How to Rebuild Your Marriage during a Separation

How to Rebuild Your Marriage during a Separation

3 Surprising Ways to Attract Him Back for Good

If your husband is moving out but you want to save the marriage, it can be terrifying.

Separation affects everything. Your whole life is being turned upside down without your consent, leaving you feeling powerless and heartbroken.

If you still love your husband but are separated, it’s devastating. This is not what you signed up for when you said “I do”!

So how do you save your marriage while separated?

Especially when simply communicating with your spouse during separation can be a big challenge. How are you supposed to save a relationship with someone you barely see or talk to, if at all?

It’s easy to feel hopeless.

But there is hope.

Ask a woman on our campus, like Jen, who had no contact with her husband for six weeks. She practiced some new skills and, as if by magic, something shifted. Her husband showed up at her door with roses begging her to come home. After hours of hugs and tears, he moved back in.

In working with thousands of women, my coaches and I have seen this story again and again.

Do you want to be next?

If so, here are 3 counterintuitive ways to make your husband miss you during separation and attract him back.

1) Don’t Stand in His Way

Lila and her husband were already separated under the same roof, and he wanted a divorce. Yesterday. He got more and more frustrated by how long the process was taking and accused her of dragging her feet and getting in his way.

Be that as it may–she wasn’t going to pave his way!

Every time he brought it up, Lila objected, “I don’t want a divorce. I want to stay married.”

As beautiful and pure as her desire was, she realized that repeating this particular desire was coming across as disrespecting his thinking. She knew that respect was like oxygen for men, and she really wanted to give her husband the oxygen he needed.

So Lila decided to try a different approach: not paving his way but not standing in his way either.

So when he suggested she switch to the divorce attorney that his divorce attorney worked well with, well, that sounded like crazy talk, but she saw it as an opportunity to show respect for his thinking. Despite the glaring conflict of interest, she agreed.

To her surprise, he got irritated with the new attorney instead of with her.

Not only did his frustration with her subside, he started serving her drinks and food, a big change from the usual of her serving him.

She didn’t know it yet, but the long-term change would be even better…

2) Become a Gracious Receiver

Unfortunately, Lila’s story got worse before it got better. Her husband started building a new house so he could move out.

Strangely enough, he’d invite her to his new house throughout construction. Talk about painful! Was he trying to torture her or what?

She saw it a different way: as an opportunity to receive. Mind you, this is not what she wanted to receive. But Lila’s relationship coach didn’t seem fazed by his claims that this would be his house and his alone. Lila chose to lean on her coach’s faith that this was her new home.

That helped her not only receive these invitations graciously but to show up with fun and light instead of sighs and tears. Every interaction could be a date, including their visits to the new house, and Lila dressed the part.

She must have surprised the heck out of him.

Sure enough, he invited her and their son to move to their new home.

Receiving graciously is simple because all it requires is saying “thank you.” But it’s not always easy. Especially if what he’s offering isn’t quite what you want, when you want it or how you would do it.

Receiving didn’t come easily for me, that’s for sure. When John would do the dishes, I’d say, “Now how about wiping the counters?” I cringe to remember how hard it was for me to receive graciously.

How could you stretch your receiving muscles, whether with your husband or someone else? Next time a friend offers to pay for your coffee or help you clean up, gives you a compliment or an apology, what if you simply said “thank you”?

3) Let Go of Expectations

Relationships that recover from a breakdown can become even stronger than before.

Just ask Corrine.

She suspected that the stories in The Empowered Wife podcast must have been exaggerated, or at least they promised things that might work for other people but not for her.

But she had just enough hope and commitment to invest in private coaching. When her coach invited her to something scary Corinne stretched to try it as an experiment. In the process, she transformed from critical and controlling into a gentle, soft woman who dove into self-care and sprinkled gratitude around like confetti.

When her coaching sessions concluded, although her husband remained cold and distant, Corinne loved the new woman she had become so much that she decided to continue practicing these Skills, even if the marriage didn’t survive.

In other words, she had no expectations. She even accepted the idea that she could end up happily single.

That’s when, out of nowhere, she got her miracle.

Her husband told her he loved who she had become. He said he wanted to stay married and be closer than ever. He even planned her dream trip to Europe.

Corrine could barely believe it.

Are you ready to be shocked too?

If you decide to put these 3 proven techniques for attracting him back into action, you may surprise him–and yourself–in the best possible way.