So, your partner has asked for space in the relationship. What do you do?
Here are seven steps you can take to restore your relationship. Hey, Cody Butler here, a marriage coach and founder of Bitter Marriage. Today, I want to share with you seven steps that you can take to restore your relationship if your partner has asked you for space. Before we get started, make sure you stay until the end, because I’m going to share with you how to get our free workshop on how to end the fighting, improve communication, and restore intimacy and sex in your marriage immediately. I’ll tell you how to get that workshop completely for free. Let’s get into the seven steps of how to restore your relationship if your partner is asking for space.
#Step 1
Step number one is to respect their wishes. You’ve got to respect their wishes. If they’re asking for space, it’s because at some level, their wishes have probably not been respected over an extended period of time, and they’re just tired of it. Maybe the boundaries have not been respected, or maybe the communication is really poor. Whatever it is, your partner is feeling claustrophobic. They’re feeling trapped, and they need to get out to get some space. It’s a good thing that they’re asking for space because they’re not asking for a divorce or separation. They’re just asking for some space, which is a good indication that they want to resolve this, they just don’t know how to at this point in time. They’re probably thinking that some space is going to give them the thinking space and the bandwidth that they need to come up with a solution to the problems that they’re facing. We need to respect that because if we just jump into that space, it’s violating what they’ve asked for. It’s not respecting the boundaries, and it’s not respecting what they’re asking for. This is going to be a big problem. It’s telling them that the space that they’re asking for is absolutely right, it’s absolutely needed, and it’s communicating to them that they’re better off in the space that they’ve asked for than they are in the relationship with you.
So, the first thing if someone asks you for space is to absolutely respect it because that, in itself, is probably a change of behavior. Giving them what they’ve asked for and not asking them why or jumping in on that is probably a change of behavior up until now that may well not have been happening, and that’s why they’re asking for space now.
#Step 2
Tip number two to bring the relationship back is to understand that you have to do something differently. It’s not you that they want space from; it’s the situation that they want space from. And that situation could be a number of things. It could be alcohol abuse, continuous fighting, or negativity in the relationship. There are going to be some problems within the relationship that the person is moving away from. It’s not you personally, so don’t take this personally or individually. This is very important. It’s the situation and the behavior that they’re moving away from. People move away from behavior, or they move towards behavior. People are attracted to behavior, and they’re repulsed by behavior.
So, a really key step is to understand that if you want to bring them back into the relationship, and you want to shorten the timeframe, you want to restore the relationship, you’ve got to change your behavior. Behavior has to change, and this is where one person can really receive a relationship. I have clients all the time that come into our marriage recovery program, and we work with them, and they say, “My partner’s not really willing to participate. Is this going to work?” And the answer is absolutely yes, 100%, because you have the ability to change the behavior that they’re being drawn away from. You have the ability to change the behaviors that they’re wanting space from, and if you change that behavior, then they’re most likely going to want to come back into the situation.
Let me use alcohol abuse as an example here. Maybe someone is in a situation where they love the person, but they’re just abusive while they’re on alcohol, and they use alcohol far too much. They will get to the point where they just say, “I’ve had enough. I can’t take this anymore. I love you, but I can’t be in this relationship,” or “I love you, but I can’t live with you anymore.” They’re not rejecting you. They’re telling you that they love you. They’re telling you that they want to be with you. They’re just telling you that they can’t live with the situation, and it’s the situation that they need space from.
Do we need that person to change in order to rectify this situation? Do we need them to make changes in order to rectify this marriage, this relationship? Absolutely not. All we need to do is work on the issues that are causing the problem, which would be alcohol in this case. If we can eliminate the alcohol issues and remove the problems that the alcohol use is causing, then this person is going to want to come back. They haven’t participated, we haven’t worked on them, we haven’t involved them in the process at all, and it simply doesn’t matter. They don’t need to participate. What we do need to do though is understand what the cause of the problem is, which is behaviour.
We need to eliminate the behavior that is causing issues and replace it with conductive behavior to build a great relationship. The way I see it, creating a healthy relationship is straightforward, just like creating ice. You need to understand the required environment and provide it, such as water and a freezing environment, and ice will appear without fail. Similarly, you need to understand the environment in which a loving, healthy relationship thrives and create it, and the relationship will be restored.
#Step 3
Step three in getting your partner to come back and restore the relationship is not asking them why they need space, but rather asking yourself why they need space. Respect their wishes and understand the environment they need to live in to have a successful relationship. Don’t add fuel to the fire and ask them what the problem is, instead focus on yourself and work on the environment. The change may take time, and trust issues may exist, but slowly, your partner will start to come back.
#Step 4
Step four in the recovery process is changing the meaning you give to the situation. If you believe your partner’s behavior is to harm you, it will cause a reaction in you that isn’t great and create problems within the relationship. Choose a different meaning that results in a different behavior. The meaning we give produces an emotion, which produces behavior; thus, if we change the meaning, we change the situation.
#Step 5
Step number five in this process is to change your internal dialogue. The previous step was to change the meaning that you give to something. How do you do that? Well, the answer is to change the dialogue that you have with yourself. The monologue that’s going on in your mind, the communication that you’re having with yourself. What are you telling yourself about the situation right now? What are you telling yourself about what this means? What are you telling yourself about the outcome that’s going to be produced from this? What are you telling yourself about the motivation of your spouse who’s looking for space right now? All of these things lead into the meaning. What does this mean? That’s all going to be determined from the dialogue, the conversation that you’re having with yourself. And that is going to determine your behavior.
So, it’s really important that you start to change the internal conversation, something that’s healthy, that’s productive, and that’s going to produce an environment. If you’re telling yourself internally in your head the conversation that you’re having in your head all the time is, “My partner’s doing this to hurt me,” “My partner’s doing this because they’re selfish,” “My partner’s doing this because they don’t care,” well, that is going to radically change how you feel about them. And that is going to radically change how you behave. If you can change that conversation with yourself to, “My partner is doing this because they’re just trying to get their needs met the same way I am,” “My partner is doing this because they just want to have a loving relationship, and this is how they feel like they’re going to get it,” if you can change the conversation to those types of things that you’re having in your head, you’re going to feel differently about your partner. And that is going to produce a different response to your partner.
#Step 6
And that is going to be much more conducive to bringing them back into the relationship, which brings us to step number six, which is to change the focus to what you want. Really start to focus on what you want in the relationship. Now, a lot of times when people get in these situations where a partner is pulling away, they’re separating, asking for separation, they focus on the negative. They focus on the separation. They focus on what it is that they don’t want. And of course, where focus goes, energy flows, and more of the same result appears.
So, it’s really important that we change our focus here, away from what we don’t want and move it towards what it is that we do want here. What do we want? When I work with private clients in our marriage recovery program, I’ll ask them the question, “What do you want?” And a lot of times, they’ll tell me, “Well, I don’t want this, I don’t want that, I don’t want the fighting, I don’t want that.” And I’m like, “I didn’t ask you what you don’t want. I’m asking what you do want, because you’ve already got what you don’t want. You have that. We don’t need to put any energy into creating that. We don’t need to put any focus into creating that. You already have that. You’re already in possession of it. What we need to do is put some focus on what you do want. So, think about what you do want and tell me what you do want, because that’s where we need to work. That’s where we need to focus. And those are the areas that we need to make the changes. Focusing on what you don’t want is pointless.
#Step 7
We need to shift our focus to what we want, and that starts by changing the internal dialogue in our minds. Changing our focus and dialogue means talking to ourselves about what we want and expect in life, instead of what we currently have or don’t want. By doing this, we can start to see transformation take place. Where focus goes, energy flows, and we can start producing what we want. As we focus more on what we want, less energy is put into what we don’t want, which eventually diminishes until it disappears, while what we want grows bigger.
Our internal dialogue is crucial to achieving this. We should only talk to ourselves about what we want and need to do to get there. Using this time to work on ourselves is productive. We can improve our communication and conflict resolution skills, as well as our ability to create a loving relationship. We need to learn to emotionally self-regulate and become a better, more skilled person, so we can deal with any issues that may arise. The problems in relationships are often bigger than the person, but by becoming a bigger and better person, the problems will go away.
To help with this, I have a free workshop available that can teach you how to eliminate fighting, improve communication, and restore intimacy in your marriage. You will also learn why you are experiencing these issues and what you need to do to fix them. If you’re interested, the link is in the description, along with some other bonuses on having an amazing relationship.
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