subject: Making Him Come Home When You're Separated [print this page] Making Him Come Home When You're Separated
A good bulk of the correspondence that I receive comes from people (usually wives) who want to end their separation and impending divorce and to get their spouses to return to the home and the marriage. Usually they are coming up against some resistance from the other spouse who isn't sure that the relationship is at the point where it's healthy and advisable to come home.
The spouse who is hoping for the reconciliation, however, believes that once their spouse returns home, it will then be so much easier to work through their issues than it is to try to make things work from a distance. Often, they very much miss the other person and feel as though something is very much missing. They often want some advice as to how to "make" the other person return home and to work with them to save the marriage. I will discuss this in more detail in the following article.
Understanding The Difference Between "Making" Them Come Home And Enticing Them To Come Home: Before we get started, I have to tell you that I have a bit of a problem with the connotation that the phrase "making" someone do something brings about. The implication of this is that you're going to force or trick or otherwise cause someone to do something that they willingly would not do on their own.
This kind of victory really is a hollow one. The long term chance of success is not high. In order to regain higher ground in your marriage, you're going to need both of you giving your best and most genuine efforts. Your partner isn't likely to give his all if he's not even completely present and willing. So, it's best to get the idea of "making" him come home out of your head. In my experience, this is not the route you want to take. Instead, you want to entice.
When I say entice, what I mean is that you really want him to decide to come home quite willingly and on his own. This does not mean, though, that you have to just sit back and wait for him to come to that conclusion. You can certainly present yourself, your home, and your marriage as something that is desirable and obtainable. You can set the situation and the circumstances up so that he sees the best side of it that is going to elicit the most positive responses.
Changing The Perceptions That Are Keeping Him From Coming Home: I often tell people that they have to change perceptions before they even begin to worry about changing or fixing problems. What I mean by this is that spouses will often attempt to tackle the big issues that are separating them before they even begin to address the distance, alienation, and awkwardness. It's very hard to gain any ground when your spouse does not feel connected to you. That's why trying to fix the problems and then hoping that the feelings will follow is actually doing things backward.
It's usually more effective to identify the perception problems that are dividing you. Most often, your spouse might be thinking that he is better off not living under the same roof, at least for now. He may be basing this on the perception that the two of you can't be happy together right now or on his belief that things really do not have the ability to improve or to change. These are the things that are the most important issues to address as soon as you possibly can.
The sooner you are able to show him that the things he was assuming could possibly be untrue, the sooner he has the capability to change his mind. You want to show him that the pay off from being with you more frequently is going to much greater than the pay off of living under separate roofs. You can begin to do this by making sure that your interactions with him are genuine but pleasurable and leave both of you wanting to repeat the process. Keep things light hearted. Try to have fun. Don't delve into the difficult topics or the heavy conversations. It is simple human nature to want to avoid these things in the same way that people intuitively move toward what makes them feel good about their situations and themselves.
The Things That Usually Do Not Work In Making Your Spouse Want To Come Home: Hopefully, I've helped you to think about this in a different way. Now, I'd like to discuss the things that I see fall completely flat in this situation. I know that it's very tempting to sort of follow him around or call / text often or to come on too strong. But these things usually fall under the category of those negative perceptions that make him want to stay away. You want to always avoid those things that are going to read negative to him or to make him think things like "here we go again."
You want to paint yourself as someone who is capable, attractive, and alluring. There is really very little place for showing anger, jealousy, insecurity or negative emotions here. You want to instead paint this as there are two people who are perfectly capable of being apart but who are better off, and much happier, when they are together. Don't play games or try to bring about strong reactions from him just to get attention. Conduct yourself with a high degree of integrity so that he knows that you're playing fair, are willing to make meaningful and lasting changes, and are pleasurable to be around. These things will often work much better, and be more lasting, than strategies meant to "make him" do something that he's reluctant to do. Your best bet is to entice him to come willingly.
When my husband left out home, he felt that our marriage was completely over and often threatened to end it. And he wouldn't lift a finger to help me save it. I felt that if I started by changing myself, I might be able to turn things around. Eventually, I was able to not only restore my husband's love, but to save our marriage. You can read a very personal story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com/
