My Wife Has Left Me. What Do I Do?
Q: I have read DNA of Relationships. I desperately want to work with my wife on communicating. She has many walls from a very unproductive marriage for last eight yrs. This past year she fell into sin with another girl (physical/emotional). Her sin has caused her to view our marriage as much worse than it is. She has left me and feels like she doesn’t want to work on us. She does not want a divorce and we share the kids. What do I do?
A: First of all, you can’t make your wife love you or be willing to work on the marriage. Embracing your helplessness over her feelings and behavior is a good start. You can, however, communicate to her how much you care about her and her feelings, and that you would love to have an opportunity to repair the relationship.
Take the time to find out how she currently feels, what she wants, and how she felt about your past relationship. Make sure she knows that her feelings matter to you. Don't try to talk her out of how she feels, or to convince her that her feelings are wrong. Instead, consider letting her know that you'd like to work with her to create a relationship that she could be thrilled with. Notice that this is not about convincing her to come back to do the "right" thing. What we're talking about here is creating a relationship that she would like.
Now for this to work for you also, you need to be approaching this with a "no-losers policy" in your mind. In other words, you know that for it to be a win for the team it has to work for you also; you too have to be thrilled with the outcome. The only time this has to be stated though, is if you're not thrilled. Then you simply say, "you know I really care about how you feel, and for this to work you have to really like it. But as teammates it has to work for me also. I'm not crazy about that solution, but love to keep at it until we come up with something that we both love. Would you be willing to keep at it until we find one?" Ultimately, she has to be willing to participate. She may not be willing and then there's nothing you can do, but doing this can greatly increase the odds.
Dr. Robert S. Paul, Co-President, National Institute of Marriage
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Comments
So how can one effectively communicate they care when the unfaithful wife doesn't care that you care, she's getting her fix from the other man?
When the church won't approach her, when organizations such as this one will not approach her, (she has to be willing to come on her own) there seems to be no hope.
There has to be some approach that can entice the woman with the walls up to come out from behind the walls. Especially when she is unwilling and/or ashamed of what she's done. It seems it would be good if a third party could approach her to make the credible case.
It's been my experience that wives in such situations will not hear their husbands, regardless how safe he makes it for her to return.
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