The 1 Thing You Can Do To Stop Your Spouse From Leaving

Are you in panic mode because your spouse wants to leave, has moved out, or is talking about divorce? Your instincts are probably telling you to do whatever it takes to pull them back—but that might be pushing them further away.

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How do you get a spouse to stay? You cannot force or manipulate someone into staying in a marriage. To truly save your relationship, you must shift from controlling behaviors (begging, pleading, guilt-tripping) to influencing behaviors. You do this by stopping what we call "Push Behaviors" and working on yourself to become a safe, welcoming place that your spouse wants to return to.

In this video, Marriage Helper coach Nathan explains the exact psychology behind why your attempts to hold on tightly are backfiring, and what you can do instead to create an environment of genuine connection.

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Transcript

The Instinct To Chase

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My guess is just by the simple fact that you're watching this video, that you'd be willing to do anything to get your spouse to stay. But what if I told you the one thing that will actually get your spouse to stay is the exact opposite of what your instincts are telling you to do. In order to keep them, you have to quit forcing them. Hi, my name's Nathan. I'm a coach here at Marriage Helper, and I help people in situations just like the one I'm describing. I when I meet with them, they all tend to be in panic mode. Oh my gosh, what's happening? My spouse, they're so indifferent towards me. They don't want to come home anymore. They they talk about divorce. They've moved out. What should I do? Typically, when we get into panic mode, we do things that we at Marriage Helper call push behaviors. Things that make our spouses feel negative emotions. And it tends to reinforce the narratives that they already have in our minds, like I can't be myself when I'm around you. All you try to do is control me. You're just trying to get me to get back. You don't really love me. You don't even know me. We beg. We plead. We use guilt and shame. We try to turn people against our spouses. We try to leave them with nowhere else to run but home. And my friends, if that sounds anything like you, I get it. But I don't want to leave you there. So in this video, I'm going to be showing you the one thing that you can begin doing to actually make a difference in your marriage. And if you'll stick around to the end of this video, I'll offer you a free resource that will help you apply some of what you'll be learning here with me in this video. Where do we begin? I think a good place to start would be discussing control. Did you know that you and I, when we were young, somewhere around age two, we begin to go through a process in our development called self-actualization. Some of you may be familiar with the term. The idea is around age two, we human beings begin to realize that we are our own person. We have our own thoughts, we have our own voice, we have our own unique face. We don't always have to do what our parents say. We actually have our own right to make our own decisions. Now, of course, in the beginning phases, we still need a lot of hand holding. We need our parents to control us because we don't know any better. But the older we get, the more we mature, the more we begin to self-actualize, the more we begin to get our own sense of who we are, the more we crave autonomy. A relationship that's marked by control tends to make one spouse feel like a child. I've worked with lots and lots of people whose spouses say they make me feel like a child. I can't be myself. This typically involves one spouse trying to get their other spouse to behave in ways that I want them to behave. If I'm the controlling one, this tends to mean that I do and say things to cause my spouse to do what I want them to do. The relationship is marked by control when it's not about me understanding my spouse and loving my spouse as they are, but instead trying to get them to be who I want them to be. I'm the father of five kids. I've got lots of little ones at home, and we are cat people over here. We love our fur babies. We've got two cats right now. One of the things that you probably know if you've been around cats is they don't like to be controlled. When my kids are young, like right now, I've got a seven-year-old who is obsessed with cats, and all she ever does is draw them and put on little cat ears and all the rest. She constantly is looking for the cats in the house to pick them up and hold them and to love on them with all her might. And you know what those cats do to that sweet little girl of mine? They run away from her. Why? They don't want to be controlled. The cat doesn't trust that my daughter has their well-being in mind. They know through experience that my little daughter is really only thinking about herself and is using that precious, sweet little feline with the giant whiskers and pointy ears to make her feel better. They're being used, they're being controlled. Some of my kids have matured out of that phase. They're teenagers now, and they like to do their own things. They like to sit in their rooms and play video games and play on their phones and all of that kind of stuff. And what I've come to notice is that these cats prefer to be around the big kids in the house. Why is that? Because the big kids don't control them. The big kids accept them as they are. The big kids are not only thinking of their own well-being, but of the well-being of the cat. In fact, it is oftentimes one of my older sons correcting my younger daughter about her behavior and how about how she's being selfish and not caring about the well-being of the cat. I know this is a silly example, but I just wonder if this analogy may hold some truth for your situation. Could it be in your attempt to keep your spouse near you, you are actually doing the exact opposite? In your attempts to claw them back to you, to bring them close, to smother them with your affection, you are ignoring or violating their sense of self? Could it be that your attempts to bring them back to you are actually pushing them further away from you? If this does sound like you, then could I offer another word that may be more helpful? What if, in your attempt to save your marriage, you let go of control and instead leaned into influence? One thing that we've come to learn is that when people try to control or manipulate their spouses, things tend to get worse. But there are certain things we can do to change the environment, the relationship, the dynamic between one spouse and another that can cause a spouse to make progress or movement towards them. It's not about control, it's about influence. Go on, Nathan. This sounds interesting. Well, how do we develop influence? Hmm, here it is. The one thing that you can do to make your marriage better is not control, but influencing them. And how? By becoming a safe place for them. Hmm, a safe place. Yeah, let's go back to the cat example. When you think about my two cats, both of them know that my seven-year-old daughter is up to no good. When they're around her, they do not feel safe. They don't feel really seen for who they are. They don't feel respected. They don't feel like they can be their cute little feline selves where they scratch their backs and yawn giantly and sleep all day. Instead, they feel like if they're going to be with my little daughter, they've got to change in order to be with her. I'm not going to get what I want in this dynamic. They must be thinking to themselves, I have to just lay there and let her drag me around with my tail dragging on the floor and my arms up above my ears and all the rest. My daughter, over time, is showing them that she's not a safe place. My boys, who are older, however, they have shown through patience and consistency that they will respect the cats' boundaries, that they will not coerce or force them, and they will that they will allow the cats, cats, excuse me, to move towards them on their own accord. Becoming a safe place is about accepting your spouse where he or she is, not about trying to get them to be the person that you want them to be. So releasing control and gaining influence is about creating the right environment. Another metaphor that may be helpful for you has to do with how ranchers and farmers can keep their cattle and livestock in one location. I don't claim to be an expert here, so I hope that you'll just allow the metaphor to accomplish what it's supposed to accomplish, because I'm sure there are exceptions to what I'm about to show you. When it comes to keeping livestock in one place, there are typically two ways a farmer or a rancher can achieve this goal. They can build a fence to contain the animals, or they can dig a well. Fence building is timely, it's expensive, it needs constant repair, and it doesn't address the root issue of the livestock. In fact, if a cow, for example, wants to leave, that cow will be roaming right along the edge of the boundary, right along the edge of the fence, looking for a weakness, waiting for its chance to escape. The cow is not there because it wants to be. It's there because it has to be. What if, in your attempt to get your spouse to stay, you're building fences, you're trying to control? What might it look like instead to dig a well? What if you said, you know what, my spouse is going to do what they're going to do. They're going to come or they're going to leave. It's their choice, and I must respect their right as a human being to make their own choices. And instead of trying to force them to stay, I'm going to instead create an environment, work on myself, so that they willingly, voluntarily make moves towards me on their own accord. I'm going to dig a well so that every time they come around me, they find refreshment. If they're by me, if they're near me, it's not because they have to, it's because they want to. Okay, Nathan, I get it. Your metaphors are cute and all, but can you be more specific? Like what does this actually look like? Okay, well, let me give you a couple of scenarios. Let's say that we've got a husband and a wife who are separated. And let's say they've got three kids together, ages, I don't know, five to fourteen, something like that. Let's say in this case, the wife desperately wants to save the marriage. And most of the childbearing right now, the way that they have the kids' time split up is the kids are mostly with her and they're with their dad, let's say, every other weekend. Now, let's propose it's a weekend and dad decides to come over. The wife has some options when he comes over. She could guilt her husband and make him feel bad for leaving them. This could be especially tempting if when husband comes over, the kids are struggling emotionally. More than likely, the wife is feeling upset. She's feeling alone. She doesn't know what to tell the kid. She's hurt by her husband's their father's decisions. And so when dad comes over, she takes the opportunity to let dad know just how miserable she is, how miserable the kids are. You know, if you wouldn't separate from us, the kids wouldn't be struggling like this. It doesn't have to be this way. Hmm, we would call that a push. Now, could it be that words like that cause the husband to come back? I guess in theory it could. Maybe the husband is so racked with guilt that he feels like he must return to the home. Why is he here? Because he's found a well or because his wife has built a fence? What if instead she said something like, Wow, the kids have really missed you. I'm so glad you're here. You'll find them in the living room. I'm sure they're excited to see you. Both could be true. Would you agree? Yes, she is sad. Yes, it is harm harmful. Sure, it could be better if he would come back. But it's also true that they miss their dad, that he's important to them, and they'll be so excited that he's here. Some of this depends on what you focus on. One of those tools tends to be pushes, or one of those tactics tends to be pushes, the other tends to be pulls. Tends to be things that make a spouse feel like they matter. It elicits positive emotion. Let's take another scenario. Let's say, again, husband and wife are separated. And let's say in this case, it's the husband who decides, is the one who wants to save the marriage, while the wife has moved out. She's gotten her own apartment. She's using some of the resources, the shared accounts, to pay for this apartment. And the husband is now no longer able to have the kind of lifestyle that he had before. He's now having to make sacrifices. And let's also say that before they moved out, the wife was the one who predominantly handled the money, which meant now the husband has to handle the money in the house and pay the bills and all the rest. It's not that he's incapable. He can do it. He just doesn't want to, and he hasn't had to in the past. Now suppose a bill comes in the mail and he thinks to himself, hmm, looks like the bill is for Netflix. She's over in her apartment using our combined account. I'm just going to allow Netflix to run out. I'm not going to re-up this. And he's making this choice, not for financial reasons. He can afford Netflix. He's making it because he's trying to prove a point. He wants his wife to see, you know what? If you want to go live by yourself, then fine, you can set up your own Netflix account. He's trying to make it make her feel bad for what she's doing. My friends, that would be a push. My suspicion is that is not going to work in the long run to get her to come back. So even the fence building tactic that I'm laying out before you is not going to work. In fact, it's only going to reinforce her idea that he just doesn't get it. He doesn't understand. Instead, what if he just messaged her and said, hey, I hope you're enjoying Netflix. Do you think it'd be okay if we could split this? Or if it's really not that expensive, he just continued paying for it? Could it be that maybe, just maybe, that could be a pull? And then one day when she realizes, maybe even months later, that she's been accessing this all along, knowing that her husband wanted her, he was not interested in her moving out, but he still continued to pay for something that benefited her decision and her choice. Could it be that that causes her to change the narrative that she has in her mind about her husband, that he's selfish, that he doesn't care, that he only wants what he wants, and he's so controlling? Maybe, just maybe, that could be one of a series of kinds of interactions that could cause a reluctant spouse like the wife to rethink her choices. So what have we learned? The unfortunate reality is that you can't force your spouse to stay. You can, however, create the right kind of environment where they want to stay. Remember, it's not about control, it's about influence. Now, if you're going to be doing this in your own marriage, it can be challenging. Creating safety, like I've described, can be a challenge. So we've created a resource for you that we think will help. You can find it by clicking a link in the description. It's called Ten Texts to Help You Reconnect with Your Spouse. We hope this resource will be a benefit for you as you seek to save your marriage. If you enjoyed a video like this and you'd like to see more content, please do a number of things to help us by subscribing to our YouTube channel. You can like this video. Leave a comment. Let us know what you think. And remember, friends, there is always hope. We'll see you in the next one.