hey, Cody Butler here, marriage coaching consultant, and founder of Better Marriage. I help men turn their marriages around, even if they’re the only one trying and their wife is not interested in participating in the relationship. Today’s video is a great example of that.
What do you do if your wife is not really talking to you or she’s moved out, and she’s given very limited contact, very limited communication? How do you turn it around? Can you turn it around? Well, the answer to that question is absolutely yes. You can turn it around, but you’re going to have to do things very, very differently, and you’re going to have to be open-minded.
The first thing that you’re going to want to do if your wife is giving you very little communication is you’ve got to reopen those communication channels. Doing more of the same won’t work. The reason she shut those communication channels down is that she’s not feeling emotionally safe. She’s not feeling emotionally secure. She doesn’t want to talk to you because it’s painful to her, or it’s a waste of time, or she doesn’t feel emotionally secure in doing that. It’s going to drain her more, or it’s just going to cause a conflict, and she’s not going to want to do it.
So, the first thing is to understand that, as always, if you want to solve the problem, you’ve got to understand what the problem is. If the wife or your partner is offering you very little communication, it’s because communication is painful, and the cause of that pain is a lack of emotional safety and security. And this is what has to be addressed first.
Now, I talk to men all the time. I’ve worked with over a thousand men now and helped them through this situation successfully. And one of the things I hear all the time is, “Of course, I’m creating emotional safety. Of course, she feels safe with me.” Now, I’m not talking about physical safety. I’m talking about emotional safety. Does she feel as though she can talk without a conflict arising, without an argument coming up, without tension, without friction in the relationship? All of these things lead into what emotional safety and security are. And again, a lot of men will say, “I’m providing emotional safety and security for my wife.” But the reality is, she’s not wanting to talk. If she’s in a position where she’s not communicating, she’s not wanting to talk, and that is very unusual for a woman to get to that point. The only reason a woman would do that is that talking is very, very painful, hence the lack of emotional safety and security.
So, there are three words that will absolutely wreck your marriage and destroy any hope of reconciliation. So, I want to share those three words with you, and those three words are “I know that.” They are the three most dangerous words in the English language when it comes to reconciling a marriage. Saying that “I know that” and thinking that emotional safety is there when the evidence is entirely to the contrary is going to destroy your chances of reconciliation. There is absolutely no hope for this relationship unless emotional safety can be re-established and secured because she’s not going to talk to you until she gets there. And if she doesn’t get it, there’s no communication coming out. There’s no reconciliation, there’s no restoration, there’s no healing, there’s no pulling this thing back.
Let me share with you some of the things that I discuss with the men in our “Win Your Wife Back” program. This program is linked in the description if you want to know more about it. One important aspect is the mindset and philosophy you need to adopt when approaching the emotional safety issue.
If you approach the situation from the perspective that you have already created emotional security, and that your spouse is wrong, the results can be catastrophic. If you are wrong in believing that you have created that emotional safety and security, and there is no communication, then the marriage is essentially over. The downside of believing that you have already created emotional safety and security when you have not is huge.
On the other hand, if you come at it from a humble position and assume that you haven’t created emotional safety and security, you can operate from the perspective of not having done so. This approach has no downside. If you are wrong and have created emotional safety and security, then there is no downside.
The first step is to re-establish and connect emotional safety and security so that communication can begin again. Once the communication channel is open, the next step is to use curiosity to get her interested in the changes that are taking place in you. You need to work on yourself and change the situation before she comes back to you.
The third step is to understand that if she is refusing to communicate or if there is very little communication, it is because she is exhausted. She has nothing left to give, which is why she has completely separated and said she doesn’t want to communicate. You don’t want to put her in a situation where she’s drained even more. Instead, you want to start refilling her.
To give you something practical to start with, here’s a useful strategy. Before any communication, ask yourself whether it will fill her up or drain her. Is it going to help or hurt the situation? If every time she talks with you, she feels exhausted and worn out, then she won’t want to re-engage. Understanding these things is essential. We share more strategies and tools in the “Win Your Wife Back” program.
Let me share with you some of the mindset philosophy that I share with the men on our “win your wife back” program. You can find the program links in the description if you want to know more about it. One thing to consider when approaching the emotional safety issue is where to come from in terms of mindset and philosophy. If you approach the situation from the perspective of “I have already created emotional security”, and you are wrong, the results could be catastrophic. There is a lot of downside to being wrong if you believe in error that you are creating emotional safety and security when you are not. In fact, there will be no communication, and the marriage will be over. Therefore, there is a massive downside to saying, “I have created emotional safety and security. That is not the problem.”
Now let’s look at the other side of the equation.
If you come at it from a humble position and say, “I’m going to assume that I haven’t created emotional safety and security, and I’m going to operate from the perspective of I have not created that emotional safety and security,” there is no downside to that. If you are wrong and have actually created it, then there is no downside. You’re going to create more, and things will improve. There is no way you can make a mistake by assuming that viewpoint. It makes no sense to come at it from the perspective of “I’ve already created emotional safety,” when you can come at it from the perspective of “I have not,” and that is a win-win position.
The first thing to do is to re-establish and connect emotional safety and security so that communication can start again. Once you have that communication channel open, your best friend becomes curiosity. You want to use curiosity to get her interested in the changes that are taking place in you, which is step number two. You’ve got to work on yourself. She’s saying no to the situation unless you change that situation, unless you change what’s in that situation, unless you change the outcome of the situation, which is you, my brother. If she can see that you’re a different person, if she can see that your language is softer, if she can see that your demeanor is different, if she can see that your attitude has changed, if she can see that there’s emotional safety and security where there was none, if she can see that other elements have been put in place, and she sees this with her own eyes, not because you are telling her, this is going to tweak her curiosity, and she’s going to want to know what is going on. The communication channel will start to open up a little bit more, and she will start to come back a little bit more.
The third step is to understand that if she’s refusing to communicate or there is very little communication, it’s because she’s exhausted. She has nothing left to give. This is why she has completely separated and said, “I don’t even want to communicate.” It’s because it takes too much energy. It’s too draining and too painful to continue to have this conversation with you. Therefore, we don’t want to put her in a situation where we’re draining her even more. We want to start to refill her, rejuvenate, replenish, and start to fill her up instead of draining her out. This comes down to personal development, a change of mindset, some strategies, and some tools, which we share in the “Win Your Wife Back” program with the men we work with.
Let me share with you some of the mindset philosophy that I share with the men on our “win your wife back” program. You can find the program links in the description if you want to know more about it. One thing to consider when approaching the emotional safety issue is where to come from in terms of mindset and philosophy. If you approach the situation from the perspective of “I have already created emotional security”, and you are wrong, the results could be catastrophic. There is a lot of downside to being wrong if you believe in error that you are creating emotional safety and security when you are not. In fact, there will be no communication, and the marriage will be over. Therefore, there is a massive downside to saying, “I have created emotional safety and security. That is not the problem.”
The men that we work with, but to give you some useful stuff to start with, here’s something practical that you can begin with. One of the most helpful things you can do is to ask yourself a question before any communication: “Is this filling her up or draining her?” “Will this cause her to become exhausted or replenished?” “Will this help the situation or hurt the situation?” If every time she talks to you, she feels exhausted and worn out, and she has nothing left to give, she won’t want to re-engage. Therefore, it’s crucial to understand these three principles.
When we can understand them, we can start to re-engage. We need to re-establish emotional safety and security, where she feels like communication is a safe and productive place. We need to use curiosity to draw her back into the conversation. We don’t tell her anything; we show her that we’re changing through our curiosity. Then, we start to become aware that she’s exhausted and show her that we’re aware of it. We give her the resources to replenish and rejuvenate, not to exhaust her further. When you can do these three things, magic stuff will begin to happen. Obviously, there’s a lot more stuff that you need to do, but this is just to pull it back into the conversation. Once you get it back into the conversation, there’s a lot of things that we need to do to re-engage in the relationship, to continue to get her to move forward back to a point of reconciliation and restoration.
If you’re interested in learning how we do that, there’s a link in the description. It’s completely free, and you don’t even have to give your email address to check it out. Also, check out some other videos as well. I’m posting videos every week, and if you want to get more of this content, click the Subscribe button and hit the notification bell. That way, you’ll get notified when this content comes out. If you like this content, please give us a thumbs up and leave a comment, letting us know if you think this is good or bad information, how you’ve implemented this, and give us your advice. It really helps us to get this word out. So, that’s it for me for this video. God bless you, and I’ll talk to you very soon.
