How to Persuade Your Spouse Not to Separate for Practical Reasons

On the Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack podcast, Christian psychologist, author, and relationship coach, Dr. Jack Ito, will help you to build and restore your marriage. By learning just a few relationship skills, you can help your spouse enjoy your relationship more, while getting more love and affection from your spouse. Listen to Coach Jack as he helps you with one more step toward a marriage both you and your spouse will love.

On today's episode, Coach Jack helps teaches people with a low need for emotional connection how to reconcile with a spouse who wants separation due to lack of emotional connection.

After listening to today's episode, you may want to:

• Determine which of the four marriage styles you have.
• Get a book to figure out where you may be damaging emotional connection.
• Learn how to prevent divorce and reconnect while separated.
• Work with Coach Jack to re-attract and re-connect with your spouse.

Transcript

How to Persuade Your Spouse Not to Separate for Practical Reasons 

(Podcast Transcript)

(0:00)

[Introduction to the podcast]

Announcer: On the Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack podcast, Christian psychologist, author, and relationship coach, Dr. Jack Ito, will help you to build and restore your marriage. By learning just a few relationship skills, you can help your spouse enjoy your relationship more, while getting more love and affection from your spouse. Listen to Coach Jack as he helps you with one more step toward a marriage both you and your spouse will love.

(0:29)

Coach Jack: Do you want to persuade your spouse to stay together for practical reasons (kids, finances, home, business) while your spouse wants to separate because your relationship is not emotionally close?

This kind of problem typically occurs when: 1) a relationship started out as romantic, 2) changed to a business partner relationship, and 3) one of the spouses is satisfied while the other wants a more emotionally connected relationship.

(0:57)

I have a podcast on the four marriage styles you may want to check out for more detail. The four marriage styles are roommate, business partner, parent-child, and romantic. Mismatching relationship styles cause problems.

In a romantic style relationship, the marriage is an extension of the pre-marital girlfriend-boyfriend relationship. Dating, daily time together, and sex, play prominent roles.

In a business partner relationship, the emphasis is on a common tasks outside the relationship such as making money, raising children, doing a ministry, and so forth. Romance and quality time together take a back seat and are often neglected altogether.

Most relationships start out as romantic before marriage, though some cultures still do arranged marriages that forego a romantic period. After marriage, each person’s marital script plays out. Script mismatches are then going to cause marital problems. Often we can get a sense of what a person’s marital script is before marriage by looking at their parents relationship.

(2:08)

Today, I want to help the person who does not have a romantic script for marriage. You may have a spouse who wants to separate or divorce because of the lack of emotional connection in your relationship. Because emotional connection is not a priority for you, you may be trying to convince your spouse to work on the marriage for the sake of finances, kids, parental expectations, business, or some other reasons external to your relationship.

That approach is not going to work. Regardless of how crazy you think your spouse is for putting feelings over practicality, it is nevertheless the reality you have to deal with. Trying to convince your spouse of how wrong he or she is to prioritize feelings will only create more distance. Arguing, debate, and invalidation in general are not effective ways to save a marriage.

(3:03)

Instead, you will need to make a transition to a romantic script if your marriage is to survive. But don’t expect your spouse to suddenly be willing to date you or even have small talk. Your spouse gave up on that. You will have to start much more basic than that and gradually help your spouse to have a different kind of relationship with you. 

You will need to learn how to agree and empathize with your spouse, as well as how to have a conversation which does not focus on anything practical. For many people, that is something entirely new.

If you can only focus on what you want, without any concern for what your spouse wants, and just can’t bring yourself to agree or empathize, then you will not reconcile.

Some people honestly cannot bring themselves to do that. I don’t believe it is someone’s fault when they are that way. It is an emotional handicap. If this is you, then the most practical thing to do would be to end your relationship and cut your losses. 

(4:07)

The fact is that unless emotional connection is restored and maintained, your relationship is on its way to ending. You can’t simply give someone more time and attention until your spouse agrees not to separate or divorce and then return to business as usual. There is no such thing as a permanent fix in relationships. 

Relationships only continue with regular maintenance.

After building connection, you will have to be able to maintain your relationship with:

1. Weekly dating,
2. Daily one-on-one time together for something other than business talk, and
3. A sexual relationship that you both enjoy

You are where you are now because these things were not done. Regardless of the practicalities of life, we have to feed the dog, play with the kids, and date the spouse. Otherwise, the dog dies, the kids don’t love us, and our spouse abandons us.

(5:05)

Anything you can’t maintain you will eventually need to replace.

If you are willing to do the maintenance on your relationship, but not wanting to, my suggestion would be to give up on reconciling. But, perhaps you are concerned about childcare, money, or other practical benefits you would lose. I understand that. It’s like having a job we don’t like because we need the money. But, just like that job, you have to make the effort to do that job well every day of the week, every week of the year, for as long as you want your marriage to last.

If you have a business partner script and would actually like to learn how to have more of a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship with your spouse, there is more hope for a meaningful relationship.

From a Christian perspective, both spouses are right and both are wrong as well. It is important to take care of the practical concerns of our family and to do our part in society. 

(6:06)

We shouldn’t be separating or divorcing simply because we are not feeling fulfilled or because our relationships have gone cold. However, we are also to prioritize our spouses over all others and to love and cherish them. To be One with them.

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Genesis 2:24.

We shouldn’t be staying married merely to follow rules. God’s desire is not blind obedience, but that we love each other. If you would like a more secular, rational reason, consider how good it will be for your children, if in prioritizing them, you lose your spouse. Or how happy you will be to lose half of your business to your spouse who has found romance with someone else.

(7:00) 

Emotional connection can’t be put on hold until you finish your degree, build your business, the kids are grown, or until you retire. By then it will be too late.

The only thing that can persuade your spouse is emotional reconnection

It is not possible to persuade a person who needs to feel loved to stay for purely practical reasons. As has already happened, that spouse has become miserable to the point of leaving the relationship. Trying to convince such a spouse to stay through reasoning and explanations is just more proof to them of a lack of concern for their happiness and a further statement that they are not a priority.

Getting them to think about the difficulty for the children may make them feel guilty, but it won’t make them stay. Getting them to think about the financial costs prioritizes money over their happiness and proves them right. The spouse who feels unloved has become love starved unless they have already found someone else who can provide it for them. You starving them more with self focused reasons to stay will just push them further away.

(8:12)

If you take the approach of continuing to persuade your spouse to work on your relationship you will get more resistance and rejection. If you enlist the aid of family members in your attempt to convince, you will create alliances against your spouse and make him or her out to be a terrible person.

If you tell your children that your spouse wants to separate, while you do not, you will alienate him or her from the children. All or any of these actions will signal to your spouse that you are only concerned about what you want and need. You will have confirmed that he or she is on the right path to leave you–that emotional connection with you is not possible.

Connecting when your spouse no longer wants to connect with you

If your spouse has given up on you, after years of emotional neglect (failure to date, have daily one on one time, or have a good sexual relationship with your spouse), he or she is naturally not going to be persuaded to do that some more. Instead, you will need to show that he or she is the priority by empathizing, supporting, and cooperating–without persuading or convincing.

(9:20)

Empathy creates a connection because it puts you and your spouse on the same page emotionally. Be careful though–just one word of persuasion on your part can undo a whole lot of empathizing. Empathizing, supporting, and cooperating in this way will help your spouse to relax with you, which is always the first step to connecting, with anyone.

Once your spouse has reached this point, re-connection can only happen after separation

Separation is NOT the end of hope for reconciling. Marriage counselors have intentionally been separating people for decades as a step to healing their relationship. It is called a therapeutic separation. 

(10:03)

By reducing their negative time together, and improving the quality of their contact, a couple can become re-connected during separation in a way that may not have been possible with them living together. For this to work well, separation must be friendly and cooperative. Otherwise, contact will be minimal and negative after separation.

New skills, not separation alone, will rebuild your relationship

Re-connection is not simply a matter of time. That is why ideas like “giving space” and the “no contact rule” do not work. A spouse who has been emotionally disconnected from you for years is not going to miss your contact. You will have to learn how to stop talking in a purely practical way and to talk in a way that helps your spouse to enjoy talking with you. Practical people usually think that just getting someone to talk means they enjoy talking.

(11:01)

Asking many questions will not make your spouse enjoy talking with you. More important is to validate your spouse’s thoughts, ideas, and feelings by learning to agree. This is what all emotionally connected people do on a daily basis to maintain their relationships. 

If you are from an unemotional family, you may have never learned these skills. A book can give you examples and instructions. A coach can help you to practice. Choose the level of help that will help you succeed.

Would you like to find more persuasive ways to convince your spouse?

Some people feel more comfortable continuing to try to persuade their spouse logically. Rationally, it makes more sense to them. In doing so, they have to disregard the evidence of their eyes and ears as they get continual rejection. It is imperative for the sake of your relationship with your children and future spouse that you learn that relationships are based on emotions rather than logic.

(12:02)

In learning to be logical, you have learned about how only part of the world works. There is a lot in the world that is not rational, but is nonetheless true. Seeing only logic is like a color blind person, who not seeing colors himself, does not believe that colors exist, even though everyone else around him (or her) is enjoying them. 

It is possible to love and feel connection while also maintaining a home and family. You don’t need to reject the logical and rational in order to enjoy loving connection with your spouse.

Do you still prefer a rational spouse who prioritizes the children, home, or business?

You can have what you want, but you will need to realize that you do not have such a spouse now. You can’t convert him or her. If you want a rational, traditional spouse, then you will need to make sure you choose one next time. You are more likely to find one from Asian countries such as India or China and surrounding areas, though some in these countries (not most for sure) prefer to prioritize a romantic relationship.

(13:15)

The next step is up to you.

Will you continue to work on persuading your spouse? Can you maintain that until the children are grown? And what happens then? Will you give up on your spouse and find someone who matches you better? Or, will you make a mental shift from prioritizing your marriage to prioritizing your spouse? Although it sounds contradictory, it is the only chance you will have of saving your relationship with your spouse.

I’m sure you will have realized by now the importance of maintaining emotional connection. Now you want to provide it, but your spouse is not open to it. You will need someone to guide you through the stages of reconciling because you only get one chance at this. 

(14:00)

Fortunately, there is a re-connections coaching package that will help you with just this situation. You will have to do a lot of work to learn, but if you do, you are likely to always be glad you did.

(14:14)

 [Podcast wrap-up]

Announcer: Thank you for listening to Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack. Visit coachjackito.com to learn more skills for reconnecting with your spouse and restoring your marriage.