She Said Divorce…What You Do In The Next 72 Hours Decides Everything

If your wife has asked you for a divorce in the last 72 hours or less, what you do next is actually going to be the most critical period of your life. This 24 to 72 hour period after the D word is mentioned is what I call the Initial Collapse Window, and it is absolutely critical what you do in this. So in this video today, I'm going to give you the 7 steps that you need to take immediately to stop the damage and to put yourself in a position where you stand a fighting chance of saving this marriage. Most men, they lose their marriage in the first 48 hours of the divorce word being mentioned, not because she can't be— that the marriage can't be saved and her mind can't be changed, but because the man panics and does all of the wrong things. So what you need to do here is very counterintuitive. It's going to go against everything that you think you need to do, but the last thing you need to do is panic. So by the time your wife says Divorce. By the time she tells you she wants a divorce, she's already been preparing to leave the marriage for typically 12 to 18 months, and this is really important to understand. So what most men think is that here, where she actually says she's leaving the marriage, this is where the decision was made. This is not correct. The decision was made 12 to 18 months earlier, and the time between when she made that decision and now is she's been building the courage to actually tell you and building the case. So at this point, you think you're getting on the field to start the conversation about saving the marriage. At this point, she's leaving the field, already made her mind. So this video is going to be the difference between the action that you take that could actually save your marriage and doing more damage that is going to confirm to her that she's making the right decision to leave right now. So if you've never been here before, my name's Cody Butler and I've actually helped over 3,000 men turn their marriage divorce situation around over the past 15 years. And people like Kelly here who said, this program saved our marriage and I'm a therapist. What I do is go way deeper than what therapy does and it's way different. So stick with me and you're going to, going to see that. So in order to be successful here, you have to understand what you're trying to do. Now in this window, the initial collapse window, your goal is not to save the marriage. Your goal is about stopping the damage. Now let me give you an example. I had a friend once who, friend once who was a soldier, actually a US soldier, and he was stationed on the North Korean-South Korean border. And, and he told me, he said, in the event of an invasion, Cody, our job is not to win the war. Our job is to hold the line for long enough to where reinforcements can arrive. That was the job, and that is exactly what you are doing in this situation. And that is how you need to view this. This is not a video about how to stop your divorce, how to win your wife back, any of that stuff. This is damage control. This is battlefield medicine. You're on the battlefield right now. You've been shot in the neck. You're bleeding out and we've got to stop the bleeding. That is what the first 24 to 72 hours is actually about. So in that time, there are 7 steps that you need to take or don't take specifically, and I'm going to go through those 7 steps now. That you need after your wife has said the D-word. So the first step is to stop talking immediately. This is critical and this is going to be very, very counterintuitive, right? So let me tell you a story. When I was younger, I got pulled over for speeding and I think I was about 19 and the police officer came to my window and instead of taking the ticket and saying thank you and driving off, I decided to argue with the police officer and cause myself a problem and I talked to myself, right into a date with the judge. So I'm sat on the courthouse steps waiting for my court appearance and my lawyer came. I had to hire a lawyer to get me out of this and he said, "Cody, let's get something straight here." He goes, "You are the one stupid enough to get yourself into this mess. I'm the one smart enough to get you out of this. So when we go in there, you do not say a word. If the judge says something to you, you look at me and I give you permission to talk. Do you understand?" You do not talk. And that is exactly what is going on here. Think of me as your counsel right now and my advice is you have the right to remain silent. Use it. So the goal here is to say less, not more, and we're going to get into that. So that means no explaining, no defending yourself. When she challenges you and says, "This is why I'm leaving," you don't defend yourself. You don't go into long drawn-out monologues about we need to talk more, we need to sort this out, can we just talk. None of that stuff. So why is that? Well, the reason is because right now her nervous system is not in reconciliation mode. Her nervous system is in threat detection mode. Now, the reason I told you earlier on that she makes this decision 12 to 18 months before is because she's been taking that time to build up the nerve and the courage to tell you this. She is not— it's taken her 12 to 18 months to build up the courage to actually bust this decision out on you and tell you, and she does not want that walked back. She does not want that all undone. So her nervous system is not looking for reasons why this actually could work out. Her nervous system is looking for anything that is going to walk that decision back and undo that 12 to 18 months of work. So everything in this 24 to 72-hour window is going to be filtered as pressure. It's going to be filtered as escalation, and it's going to be filtered by her as more instability. And instability, as we're going to see, is the thing that she's trying to escape escape from. So the rule here is if it feels urgent, do not say it. This is counterintuitive. This is critical. Do not say anything at this point. Step number 2. Now step number 2 is going to be remove all pressure from the situation immediately. So that means no emotional speeches, no long SMS text messages explaining why she's making a mistake, no fixing conversations, no, "Can we just talk about this? Can we just have a conversation about this. She's not interested in any of that stuff at this point in time. All of that, there will be a place for that down the road, but remember right now our goal here is to give you a fighting chance to where you want to keep the window of opportunity open to where at a later date you can save this. You're not trying to save your marriage at this situation. Your goal is to not make the situation worse. So the thing that she wants to escape here is pressure. All of these things add pressure to the situation, which is the one thing she's trying to get away from. So why? Because pressure— when you, when you ask for these long conversations or defend yourself, it applies pressure, which confirms that her decision to leave the marriage is the correct one. You think you're fighting for the marriage. All you're actually doing is confirming her decision in that moment that she's made a good decision. So she's not trying to understand you at this point, she's predicting you. And the key here is we have to break her predictions. When she has already decided, her nervous system has determined, determined how you're going to act in this situation, she's predicted how you're going to act and react, and the only hope that you have is to break that prediction. When you fall into that prediction that she's made, You are just confirming that she knows everything about you, she knows that you're not going to change, and it's reaffirming that the decision to move is, or to leave the marriage, is the right one. So when you do all of these things here, emotional speeches, texts, etc., this is just more of the same pressure that she in this moment is trying to escape from. And as I've just said, this is a pattern that you absolutely, positively must interrupt. This is not optional for you. So step number 3 is accept reality without resistance. This is critical. Now again, let me tell you another story. I had a client one time who was a fighter pilot. He was a legitimate real-world Top Gun fighter pilot, and he actually trained other fighter pilots when they were transitioning from their training into fast jet training. He was one of the pilots that trained them, and he told me, he said, one of the things that we have to instill in the pilots, the young pilots, is that the quicker, if anything goes wrong, the quicker they can accept reality, the quicker they can accept their situation, the more chance they have of survival. So the instinct is, if something goes wrong, if that plane gets shot down and the pilot ejects out, he's going to start thinking, well, what did I do wrong? What could I have done differently? How did this happen? This is all irrelevant at this point. You're in your parachute falling to the ground, and there are people on the ground that have less than the best intentions for you. You need to accept that this is the reality. You've been shut down and the only question that is relevant at this point is what do I do next? What happens next? We can do the debrief later when you're safe and sound back at the home base, but right now you just need to accept reality and here's how you do it. The reality of the situation is she's asked for divorce. Here's what you say. I understand where you're at and I'm not going to argue or pressure you on this. I accept your decision and I'm not going to argue with you. Then stop. Now again, many men are going to go, well, Cody, you're just accepting that. She's just telling her she wants you to fight. No, she doesn't want you to fight. She wants you to leave peacefully at this point. She thinks you're going to fight. That you're going to fight is the prediction that you have to break. Say this and then stop. Now why? Because this removes the conflict. She's expecting conflict from you. She's expecting a fight. She's expecting pushback. She's expecting resistance and it also stops the emotional escalation loops that she's expecting in this situation as well. And most importantly, it breaks her negative expectation of what you are going to do next. She expects you to behave badly here. She expects you to react. She expects you to fight. She expects you to push back and she expects all of that is going to be a negative thing for her. When you do what I just said here, I understand where you're at. I'm not going to argue and I'm not going to pressure you. You break all of this predictive programming that she has about you. This is the most important thing that you can do at this point. So this is actually the point where most men lose control of the situation and make things irreversibly worse in a lot of situations without actually realizing it. Because when you push back, when you say, you think you're doing a good thing, you're saying, I'm going to fight for this marriage, I'm going to show you how much I love you, I'm going to show you how important this is all you're doing is telling her that you haven't heard what she said. All you're telling her is that I'm not listening to you and I don't respect your point of view here. Basically, in plain English, what is going on is she says, "I want a divorce," and you say, "I'm never going to let that happen." So she shouts louder, you push back more, she shouts louder, and now you're in this escalation loop that is going to end badly for you. So step number 4 is to stabilize your behavior. Really, really important. Again, like one of the things that she's leaving from here is instability and unpredictability in your behavior. So that means no emotional lows and no emotional highs. Stabilize. Now most men in this situation go one of two ways or pendulum swing between the two. They go, I don't care, I don't need you, I'm leaving, or they collapse into depression and an emotional situation, on an emotional low, or they swing between the two. I don't care, let her leave, and then don't leave, I need you, I can't live without you. So this means that she has to be your parent. This means that she has to become your caregiver, and that requires emotional energy from her. She doesn't want that at this point. So when you become emotional, she's going to pull back further. So really, really critical that you find a line of stability through this. So no, no highs and lows, no emotional crashes. And no sudden bursts of intensity here. So the goal here is to become predictable. If you can become calm, if you can become measured, if you can become predictable, that creates a version of you that she can communicate with. A version of you that is unstable, unpredictable, unreliable, she doesn't want any part of that and she's not going to communicate with that version of you. So as I've just said, why? Because instability is the major issue within the marriage. And quite simply, you don't fix instability with effort. You fix it with calm, measured behavior, and consistent behavior. So step number 5 is going to be stop chasing her. Let her do what she's gonna do because she's gonna do what she's gonna do regardless. All you can do at this point really is make the situation worse. So chasing isn't just begging, it is, it's over-texting, it's sending her long text messages, it's sending her long emails, it's becoming overly helpful, overly compliant, it's about over-showing up, it's about trying to prove all of the things that she's been asking for for the last decade in 5 minutes. This is all going to really work against you and it's really going to reinforce in her that you are irredeemable as a husband. Do not do this. So pull all All of that back. Don't worry about any of that stuff. There comes a time when you show her that you've changed. There comes a time when you have the communication. But again, remember, we're on the battlefield bleeding out. We've just got to stop that blood coming out of your neck right now. The goal here is not to get her to change her mind. The goal in the first 24 to 72 hours is to simply not make the situation worse and keep it in a position where you position yourself for conversation later on that can actually start to turn this around. So when you do all of this stuff, this erratic chat, chasing, basically you're just signaling to her she's made the right decision and nothing is ever going to change in you. Now, step number 6, and this is really, really, really important, is you need to get some self-control. You need to get control of your reactions, your impulses, and your instincts, because they are not going to serve you in any way, shape, or form if your goal is to keep this marriage in a place where you have the possibility of saving it later. So this is where a lot of men fail because they don't have realistic expectations. Here's what you could expect for your wife for the foreseeable future. You can expect coldness from her, maybe even rudeness. You can expect distance. You can expect harsh comments. You can expect a lot of behavior that is potentially going to trigger you because it's telling you that she is out of the relationship. Now you have to understand what's happened in her mind. In a split second, she's gone from being a married woman to a woman that's getting divorced. When her friends or her people or people around her ask her for her status, "What is the status of your marriage?" She's gone from saying, "I'm married," to now she's telling people, "I'm getting divorced." Her identity has shifted and her behavior is going to shift as well. She's no longer seeing herself as your wife at this point. She is seeing herself as a woman in the divorce process and this shifts the rules, this shifts everything. Everything's changed. So you can no longer look at her as though she's your wife and have the same rule set that was there a very short period of time ago. So expect this. Expect the coldness, the distance, the harsh comments, a lot of things that you don't like, and get control. Do not respond to this. Your job is to not react when she does this. No defensiveness. No correcting her, no escalation, no asking her, "Why do you have to be so rude? Why aren't you willing to work on this? Why have you got to talk to me like that?" None of that stuff. Why? Because every loose cannon reaction that you give to her coldness or her feedback, it reinforces in her mind the reason that she's leaving. She's not looking at this point in time, you have to understand this, she's not looking for reasons to stay. She's not looking for signs of change in you. This is not a manipulation play where she's doing this to try and get you to change and she has no intention of leaving. Understand she has every intention of leaving and she's not looking for reinforcement or reasons not to leave. She's looking for reinforcements as to why she's made the right decision. And unfortunately, in the first 24 to 72 hours, most men give her all of the reinforcement that she needs that she's made the the right decision and just turbo boost that projection that she's on, that direction that she's heading in to leave this marriage, and it makes it very, very difficult for you to change it at a later date. So remember, she's predicting you. She's expecting behavior from you. Every time you confirm that behavior, you strengthen her decision to leave. Every time you break that prediction, when she's expecting you to act negatively and you act neutrally or positively, it weakens her predictive mechanism, and that is your door. So this is the way back into this marriage. You have to break the predictive mechanism that she is using right now. So step number 7 is shift from words to observable actions. Now understand this, this is, this is very important. You are in a behavioral situation and you cannot talk your way out of a situation that you behaved your way into. And this is the mistake that many men that I talk to in this initial window when the D word is thrown out there, the mistake that they made, they go, "What do I say, Cody? Give me the script, Cody. Tell me what to say to her." There's nothing. There's nothing you can say. Understand that you are in a behavioral situation and you can only behave your way out of a situation that you behaved your way into. So do not think that your words are going to have any impact on it at all. The only thing that is going to turn this around is your observable Actions. So no more promises, no more explanations, no more declarations, no more "whatever you want me to do, just tell me what you need, let's talk about this." Those days are gone and they are some way in the future if you're going to turn this around. At this point in time, she is concerned only with your behavior and you should only be concerned with exhibiting behavior that breaks her prediction mechanism. Or in other words, you need to reset her nervous system. So only behavior from you that is consistent, only behavior from you that is stable, only behavior from you that is non-performative in nature. Which again, let me, let me just state this again because this is so important. I understand where you're coming from. I accept that you're asking for divorce and I'm not going to be difficult. That's basically your position in this window. So every one of these 7 steps is absolutely critical to this window, the Initial Collapse Window, and getting through the Initial Collapse Window in a position that actually allows you to start to recover the marriage. So again, understand, if she's just asked for divorce, you are not trying to save this marriage right now. You are not trying to win her back. You are trying to to stop the situation from escalating out of control. You have one objective at this point in time, brother. Do not make the situation worse. Do not make the situation worse right now. You— what you're doing is you're trying to stop the confirmation signals that she's looking for in you that the decision to leave is the right one. Now, if you get this right You create the environment for the next step, which is outside of that initial collapse window where you can actually start to make the situation better. You can actually start to make her question her decision. But if you get this wrong and you re— and you confirm her decision to leave in that first initial collapse window, you are going to make recovery significantly, significantly harder, if not impossible. This is where a lot of men push so hard that they force her to move out prematurely before she needed to. To take action against you prematurely before she needed to, etc. This is your window that you have to get right. So let's lay some stuff down here. Let's talk reality. Reality is she's not listening to you. She's not listening to what you say at all. Forget your words at this point. Step 1: Remain fundamentally silent. Now I don't mean don't talk to her, period. I mean don't talk to her about correcting the marriage. You can talk to her about the kids or anything else you want, but not about the marriage. She's not listening to what you say right now. She's watching what you do. She's predicting you. She's seeing if you fall into the predictive mechanism and the predictive model that she has built subconsciously through her nervous system. The truth right now, her nervous system is not deciding whether to stay or go. It's already decided to go. It's validating whether that was the right decision or not. The consequence of this truth Every wrong move you make in this moment, it validates that she has made the right decision to leave. The 7 steps that I've just given you are going to interrupt that predictive mechanism and they're going to cause her nervous system to question, is this the right decision? What control do you have here? Well, you have control of one thing, yourself, your own behavior. That's it. You don't have control over her decisions. You don't have control over anything that has anything to do with her. At this point, and the more control you try to reassert on this situation, which is what men typically do— this is our nature when we feel that we've lost control, our initial instinct is to regain control— the more you do that, the more damage you're doing and the harder you are making this to recover at a later date. What's the timeline we're talking about? Well, the timeline is short. You don't have time to guess. Watch this video again. Go through it. You're in a situation that is absolutely critical. You're bleeding out. You've got 2 minutes before it's over. You've got 2 minutes to stop the bleeding. This is not about making you comfortable. This is not about making you feel good. This is about getting you to a stabilized point to where we can get you to a field hospital and start to stabilize the situation. So your move here is this: the next move you make and the next series of moves you make over the next 24 to 72 hours and, and beyond matter more than any— anything that you've done so far. This is going to determine largely the outcome of your marriage, right? So let's just recap so you have those 7 moves. Step number 1, stop talking immediately. You have the right to remain silent. My advice to you as your advocate is use it. Do not talk about the marriage. Step number 2, remove pressure. Don't pressure her. Accept, go to step number 3, which is accept reality without resistance. I understand that this is what you're doing and I'm not going to give you a hard time about this. That's it. Step number 4, stabilize. Don't shift between depression and I don't care, do what you want, I don't need you anyway. It's going to cause more problems. Stop chasing her. No long text messages, no long emails, no long conversations, no can we just talk about this. Step number 6, get control of yourself. She is expecting you to behave like a monkey with a machine gun right now. She's expecting you to be a loose cannon, You have to prove her wrong. You have to prove that you're capable of stability. You're capable of rational behavior under pressure. And step number 7, shift from words to observable actions. You are in a behavioral situation. You are not going to talk your way out of a situation you behaved your way into. You're only going to behave your way out of it. So the good news, there is a window of opportunity here that to save this marriage and to, and to get it back on track. But there is also a point where this becomes very, very difficult to reverse. We do not have an unlimited amount of time to sort this out. And unfortunately, the line where it crosses from it was potentially savable to where this is now, it's not redeemable anymore, this marriage can't be saved, most men don't know where that is until they cross it. It's like alcohol. You think you're in control of alcohol and you think you're just having, you're getting a little buzz from a nice drink and you can keep it under control. You don't know where you cross over into being drunk and being out of control. You don't know where that line is, and most men, by the time they figure out that line, it's because they've crossed it and they're on the other side. So if you're in this situation right now, my advice to you is you don't have time to guess and experiment and figure this out. So if you want to know what the next steps are once you've got through this initial 72-hour window, I've got a workshop for you. There's the link in this description that tells you how to start turning the situation around, exactly what's going on in her head psychologically, exactly how to enter into that conversation and exactly what has to happen if you have any hope of saving this marriage. So that's linked in the description. Watch that. If you're watching this on YouTube and you have questions about this, leave a comment and/or tell me what you'd like to talk about and I'll, if I can, I'll make a video on it. And if you're ready to learn what to do next, watch this video here. Give us a like, give us a subscribe for more content like this. And watch this video again because this is absolutely critical to your