It can be the great irony of a marriage that is falling apart. Once you begin to loosen your grip and finally wrap your brain around the idea of moving on, suddenly your husband decides that he might have changed his mind and want you back. That’s why I often advise women trying to save their marriages or get their husband back to make sure that it appears they are coping, taking care of themselves, and embracing life. Because often, once you give the illusion that you have no choice but to of move on (even if it’s clear that you are reluctant to do so,) this is often going to arouse your husband’s curiosity and turn the tables a bit. It’s usually around this time that husband decide they want you back.
Such was the case with recent correspondence I received. The wife had spent months trying to convince the husband to save the marriage and to work things out. He was resistant no matter what the wife tried. Very reluctantly and with a broken heart, the wife picked up the pieces of her life and began to move on. She started seeing friends, doing things she enjoyed, and tried to start again.
A few months after this, her husband called and asked to meet for dinner. During that dinner, he very directly told her that he had a change of heart and suspected that he just might want her back. This was bittersweet for the wife. Three months ago, she would’ve killed to hear these words. She would’ve fallen into his arms with complete relief. But now, she wasn’t so sure how to proceed.
Because there was a little resentment at how much he had rejected her in the months before. And she couldn’t understand what had changed so dramatically that her husband would do a sudden about face. Plus, she knew that the issues that divided them were still present. So, she was guarded because she didn’t want to get hurt again and have to pull herself up all over again when any attempt at reconciliation failed.
She said, in part: “Part of me wants him back too. A very short time ago, all I wanted was him and I was begging him to take me back. But he didn’t want anything to do with this. So I had no choice but to move on and live my life and that was very hard, but I did it. Now, once I’m finally standing on my own two feet, he changes his mind? How am I supposed to react to that? What do I do?” I’ll try to address these concerns below.
Deciding The Best Path To Take When He Wants You Back After You’ve Moved On And Begun To Heal: Of course, the core question in this whole situation is whether the wife felt that she was ultimately going to be better off and happier if she took her husband back or maintained her new life alone. And, she didn’t seem to have the perfect answer because it had been a relatively short time since she “moved on.”
In her heart, she did not want to turn her back on her marriage. She knew and admitted that she still loved her husband. She wanted to work things out. She just wasn’t sure if she believed that this was possible or not. Part of the reason for this was that she kept hearing all the things her husband said when they used to argue about if the marriage could be saved. He had repeatedly laid out how things were over for him and he wasn’t going to change his mind. So, why did these issues suddenly become less important to him?
Why Do Husbands Change Their Minds And Suddenly Want You Back?: This was an important question for the wife. She needed to understand the answer to this question before she could even be open to considering going back to her marriage and giving it another try.
There are many reasons that men change their mind about ending the marriage, divorcing, or separating. Often, time and distance away can do wonders because it gives people the objectivity and clarity that just doesn’t come when you’re too closed to or emotionally confused about a situation. Things and feelings will often become more clear when you’re not engaging with each other every day and fueling the fire.
I often hear from men who have changed their minds about wanting their wives or girlfriends back and they say things like: “It wasn’t until it become clear that she was going to move on and I was really going to lose her that I began to realize that living without her was not what I wanted. It just hit me that I couldn’t and shouldn’t let her go without doing everything that I could to save the marriage. And, once I had a little bit of time to think about it by myself, I realized that our problems were not insurmountable.”
Many wives in this situation will tell me that they suspect that their husbands are only lonely, confused, or bored and that shortly after the wife goes back, they’ll be in the same situation when he decides he wants that he wants to split up after all.
I suppose this is a possibility, but you’ll never know the outcome if you don’t take that chance. If your heart is telling you that you want a second chance, then perhaps you can set it up so that you can have both – evaluating a second chance while maintaining your independence so that you feel as though you’re exploring both options until you can make a sound decision.
Setting It Up So You Have The Best Chance Of The Marriage Working This Time: It was pretty clear to me that the wife’s biggest concern was giving this a chance only to be disappointed later. She was hesitant to put her heart on the line again. That’s why I think it was advisable to accept nothing less than really addressing those issues this time rather than glossing over them. Now, that doesn’t mean dwelling on every problem. And sometimes it’s better to save the tough issues until you’re bonded and connecting again.
But one way to give yourself the confidence to go back to the marriage with genuine enthusiasm is to know that you’re going to do the work necessary to solve the issues so that they don’t keep cropping up. And, while she was doing this, nothing said that she couldn’t continue to go out with her friends and focus on herself. She wasn’t seeing other people romantically. She was just practicing self care, which can go hand in hand with a healthy marriage anyway.