What if I told you that there are 4 things that may have happened in your marriage RIGHT NOW that caused your wife to emotionally check out, and if you don’t recognize them in time you may end up with divorce papers in your hands and not know what hit you.

So in today's video, I'm going to walk you through the four signs  so you can understand what is actually happening beneath the surface and you better pay attention until the end because if you recognize ANY of the signs in your marriage, you need to immediately start doing the right things in order to reconnect with your wife before it’s too late.

SIGN #1 – SHE STOPS BRINGING PROBLEMS TO YOU

This is actually pretty counterintuitive (and frustratingly funny when you think about it) that you are probably like me thinking that things are getting worse in the relationship if there are constant complaints happening. 

The ironic thing is that it’s actually an even worse sign if things are not where you would like them to be in the relationship, but she isn’t complaining at all. 

In reality, complaints are often evidence that she still gives a crap.

Now before you think that I am telling you that you should WANT your wife complaining all day… No 

That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that… complaints are (as frustrating as they can be to listen to sometimes…we can agree as humans), but they ARE a form of communication.

They are attempts, sometimes very clumsy attempts, to create change.

The real hazard for you starts when those attempts from her disappear.

I will continue to harp on this until the day I die, because what many men don't realize is that she didn’t just wake up one day and flip the emotional check out switch on.

She has been in this checkout period for a long time beforehand where she has probably been trying to get through to you. 

Think about some of your convos that felt frustrating with her. 

She has tried to explain to you, she has probably said she doesn’t feel heard and tried to communicate what isn’t working, and why she feels lonely. 

And it is frustrating for you to hear her say she is lonely, because you have maybe tried to do more things with her or got her gifts so she felt appreciated, but it isn’t doing anything. 

Well gifts and things of that nature have no bearing on why she feels disconnected and unseen. 

The issue is that after enough failed attempts to share what she feels the problems are, and no changes are impactfully made, she eventually reaches the conclusion of “what is the point of talking about the problems anymore with you?

She has knocked on the door SOOO many times to get you to open it and bring it to your attention what the issues are, to the point where she doesn’t bother knocking anymore.

Emotionally, she doesn’t believe bringing them up will create that change anymore. She is essentially at the end of her rope. 

So don’t make the mistake that just because there are fewer arguments or she isn’t bringing any of the old problems to you anymore that things are improving. 

She has probably simply stopped participating. 

The thermostat is still busted but she just stopped asking you to fix it. 

That internal  loneliness is still there, but she stopped talking about it. 

So don’t judge your marriage by the cover of it looking a bit calmer from the outside right now, because it could be becoming much more dangerous underneath emotionally.

The silence may be firing up a flare that is signaling resignation on her part emotionally. 

Now once she stops bringing problems to you, something else begins to happen.

And this next sign is even more revealing.

Because it changes where she turns when life gets difficult.

SIGN #2 – SHE STOPS LOOKING TO YOU FOR REASSURANCE

The biggest purpose of a marriage, in my eyes, is emotional partnership.

It isn’t dependency; it’s partnership.

That whole “oh my better half” is a really stupid saying to be honest. It should be the best version of you and the best version of her coming together. 

That is a partnership.

Life is hard. Things happen. Work gets stressful. Kids create challenges. Family situations come up. Health issues happen. 

Healthy couples tend to move toward each other during those moments.

This doesn’t mean everything is going to be perfect, but generally when something difficult happens, there is an instinct to turn toward your spouse.

Obviously, to share what’s going on and get that support from each other. 

But when your wife begins emotionally leaving the marriage, she is going to stop turning towards you less and less, and start carrying things herself.

She is going to start processing things elsewhere; could be with friends, with her family, or even maybe entirely on her own.

WHERE doesn’t really matter, the sign is that it isn’t with you as much or at all anymore. 

And what makes this sign tricky is that you probably won’t really notice it immediately because she's still functioning pretty normally

Still going to work, still taking care of responsibilities, still basically handling those other parts of life so from the outside it appears things can be closer to normal. 

But emotionally, she has begun building a different support system elsewhere.

It doesn’t mean that she hates you or is trying to punish you, but she has lowered her expectations to near zero, if not zero, that you will be able to provide that emotional leadership. 

Whether it is her not feeling emotionally safe, understood, dismissed, it doesn’t matter what the combo is for the reasoning…

All of those contribute to the same result. She increasingly learns how to function over a period of time without turning toward you

And remember what I said at the beginning of this sign, marriage is an emotional connection first and foremost; that is how they are strengthened and flourish. 

When emotional reliance disappears completely, the relationship is obviously going to start operating very differently.

And I know there are different levels to women, where some may love to share emotionally and love the reassurance from you, all the way down the scale to where she is a bit more independent and strong, and doesn’t need much reassurance. 

At the end of the day, everyone needs some level of support. The question is where they are getting it from. 

So if you’re basically completely removed from the equation… like an absolute zero; non-factor… it's important to understand what that means.

Not so you panic but so you stop pretending everything is fine when something significant has changed.

Now once she stops bringing problems to you and stops turning toward you emotionally, something else starts to happen that is MUCH more visible and recognizable.

This sign is the one I hear SO often in my strategy calls with men.

SIGN #3 – SHE STARTS BUILDING A LIFE THAT DOESN'T REQUIRE YOU

This sign is where panic and frustration, and if we are being honest with each other, a lot of you feeling hurt really starts to set in.

Now you're not just FEELING distance, you’re seeing it in 4K in front of your face. 

I talked about this last episode about why she seems completely fine without you.

She no longer automatically includes you in her plans.

She solves problems without consulting you.

She begins organizing life as though your participation is optional.

Maybe she's creating routines that have nothing to do with you. She might be going out with the kids to do something (dinner and whatnot), and completely leave you out of it. 

The temptation is to make yourself the center of the story and feel sorry for yourself.

And look, I fully understand and empathize how painful that can feel, and assume everything you're seeing is a statement about you.

But a lot of women experience something similar during emotional withdrawal.

Parts of themselves that have been sitting way in the corner of the attic for years suddenly start receiving attention again.

Interests. Friendships. Personal growth.

What it really means is that she has stopped waiting for your relationship to provide the sense of fulfillment she feels she's missing.

That is what I was saying earlier about her not knocking at the door anymore.

She is now trying to build that sense of fulfillment elsewhere. 

The more complete her life begins to feel without your relationship at the center of it, the easier it becomes for her to imagine continuing down that path.

And I have clients ask me, what should I be doing? Should I be going out and doing other things as well, my hobbies and interests that she never had much interest in but I haven’t been doing?

And the answer is always, YES *ASTERISK* 

It is exactly what you should be doing, focusing on your purpose and hobbies and interests outside of the identity of the relationship; but the asterisk is there because the caveat is you have to be doing that for YOURSELF, not to seek validation from her or try to get her attention because she is doing the same.

The real lesson here isn't to compete with her new life, it is to understand why she felt the need to create one, and also realize where you may have fallen off the wayside in terms of your own growth and purpose as well.

And that leads directly into the final sign.

SIGN #4 – SHE STOPS IMAGINING A FUTURE TOGETHER

This is something that evaded me personally for a long time… 

At least, I really didn’t understand the importance of it…but it really is where emotional departure becomes truly serious.

Relationships don't just exist in the present.

They exist in the future.

One of the things that builds a strong connection between two people is that shared vision…plans, goals, dreams.

…Experiences you want to have together. Future memories that haven't happened yet.

A healthy marriage is constantly creating those future chapters.

Maybe not every day, but there are these conversations and enjoyment of striving and moving towards these various goals together.

When she is emotionally checking out of your marriage, that future picture starts changing real quick.

And it can be easy to miss or brush off, especially when things are not going as smoothly and life’s day-to-day gets in the way, so maybe it’s just a feeling like you haven’t had time to catch up about the future goals.  

But you will notice it in her subtly if you are paying attention for it:

She stops bringing up future plans.

She becomes indifferent about things she used to be excited about (I know my wife loves real estate and is always showing me listings of all these different homes she loves and dreams about living in, so if she stopped sending me these listings I would definitely notice as a red flag).

But all-in-all she stops imagining future experiences with you as a team.

The future story that once included you starts becoming a future story centered around her, and you are left outside the gates.

This can make you feel blindsided, and hurt, because you're looking at the current moment and trying to wonder how this is happening and if there is any way of turning it around.

Meanwhile, she has been mentally living in a different future for months or longer during that emotional checkout process.

Maybe years.

By the time the crisis becomes visible to you, she has already spent a tremendous amount of time imagining life beyond the relationship.

Now…as bad as that does sound, there is good news.

All of this does not mean reconciliation is impossible.

Not at all.

But if you don't understand what you're dealing with, you're going to respond incorrectly.

You'll keep treating the situation like a communication problem.

Or a conflict problem.

Or a simple date night problem.

When in reality, you're dealing with an emotional investment problem.

The future picture broke down long before the relationship officially reached crisis mode and that's why superficial fixes are basically useless.

This is also why many couples are disappointed when they try counseling at this stage. They're often trying to solve a communication problem when the deeper issue is emotional investment. 

The real work is rebuilding your self-respect, and rebuilding trust through learning how to be a masculine leader in your marriage.

All of this leads to rebuilding emotional safety for her, and increases her attraction for you.

These are the things that create a future someone actually wants to move toward.

EMBRACING THE RIGHT CHANGES TO RECONNECT

So let's quickly recap.

The first sign is that she stops bringing problems to you.

Not because everything is fine.

But because she no longer believes talking about them creates change.

The second sign is that she stops looking to you for reassurance.

She starts handling life emotionally without you.

The third sign is that she starts building a life that doesn't require the relationship to provide her sense of fulfillment.

And the fourth sign is that she stops imagining a future together.

The future story changes.

Now here's the important thing.

If you're hearing these signs and thinking: "Well then I'm pretty much screwed."

That is not the case.

The purpose of this video is not to convince you that your marriage is over, it is to help you understand what you're actually dealing with.

And the men who give themselves the best chance at reconciliation are the ones who start seeing the situation accurately and take the right action.

They don’t sit on their hands or just continue to try and talk their way out of the problem with her thinking it will eventually work. 

So if you're serious about rebuilding your marriage and want to take action, then go watch my free Relationship Rebuild Masterclass.

I will break down exactly what works in order for you to get that respect and attraction from her again, and give you the best chance to allow her to feel emotionally safe with you. 

The link for the free masterclass is in the description and pinned comment below.

And if you're realizing that some of these signs are showing up in your marriage, watch this next video on why most men accidentally make emotional disconnection permanent.