I get a lot of questions about how to keep a husband at home or how to keep him from leaving. A true example is: “Can you tell me a way to stop my husband from leaving or make him want to stay, because I know that once he leaves, I have a real chance of losing him? He is determined to go and I need to think into something quick to keep it here. ” I get all kinds of variations on this, but the theme is basically always the same: the husband wants to leave the wife and she panics, thinking that this is the beginning of a divorce.
I fully understand these feelings. I was in this same scenario a short time ago and handled it like many people do. In my panic, I literally tried and did everything I could to make him stay. Now I am ashamed of some of these things. They were so far below me. And they only made it go faster. I finally got it back, but my actions delayed my success in a big way. In the following article, I will explain the preferable way to prevent a husband from leaving.
You can’t physically stop him from walking out the door if that’s what he wants to do. Negative mind games and ultimatums don’t work either:I have had wives tell me stories of them literally lying on the doorjamb screaming and crying in an attempt to stop the husband from leaving. Do you know what he did in response? He stepped over her, like she was the morning paper thrown on the door. One woman told me that she held onto her husband’s leg and held it with the will to live as he walked to the car with her clinging to his leg and being dragged away.
I often tell readers that when you act like this, it’s really a big hassle and it shuts down. You could compare it to the actions of a child, not an adult. How do you respond when your child tries to manipulate you with a well-played tantrum? Does that behavior make you want it? It probably just makes you angrier. And, if you are too tired to play and give up just to keep the peace, you often feel quite resentful that you have not handled it better. So the next time the theatricality starts, you overreact with your determination that it won’t win “this time.”
Some women will go the other way and try to play rough. They will say things like “okay, go away, but if you cross that line, don’t you dare come back. If you make this decision, that’s it. Never speak to me again if you walk out that door.” Again, this is very negative behavior that will only make you think “at peace then”. There is a much better way. It may not feel as satisfying, but it will give you better results, so it will be much more satisfying in the end.
You have to let him make the decision to want to stay with you alone: Let’s be honest. The only decent way for this to happen is for him to actually change his mind through feelings that weren’t manipulated. You don’t want her to feel fear or guilt or those negative feelings that she will eventually resent with you. You want her to have positive feelings so that she can come to her own conclusion that it is better to stay and be happy than to leave and miss you.
This won’t happen if you fight him tooth and nail or act like you’re helpless and weak without him. I know it is very easy to let despair rears its ugly head. But, if you feel like you’re losing control, apologize until you can calm down. You don’t want to allow a few seconds of loss of control to sabotage all the terrain you need to recover.
In all your interactions with him, you must be calm and rational. You need to speak quietly but clearly and make direct eye contact. It’s okay to tell her that you don’t want her to leave, but you should also let her know that you really want her to be happy and that you are not going to compound her problems with your behavior. Many women tell me that this sounds like the servile behavior that I have been telling them to avoid. It really isn’t. It is a time buyer. If you know that he won’t get ugly when the two of you communicate or are together, then it will give you much easier access to him. So what do you do with this access?
He has to know that he is better off with you than without you:It is totally human nature to gravitate towards what feels good and to try to escape from what feels bad. You need to position yourself as what he is looking for rather than what he is running away from. When I say this to women, they think I am telling them to spill false affection or to try to seduce their husbands into staying. I’m not saying this unless you can pull it off so it doesn’t feel like an act or a show. (And often, your strong emotions will prevent this from happening until you have some distance.)
Men hate being manipulated. If they feel like they are being misled, they will again put you in the negative category. It’s much better not to play games, but to keep interacting based on what you did when you first fell in love. You know what and to whom your husband responds. You’ve been there before when you met. We are all different, but men are pretty basic. They like to feel appreciated, understood, valued, and they like to know that you have genuine affection for who they really are. The women or wives who manipulate them do not respect this and the husbands know it.
Women often tell me that they understand this, but they don’t think they have a chance to let it develop because once the husband leaves, all access is lost. This is not necessarily true. There are often loose ends to tie up and conversations that need to take place. There is also the strategy of getting out there, living your best life, and making sure he knows it. This will often get a man’s attention quite quickly, because he wants to know what has changed. It’s been trying to change you and this situation for years and then when it goes away, are you suddenly different? How did this happen? Usually he will come to find out, and that’s when you show your best self.
It all comes down to letting you see the person you once loved. Because right now, he doesn’t see that at all. You see a situation that you think will never change. And, because of this, he has given up and feels that it is better to take a chance on the outside. You must show him that things can absolutely change and you must show him this through actions and not words.
