Most men think that trying really hard to be a better husband will help get their wife to reconnect with them when the relationship is struggling.

But what if it wasn’t about trying harder to apologize better or help clean the house properly, and it was much simpler than that?

Today I want to give you a completely different way of looking at why your wife still doesn't believe you've changed so you don’t end up like most guys caught in a loop of frustration and no closer to reconnection. 

And if you watch this video until the end, you will understand why getting her to believe the changes you're working hard at making and reigniting that spark back in your relationship is way simpler than you think.  

SHE'S NOT LOOKING AT TODAY

When you’re trying to rebuild your relationship, a big misconception you can fall for is that your wife is judging you solely based on what’s happening today.

In reality, she's interpreting today...through everything that came before it.

My in-laws live in the same city as my wife and I, and when we go visit and bring our Husky, the neighbor's poodle basically LIVES outside and is right up against the fence just barking like crazy when we show up (and not in a friendly way). 

To the point where every time we go and I turn onto their street, immediately I think "awesome, we are about to hear the annoying vicious barking poodle”.

But there are a few times we have shown up and the dog isn’t actually outside.

During those times, I didn’t immediately think “wow, they must have finally gotten rid of that dog”

I just thought the neighbors were out somewhere and didn’t let the dog outside or took the dog with them…and that if I were a betting man, I would expect that dog to be RIGHT back up against the fence losing its mind the next time we show up. 

Why?

Because one quiet arrival to their house doesn't erase the gazillion other times of loud annoying experience.  

Now let's apply that to your relationship..

If your wife has spent years experiencing certain patterns from you:

Defensiveness...withdrawal...people-pleasing...reactivity… complacency…

or conversations that always end in the same frustrating place, those experiences become the reference point her brain naturally uses.

Just like the countless times I experience that annoying poodle barking at us, that is my reference point every time I turn down the street.

So when you suddenly start trying to act a bit differently with your wife, she doesn’t immediately conclude that you’ve changed.

Actually she probably will usually conclude that you are acting or just trying to convince her that things can be different, and that it won’t last. 

That is a very frustrating place to be for you because it almost feels like she is being purposefully cynical, but our brains are designed to protect us. 

Her brain, whether she knows it or not, is constantly asking one question when she is having interactions with you, "Based on everything I've experienced before...what should I expect next from him?"

That's how humans navigate the world because it is efficient, protective, and basically automatic. 

Especially for women when it comes to feeling safe with men.

Which is why a big mistake is to take it personally when she is not giving you the response you want. 

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking she just refuses to believe in you, but most of the time that is a totally misguided thought process. 

She's merely looking at years of emotional experiences and trying to determine whether this time is genuinely different or whether it's another temporary change before everything returns to the way it used to be.

And what sucks is that, no, we don’t get the benefit of the doubt for having good intentions either.

It basically plays no role in how her nervous system searches for whether she can feel emotionally safe with you or not. 

Because that's true, convincing her and explaining yourself isn't going to solve it.

When you do those things it makes it so you're trying to change her conclusion without understanding how she arrived at it internally. 

And that's where understanding a simple concept can completely change the way you approach rebuilding trust with her.

Because as frustrating as this feels to you, what if I told you that your brain is doing the exact same thing?

YOUR BRAIN IS DOING THE EXACT SAME 

I am not blaming you… I am not saying everything is your fault for the struggles in the relationship right now. 

But if you take a moment to have a bit of introspection and recognize what I am saying, it will become so much easier for you to understand why your wife is responding to you the way she is and THAT makes it actually easier to start implementing the right actions. 

Let me break it down like this. 

Say you've had ten conversations with your wife over the past while and every single one eventually turns into an argument.

Don’t ask me how, but you know as well as I do that when your relationship is in this fragile state, the embers from really any conversations are capable of being sparked into a whole argument forest fire. 

At the end of every one of these conversations that morphed into arguments, either one of both of you walk away frustrated.

Then…the next time she says "Can we talk?" what immediately happens inside your body?

Your physiology starts to tense up and stomach feels tight as well because your mind is going to tell you, “Here we go again..."

You anticipate another ending exactly like the last 10 conversations even though nothing has even happened yet and you don’t even know what she wants to talk about.

Your body is already preparing for conflict because your brain has learned a pattern as well and it's trying to protect you.

So now that you can relate to that feeling, flip the situation around and think about the version of you that your wife has experienced where you started to snap at her or retort defensively whenever he expressed emotional hurt. 

If she starts noticing you started to act differently, her brain isn’t going to instantly erase everything it has learned. 

Her brain is going to ask her, is this actually different or a temporary improvement?

...Can you see how similar those two situations really are?

So when you have reached this point in the relationship where you are trying to fix things, and maybe you get some decent tips from other YouTube videos or wherever, but she essentially doesn’t believe the changes.

This is her confirmation bias pulling out the eons of evidence from the past interactions with you that went south to confirm what her brain already believes.

Which leads me to a very important piece of the puzzle that men have been irritated with forever; when you start to implement what you think are good changes and things seem okay for a couple days or even a week, and then she goes cold again. 

ONE GOOD WEEK DOESN'T CHANGE YEARS

Which is a longer period of time, a week or years?

That is not a trick question, it’s really just a key piece of information you have to be conscious of when you are trying to repair your relationship with your wife. 

It is not uncommon for you to be able to start showing up as the leader of the relationship and things seem to be going well, only for her to give you the cold shoulder and send you down a panic to become exactly how you were before.

The mistake is thinking the path to rebuilding your relationship is going to be a linear one even IF you are doing all the right things. 

Quite frankly, the path will look more like a stock market graph over a long period of time; lots of ups and downs but ultimately getting to where you want to go.

But if you are prepared for that, it makes it A LOT easier to go through and understand how not to panic every time there's a setback. 

And what you really need to turn your attention from is something you cannot miss…

STOP TRYING TO ERASE THE PAST

You have to not spend any more time trying to erase the past. It is impossible to do that. 

You’re not going to find the perfect explanation that will just have your wife forget the experience she has had over the last whatever years.

You have to start giving her enough positive experiences over time with you that will start to break down her confirmation bias and gradually outweigh all those old experiences that lead you here.

You’re not going to erase it or have her forget, but you can have them gradually outweighed to a point where if you’re doing it well enough, the new experience is what has her attracted and reconnecting again.

When you start to have calm conversations as the leader and create moment after moment of emotional safety for her without becoming defensive, that is what starts to write the new story in the evolving pages of your relationship on page at a time. 

But to reiterate, just because you are doing that you also can't expect her to completely rewrite years of emotional experiences after reading the first few pages of a new story.

That is not to take away anything from your progress or say it isn’t real, but needs to be understood so you can focus on what the true goal is…

THE GOAL ISN'T TO CHANGE HER MIND TODAY

The true goal is to not try to change her mind TODAY. There is no way it would work anyway, so don’t waste your time. 

You don’t need to think up crafty and eccentric ways to get her to see your changes, but you do need to have the thought process of “Did I live like the man I'm trying to become today?"

That is the only part you actually control.

Think about how much pressure disappears when you stop needing immediate validation.

You no longer need to spend your time asking yourself if she believes you, or be frustrated at yourself for not being more of the leader. 

When you do this with committed consistency, you will start to see when her story finally changes.

WHEN HER STORY FINALLY CHANGES

You will not know her story is changed because of one magical moment that suddenly changes everything. 

It’s not going to be just one conversation where she says "Okay...I believe you now."

It’s going to be a process like I said earlier. 

She will start to notice subtle things like you stayed calm again and started to listen instead of winning any argument. 

Then she notices them again and again (if you can keep the consistency), and eventually without her even knowing, what her mind expects from you starts to change. 

You have given her a dose of new reality over time, which her nervous system will start to learn that her experience with you just isn’t matching up to the old story she had in her mind.

And that is what you want to start happening, because over time, the confirmation bias begins to weaken as reality keeps giving her new evidence. 

If you can learn how to become the evidence while focusing on your goals and purpose, that is going to ignite the chances of reconnection with her. 

The men in my coaching program who have successfully done this didn’t do it because I gave them a magic wand and it turned everything in their relationship around. 

As nice as that would be, these men did it because they understood the level of uncertainty they would have to navigate through while implementing the right steps to get her attraction to you again. 

And they also did it because they had me to guide them as they made the transformation into the man who they needed to be. 

If you want to have that same transformation that could completely change your life, the first step is to go and watch my free Relationship Rebuild masterclass that is linked in the description below. 

If the masterclass resonates with you, there will be a chance to book a free strategy call to apply to work with me, where we'll take your unique situation and I will guide you in applying the skillset to your own relationship.

And if you are struggling wondering why every time you try to get closer to her, she starts pulling away, check out this next video right here.