She Asked For Divorce? Avoid These 7 Catastrophic Mistakes

So in this video, I want to talk about 7 things that men do that they think will save their marriage when your wife has asked for a divorce that actually makes the situation much worse, not better. Now, if your wife's just asked for a divorce, you're in a state of fear, you're in a state of panic, you feel like you have to take action now, you have to change things now, and it all feels much, much more urgent than what it is. And I'm going to go through the 7 things that men do in this video that will actually make the situation worse. I'm going to tell you why they make the situation worse, and I'm also going to give you the reverse action, what you should do in each situation to actually start to make the situation better. So most men, they don't lose their marriage in this situation because they don't care about the marriage or they don't care about their wife. They actually lose it because they respond very instinctively instead of Strategically. Now, divorce crisis is very counterintuitive. Everything you've done so far is, is instinct-led to make the situation better, when in fact it's only making the situation worse. So what actually works is very counterintuitive to what you feel works, and what feels emotionally right is often exactly what you don't need to do and what makes the situation worse. And conversely, the the thing that actually makes the situation better and turns it around is going to feel very alien to you. So let's get into that. So the first mistake that men make when their wife asks for a divorce is they just proclaim that they're going to fight for the marriage. I'm never going to give up. I'm always going to fight for you, etc., etc., etc. Now, men, what men think works here is if they show her commitment, if they refuse to give up, go, I'm never going to give up on this. I'm never going to stop fighting. They think that they just need to convince her to stay, that it's a lack of effort, or if they make enough effort, she's going to see how much he really cares. And saying stuff like, "I'm not letting us quit. I'm not quitting on this marriage," thinking that it's showing commitment and love and it's bringing something to the table that wasn't there before. But the reason that it fails is because this is opposition. It feels like opposition to her decision now. One thing that human beings do is they can hit— when they want something or they're in a position, they can hear nothing until what they have said has been heard. Now, if your wife has asked for a divorce or she's leaving the marriage and you're telling her basically, I'm not going to let that happen, I'm going to fight for this, you're saying to her, I have not heard your decision and I do not honor or respect your decision. And all that's going to do is is make her push harder towards divorce. The, the more you push, the more it's gonna push her away because it creates pressure instead of relief. And pressure is what she's looking to get away from, and she's looking to find relief. It also makes her feel unheard. When she says, I've finished with this marriage, I'm done, and you say, that's not true, or I'm not letting that happen, then of course one of the big problems is going to be she's not felt heard, seen, or validated within the marriage. And now even at the point of exit, You're still engaging in exactly the same behavior that's caused her to want to leave in the first place. So all this does is reinforce the emotional exhaustion. She's been, she's been considering this decision for a long time. The, the thought of the decision has exhausted her. She was probably terrified to give you the decision, which also has created exhaustion and emotional fatigue. And now that she's finally got the decision out and said it, now she's starting to see that she's gonna have to fight this as well, which is creating more emotional exhaustion, which is going to cause her to exit the relationship faster, not stick around. So what actually works here is finding a place of emotional regulation throughout this. I know you're scared right now. I know you're in fear and you feel like you have to do something, but this is gonna make it worse. It's about finding a place of stability and going, okay, this is fine. This is not the end. This is just a data point. I'm going to just settle down. And I'm going to deal with this from a place of emotional regulation, from stability, instead of a place of chaos. Now again, hearing her instead of resisting immediately, this is going to get her to slow down. If you tell her that you hear what she said, she's asked for divorce. And you accept that and you'll be agreeable, men immediately think, well, you're just speeding things up. Well, she's already left, brother. You're not speeding things up. This means what it actually does is slow the situation down because it reduces the pressure and it creates emotional safety. She realizes now that this decision to leave and telling you is not actually going to create more pressure in the relationship and, uh, more control, manipulation, et cetera, it actually creates emotional safety for her by saying that you accept her decision and you're not going to create that pressure. And that gives her space to actually settle down, and it creates an environment where conversation can actually start to move in the right direction. So the second mistake that men make here is they try to have long emotional conversations. They go, let's talk this through, let's go to therapy, let's explore our feelings, et cetera, et cetera. They think talking through things through work, if they explain their feelings, how much I love you, why you've got this wrong, why this is the wrong decision, or if she understands me, she'll stay. If she just understands how much I love her, if she just understood how much I care, that she'll stay. But the truth of the matter is, none of these things are the reason that she's leaving. She doesn't doubt how much you love her. She doesn't doubt your feelings. She doubts her ability to remain in this environment, and that's what's really driving this. So long conversations at this point don't change the underlying driver that she's looking for relief from the situation. It only adds more pressure to an already pressurized situation, which is going to push her further away. Now, why does this fail? Because she's already emotionally overloaded with this situation. She's got— this is a new situation, and she's got a lot to process. Now she's going to have to move, or you're going to have to move. Got settlements, got children, got finances, got a lot of logistics. She's already completely emotionally overloaded at this point with the situation, and you pushing for long emotional conversations just creates more emotional overload. Now, the second thing is she already knows how you feel. She already knows how much you love her. She already knows all of these things. Again, it's not— she's not leaving because she doubts or doesn't understand your feelings. She's leaving because of the environment that she's in is no longer sustainable for her. So more talking equals more emotional pressure, pressure for her. And ultimately, the reason she's leaving is because she's in a pressure cooker and she's looking for relief. These conversations simply create more pressure, which is going to make her want to move, leave even more, and make your situation even worse. Now, what actually works in this situation, situation is shorter, calm interactions. Logistics, okay, here's what we need to do. Just keep it simple. Show her, start to reduce her emotional intensity. As I've put here, lower her emotional intensity by less convincing of why she's wrong and why she needs to stay and more listening to her. If you can lower the emotional intensity and you can show her through your actions that talking to you isn't a pressure cooker, talking to you isn't going to try to convince her to do something that she really doesn't want to do at this point, then she's going to be more apt to have a conversation with you because you're going to have to talk this through. If you're going to save this marriage, you're going to have to get into a position to where she will talk to you, and that doesn't start with a long emotional deep and meaningful conversation. It starts with short little calm logistical interactions that show her that talking to you is safe, that talking to her— talking to you does not create more pressure or guilt or any of those things. So This makes the interactions feel emotionally lighter, emotionally safer, and that is your goal. All you want to do at this point, you're not looking to save the marriage, you're looking to make the emotional interactions safer and, uh, lighter so she chooses to have more of them. And as that starts to expand out, then you can start to have the long meaningful conversations, but not at this stage. Now, number 3, the mistake that men make is repeating apologies. They think that, uh, They think what works is owning mistakes, showing humility, demonstrating change. And all of these work down the road. These are all necessary parts of the reconciliation process, but order counts. Order is important. And at this point, she doesn't want to hear that you own your mistakes. She doesn't want you to say, "I understand my role." She doesn't want you— she just wants some relief from the situation. And at this point, none of this feels real to her. None of this feels genuine. In fact, it's probably actually going to make the situation worse. Like the fact that now she's told you she's leaving, now you're going to own your mistakes, now you're going to show some humility, now you're going to start to change. All that does to her is communicate that you could actually have been doing this all along and you haven't been. And that's, quite frankly, it's probably going to piss her off more than it's going to do what you think it's going to do. So why it fails is because the repetition creates failure. Creates pressure. Rather, she's not looking for an apology at this point. She's looking for emotional relief. This feels reactive, not transformative. As I just said, she's simply going to view this as you're reacting to the situation. You're not looking at yourself and going, I need to be transformative in myself, in this marriage. I need to change. I need to make adjustments. She's, she's going to view it as you simply are reacting to the situation, which is going to come across as controlling, manipulative, and quite frankly not genuine. And it's going to frustrate you as well. It's going to keep focus on the pain cycle. So if you keep apologizing, it's just going to keep bringing back, bringing back. If you say, I'm sorry I did this, I'm sorry I did that, it's going to refocus her on the very things that she's looking to get away from right now. She's looking for relief from those situations. She's not looking to go back and relive these situations at this time. And as I've mentioned here, apologies at this point, they can feel emotionally manipulative as well. She's going to feel like you're only doing this because you're in pain now. You're only doing this because you're leaving, because I'm leaving. You don't really mean this. So what actually works here is going to be behavioral consistency. You need to start changing your behavior quietly, silently in the background without her being told. You need to demonstrate calm emotional presence. Now, she's going to trigger you a lot during this, this phase. She's going to want you to be— she's going to want to make it very clear that she's made up her mind and that this is happening, and you're going to take that as finality when actually it's not finality, it's just a data point. This is not failure, this is just data. So at this point, you have to be able to sit in what she's bringing to you and be bigger than the situation. If you If your emotional stability is dependent on her right now, you're going to be emotionally volatile, and this is going to stimulate more of what she's trying to get away from in the relationship. So you need to demonstrate emotional change over time. Again, we're talking about the first short period of time where she's just told you it's over. That is not the time to start demonstrating change or promising change. You need to start— you need to demonstrate that change over an extended period period of time, and less talking about change, more embodying it. You don't need to tell her that you're going to stop doing things. You don't need to tell her that they're going to change. She needs to start experiencing that change without you narrating the entire process. So mistake number 4 is constantly asking questions, or in other words, needing reassurance that this is going to be okay. So what men think works is going, I just need clarity, I just need to understand what's happening here. Just tell me what to do. And again, in the man's mind, he thinks he's making things better. But the reason it fails is because, again, it creates emotional crowding. She needs relief at this point. And essentially, all of these questions that you're asking are producing— it's producing emotional neediness, and it's causing her to need to manage your emotions and need to manage you. In order to keep the situation calm. So it's creating that emotional crowding within her that she's actually looking for, for actively to escape from. So she's not experiencing this as care, she's not experiencing it as love or concern, she's experiencing it as more pressure being applied to her, and she's going to want to escape from that. So it also forces emotional labor on, onto her. When you ask these questions consistently needing reassurance, it forces her to engage in this when she doesn't want to, which is emotionally laborious to her. And it also makes her feel responsible for your regulation. When you melt down, or you have— you're emotionally unstable without the reassurance, when you go into a state of anxiety or fear, or you start to, you start to lose it, she now feels responsible again for your regulation and welfare. And again, you're not showing up in a position of leadership and as her husband and equal. You're showing up as a child that needs to be managed. And this is exactly what she's looking to get away from. She's not looking for more of this. So what actually works here is the emotional self-control. You have to also learn to tolerate uncertainty. You have to be able to sit in that uncertainty, and you have to be bigger than— bigger than the uncertainty. Because, brother, you've got a lot of uncertainty ahead of you. And really where this goes off the rails and when it goes wrong is when a man loses control because he can no longer tolerate the uncertainty and he needs to contract, needs to start to create a certain amount of certainty for himself. So he starts to control the situation and manipulate the situation and move it in a certain direction because this is the only way he knows how to get certainty. But of course, this is simply going to come across as controlling, manipulative, and everything that she's trying to get away, away from. So giving her that emotional breathing room, having the confidence within yourself to understand and the knowledge to understand that this is not the end, this is just a data point, and what you do next is critical. It's really, really important. The best thing you can do right now is give some— give her some time with her decision because she's still uncertain about her decision at this point. She's still looking for validation that she's made the right decision. And although it feels as certain as it's ever going to feel at this point, when she says, "I'm absolutely certain I want a divorce," this is your opportunity to leave her alone with that decision and see the consequences, the reality of that decision, about what it's actually going to be like to be single, what it's actually going to be like to have to go through separation, financial breakdown, etc. If you keep crowding her because you're seeking certainty, you're not going to give her the room to actually evaluate the decision that she's made. You're going to simply reinforce that it is the right decision because you're going to destroy the relief that she's trying to get from it, and she's gonna— you're gonna double down on her belief that the only way to get relief from this relationship is to leave it. You're going to teach her that she cannot have the relief that she's desperate for inside the relationship, which is critical for her to understand. So responding instead of interrogating. So respond to the situation. I understand you want a divorce. I accept that. I'm going to be agreeable. Instead of interrogating, why, why now, what have I done, what could I do differently, etc. The interrogation is not going to help you at all. So mistake number 5, going to be one of the harder ones to avoid, is to try to fix everything immediately. Because that's what we do as men. We're Mr. Fix-It. When we see a problem, It is our instinct to fix it, and when the marriage is broken, we immediately go into fix-it mode. So what men think works here is like fast action, urgency. I've got to solve this problem now. And also along with that is that if the problem is not solved now, it's never going to be solved. If I don't fight this, then I'm gonna, I'm gonna convince her that she's made the right decision. All of these things are going to go the exact opposite to the way that you think they are, and they're going to have a very, very detrimental effect and produce an outcome that you really don't want. So why this fails is because it produces panic energy, it produces fear energy, it promotes— it produces emotional intensity. It increases the emotional intensity within the relationship, which again, I've said 100 times now, she's looking to escape the intensity, not have more of it. And when she realizes that being around you or engaging with you in any way creates emotional intensity she's now going to associate the space that she needs being literally away from you. When she says, "I need space," that doesn't mean she needs space outside of the marriage or space away from you. It means she needs space and relief from the intensity. If she can get the relief from the intensity in your presence by you calming down and being emotionally stable and regulated, then she can get that space in your presence. But if you go into this panic energy and you go into, "I've got to fix it now," she's she's going to realize that the only way she can get the space that she needs is to the exclusion of you. And she's going to leave the house. She's going to ask you to leave the house. And if that doesn't work, this is where legal orders start to become involved quite often. So, uh, panic energy, emotional intensity increases. It reinforces her belief that nothing has changed in you, that you are simply going to be emotional, emotional drama to her. And it makes interactions feel unsafe. Every time you're around her, the panic comes up, and the need to create that certainty is going to make her feel unsafe because you're needing to manipulate and control simply for your own emotional welfare. So what actually works here— we probably know this by now— but slowing the emotional escalations. Your goal in this stage, if your wife has just asked for a divorce, your goal is to slow the situation down. Just, just to give you— if you're going the wrong direction in a car at 100 miles an hour, The most progressive thing you can do is slow down or stop. Speeding the car up is not the right move. You're just going to move in the wrong direction faster. So your goal at this point is not to reconcile the marriage, to get her to change her mind. Your goal is simply to get her to slow the escalation process down. And when you apply pressure, when you do all of the, uh, the previous mistakes we've talked about, you simply escalate her need to move faster. So the answer, what works, is slow the emotional escalation, stabilize yourself, become stable, learn how to sit in the uncertainty without creating emotional escalation to her, change your interaction patterns with her, don't create emotional pressure and escalation when you interact with her. If you can do that, she will interact with you more, and then this creates an environment where, uh, the possibility of transformation happens of the marriage. And creating consistency instead of urgency. You want to come across as a consistent, stable, well-regulated man instead of a man who's just completely urgent and desperate and in a panic-driven state to turn this around. That is not going to work. So moving on to number 6, and again, many men resort to this, and it's simply a form of, really a form of manipulation in an attempt to gain some certainty and control. And it's using logic, family, or guilt to change her mind. So what men think works is, well, think about the kids. What are you doing to the kids? Look at, look at what this is going to do to our family. The logical persuasion. Uh, look at what this will do to our finances. Look at the damage this is going to do to so-and-so. Use guilt and external circumstances to apply pressure to the woman to where that pressure, it's believed that she's going to go, oh, you're absolutely right. I'm going to stay because I don't want to damage our children. Or Oh, you're absolutely right. Church is another one, right? Church is a great pressure. A man will go to his church community and say, she, you know, pressure her into staying, use the Bible, use the denomination to put spiritual pressure on her. And this is not necessarily nefarious or intentional. The man is desperate. You're in a fear-driven, desperate state right now, just grabbing anything that will work to give you some relief. But unfortunately, this is going to it's going to reinforce that what she's done is right. And we're in a very narrow window right now that we need to— the best we can hope for at this point, and really the, the goal that we're looking for, is we're looking to get her to not solidify her decision, to question, am I doing the right thing, versus going, well, I've told him I want a divorce and the first, first thing he's done is apply control, manipulation, and pressure. That's not going to work for you. That is going to immediately convince her that you are not somebody that, that she wants to spend the rest of her life with. And this is going to make it easier for her to leave. It's going to do the exact opposite. Do you think this is going to make her make it harder? It isn't. It's going to make it the exact opposite. So why does this fail? Why does this fail? Well, one, because it creates shame and pressure. She already knows the damage that she's doing. She's, she's thought this through. She understands. She understands the consequences of this, and she's already dealing with such shame and guilt. And you doubling down on that shame and guilt isn't making her feel good about herself, and it isn't making her look at you as a man who can help resolve shame and guilt and pressure issues. It's creating a perception in her mind that you're creating the shame and you're creating the guilt, not that this is the situation and she's dealing with it. Of course, it's going to feel very emotionally controlling to her. She's going to feel manipulated. It's going to increase resentment. As I say, men— I talk to men all the time and they go, she doesn't know the damage that she's doing to the family. Trust me, she does. She doesn't know the impact that this is going to have on the finances. Trust me, she does. She's already thought this through. And the truth of the matter is she's decided to do this anyway, in spite of the damage. And if you make her feel responsible for that, then all it's going to do is create resentment towards you, and it's going to make any, any source of reconciliation, any pathway, 10 times more difficult than it already is. And it's going to make her— it makes her feel trapped. Again, she's looking for relief and emotional space. This is going to do the exact opposite. Instead of giving her freedom and space, which she's now experiencing within the marriage, you're actually just doubling down on the fact that she can't get that from you. So what actually works is emotional understanding. I understand why you feel that way. I understand why you want out. I understand why you would see it that way. Respecting, uh, emotional reality, removing coercion from the situation. Whether she stays or whether she goes is a completely autonomous decision that she can make. It's not— if she wants to leave and damage the children, she can. She's free to do that. If she wants to leave and violate her spiritual beliefs, she can. She's free to do that. That is a position and a privilege that she has. Now, that's not to say that it's the right decision, but that is in fact her decision, and she has the autonomy and the freedom as a human being to do that. She has the right to make the wrong decision, and Your role is to respect that autonomy. And if you try to place guilt on her and remove that autonomy, it's going to feel very, very coercive to her. She's going to feel like it's coercion, and this is not going to reflect well on you, and it's not going to help— well, help your situation. So it's also— it's not what works is creating an environment that she actually wants to move towards. So right now she's leaving because The environment that she's in is one that she can't tolerate to the extent of she's willing to do this damage to everybody and everything, including herself, to get out of it. The antidote to that, the solution to that, is to provide her with an alternative. So right now, fundamentally, she's saying, "I want to escape this emotionally coercive, emotionally heavy, emotionally controlled environment that's very heavy for me and feels very whatever. I want to escape that." Offer her an alternative. A light, spacious, non-coercive environment where she's free to act, uh, operate as an autonomous individual. That's what she's going to— that, that's given her space to move into versus giving her only space that she has to move out of. And finally, number 7 is trying to prove your love. Again, we've covered this a little bit, but men think that the big gestures, the more affection, 'Let me reassure her how much I love her. Let me reassure her how much I'm on her team. If she could just see how much I love her, she'd understand. If she just knew how much I'd love her, she'd stay.' This is completely erroneous thinking, not true in the least. Like, this is not— she doesn't doubt any of these things, and that's just simply not going to help. So why does this fail? Well, love is not the missing variable in this relationship. She's not She's not leaving because you don't love her enough. She's leaving because the emotional environment is too intense and it's unsustainable for her. She needs, she needs to escape. The environment that she's in is, is simply unacceptable. That's why she's leaving. Her knowing that you love her more without that environment changing isn't going to change anything. It doesn't change the fact that almost, if not 100% of her decision is based on needing to escape the environment. Not you loving her more in that environment. She already knows you love her. This is why a lot of times women will be very complimentary in this situation. I know you love me, and I love you too, but I have to do this for myself. I have to find— I have to find myself. I have to move out. I have to do this for me. She's, she's not doubting your love, and she's trying not to hurt your feelings by giving you, A, problems that you're going to respond to that's going to make her situation worse, and B, give you hope that if you could just love her more, she'd stay. It's not about that. She will stay if you provide the right environment, but none of these things are the right environment. You know, what is the right environment then? Well, what does actually work? Well, the answer is she needs emotional relief. That's why she's leaving. She needs reduced pressure. She needs to feel emotional safety. She needs— what works is making the relationship feel emotionally sustainable again. Right now she's leaving because she's reached a point and she's gone, this relationship simply is not emotionally sustainable for me. Doesn't matter how much you love me, it's not emotionally sustainable. I need relief. I need lower pressure. I need more emotional safety. And none of these things you're telling me you love me and you're gonna like, none of these things produce any of that. You have to create an environment that is emotionally sustainable for her. Now, those are the 7, 7 things. So let's just summarize that. So number 1, she's not evaluating at this point whether you care. Get that out of your mind. Proving to her that you care, waste of time. She, what, what is she evaluating? She's evaluating, how does it feel for me to stay in this relationship right now? That's the question you've got to ask yourself. And all of the 7 mistakes that I've given you create— they degrade that situation. She's evaluating, how does it feel to stay? Well, everything that I've just described makes it harder, worse, heavier, emotionally unsafe, emotionally taxing upon her, laborious to stay. So what do people actually move towards? Well, the answer is relief. Whatever she's doing right now, she's seeing as the way to get relief, in the same way you are. All of these 7 mistakes are not because you're a bad man or because you're controlling, manipulative. Manipulative is because you believe that those 7 steps will bring you relief. You're moving towards relief, which actually is to apply more pressure The way she's seeing relief is to get out of that pressure that you're applying. So you both want the same thing, which is relief, but you're seeing it different ways. The relief for you comes from her staying, the relief for her comes from her leaving. You've got to reconcile this and you've got to put a strategy and a plan in place that allow those two things to be reconciled. And you absolutely can do it, and I'm going to give you the location of where you can find that in a minute. One second. So Divorce often becomes psychologically associated with relief. Again, she's associating divorce with relief. You've got to break that connection. If you don't, she's going to get— she's going to divorce you, bro, I'm telling you. So again, the goal here, understanding that, is not to control the situation or change the situation. The goal is changing the emotional experience that she is having within that situation. If you do that, then you're on the field and you've got a fighting chance of her staying. If you don't do that, then it's pretty much done and dusted at this point. So if you want to learn how to do that, where to go from this point and to take the right actions, then I've got a free workshop for you called You Can Win Her Back, where I go into what to do, what not to do, the mistakes to avoid, and the actions that you need to take to start to reduce the emotional pressure and start to give her relief and provide that relief actually within the marriage so she can start to see the possibility that she can get what she's looking for while staying within the marriage. That's all in this free workshop, link in the district— description. And then when you've done with that, go ahead and watch this video right here.