In this video today, I am going to talk to you about the hopeless feeling you get when things have been going very poorly in your marriage and your wife straight up tells you that she thinks it is too late to save it. 

Because when she says that to you, deep down you may start wondering if she is right.

So I’m going to show you how to handle the battle that starts happening in your own head when you hear those words, and before we’re done I’m also going to answer the bigger question you’re probably afraid to ask: is she actually right? 

Let’s jump in.

SHE MAY BE AFRAID TO BELIEVE YOU 

There are a lot of questions that will start to run through your head when she says it’s too late or will say she doesn’t know if she still wants to be together with you. 

It's almost like she is starting to make a final opinion about you and your relationship. It can feel like you’re up against an impossible task, like trying to turn a tanker ship around in the right direction without having a tugboat to propel it. 

The reality is, the varying thoughts you have can tell you that she has decided you can’t change, or that the marriage can’t work at all and there is nothing left. 

But what if, as much as it really feels like everything is that close to the cliff…what if there is something else underneath it all. 

In a lot of cases I have seen with men I have coached, it really boils down to her just no longer wanting to spend any more energy risking believing in you again. 

In her eyes, she may be disappointed in how communication and things have gone over and over again, that even with your sincerity intended she is not going to get excited or believe things can change. 

Now she doesn’t know if you’re going to “fail” again, but what she does know is how much of an emotional toll it costs her to believe you and nothing really changes long term. 

Hope that things will change is not free, especially when her perspective is that she has been hurt by it before.

More hope is asking her to open herself back up to consider a possible future that a very small piece of her may have already started to try and let go of.

If she has spent months quietly getting herself to a place (usually undesirably I might add), that she can say maybe she needs to leave (or at least reconsider if it’s right for her), then your sudden willingness to change can actually create a very uncomfortable position for her.

She has to start wondering, what if she DOES believe you again? What if six months from now, we are right back at square one in this scenario?

It’s a bit different than just telling herself “John probably isn’t capable of being a better husband”. 

Reality is she may not know whether you can change or not, but what it boils down to is deciding whether she wants to bet her emotional well-being on finding out.

Allow yourself to think about it like that for a minute…

I know to you it feels like, you are finally realizing some of the things you have done as far as your part of the marriage going south…and you may have tried to communicate that to her.

So it can be maddening to wonder why she won’t give you the chance to show her…

But like I was saying, allow yourself to see HER side for just a moment.

She may be asking herself “why should she put herself through another round of hoping? Nothing has changed for (insert number of years) now”.

If you can at least understand that, her resistance will make a lot more sense to you.

That is why I would be very careful about treating “it’s too late” as nothing more than a statement about time.

It may actually be a statement about risk.

Right, I talked about the cost emotionally for her, so she is more likely telling you that she doesn’t know if she can afford to believe it again from you. 

Which should drastically change what you do next, unfortunately for most men they don’t understand the signs in time…

Which brings us to one of the…I’ll call it one of the STRANGEST parts of trying to save your marriage that sounds really outlandish but is incredibly effective…

And it starts with understanding that the more desperate you become to give her hope, the more pressure she can feel to take a risk she is not ready to take.

GIVING HER HOPE CAN MAKE THINGS WORSE

You love her, so…if she tells you that she has lost hope, or is unsure of the future…what is your natural inclination going to want to make you do?

You want to give her hope…Of course you do.

I know that you want to let her know that you finally understand and remind her of the life you have built together, and how you want to get back to how things were.

There is nothing strange about wanting to save something that matters to you, but the problem is hiding inside that approach. 

Think of being at work and really putting in all the extra hours, taking up all the tasks nobody wants, the work environment is not great and you are getting no help from any co-workers, but you are trying to go above and beyond to get that promotion. 

You hint to your boss many times and he recognizes all the work you’ve been putting in, but after like three years you still don’t have that promotion and it really doesn’t seem like it will be coming. 

You start to feel so unappreciated that you might start looking for something else, and you find. And they are paying you almost double, so you walk into your bosses office and give the resignation letter. 

Now your boss panics and says they were just about to give you a promotion, and they offer you the promotion.  

Now maybe it was just coincidental timing…or maybe he finally realized (now that he was about to lose you) how important you are, and he apologizes for not getting you more support in the role or more clarity on the promotion timeline.

You’re going to be thinking, it took all of that and handing in my resignation letter for him to (at least seem like) he gives a damn.

You’re going to be VERY cautious about accepting that promotion given everything that your experience has taught you over the last bunch of years. 

This is going to sound bad, and I don’t mean it in that sense at all…but in that example, your wife is the employee who finally got recognized for the promotion. 

In the case of your marriage and you finally opening your eyes to all the issues, your sincerity today does not automatically erase all of the evidence she collected yesterday, and the day before, and the day before.

And since we are talking about the very thin line and responses to her own hope for you and the relationship, we have to turn now to talk about your own hope. 

Her doubt or unsurety can become a very powerful contributing factor that starts controlling where you are in terms of making good changes for yourself.

And that is a dangerous place to be.

SHE CANNOT BE THE PERSON WHO KEEPS YOUR HOPE ALIVE

This part matters a heck of a lot to the success you are going to have in reconnecting and building back that relationship with your wife. 

So please take this to heart.

You are going to have days where she is warmer with you. It is going to confuse the hell out of you, but there WILL be days where she laughs in a decent conversation you are having and sits a bit closer to you…

You’re going to feel pretty energized when that happens…confused, but energized…

And there will be times where it feels like just a day or two later she is going to be completely cold towards you again, bringing up our favorite things (past mistakes), and telling you she doesn’t know if she feels anything for you. 

THAT…is what can be a devastating confidence crasher that starts to mess with your head, making you think there is no point or that any progress you’ve made is destroyed.

Makes you almost start fighting your OWN confirmation bias, thinking “I knew it. I’ve lost her.”

When you allow those events to completely mess up your progress, you're allowing her to decide whether you should grow to an even better man, the man you told yourself you wanted to become. 

Your motivation is still being hit like a table tennis ball back and forth based on how she is acting towards you daily. 

Right off the get go, that isn’t a solid foundation for meaningful change in your life. 

If you only believe in your change when she believes in it too, not only have you not really built conviction yet, you will just be on a hamster wheel spinning on a very loose and shaky axle until it finally flies off. 

You have built dependence on her feedback, and the only way this is going to work for you to become the man and leader you want to be (and put yourself in the best position to reconnect with your wife and build up her attraction for you again) is if you understand the direction you’re travelling in and not letting any speed bumps or re-routes deter you. 

You know that becoming a man who can create emotional safety for her is worthwhile.

You know that learning how to stay grounded when someone is upset with you is worthwhile.

You know that being more dependable, more thoughtful, more present with your kids, more honest with yourself, and more consistent is worthwhile.

None of that goes out the window because your wife had a cold Tuesday with you.

And that is where real hope becomes different from desperation.

When you are in desperation and panic mode, you are needing her to give you a sign that gives you the little nudge to know you should keep going.

When you have hope COMBINED with proper direction, you are taking the most impactful stance that says you don’t know exactly how this ends yet, but you know the direction you want my life to go, and that is a MUCH stronger place to stand…

And much more beneficial for your own and your family’s future. 

SO... IS SHE RIGHT?

Now with that, let’s circle back and answer the title of this video.

Is she right to say it is too late to save your marriage?

Maybe. Maybe not. The truth is, neither one of you can know that with certainty right now.

That may not sound like the most comforting answer, but I think it is the most useful one and one you HAVE to hear. 

I am never going to tell you that another human being is guaranteed to stay married to you.

She has her own thoughts, her own feelings, her own limits, and her own decisions to make.

But the other side to this that I think a lot of guys completely miss the mark on is that you still have meaningful influence over what you contribute from here . 

There is a huge difference between “your wife not imagining the marriage feeling any different right now” versus “it’s impossible for the marriage to EVER feel different”. 

And the second one is where all the opportunity lies for you. 

You can start to change all the evidence that her current conclusion is based on, which brings me to really the big lesson to take away from this video:

I would not use how she feels about the marriage while she is still living inside the same conditions that made her lose hope as proof of what she could feel after those conditions genuinely change.

So quite frankly, her feelings right now give you important information about where the marriage has been. They do not give either of you perfect information about where it could still go. 

But you have the ability to influence the direction of the final answer for her, as long as you stay away from this really big mistake I am about to tell you now…

DON’T CAMPAIGN TO PROVE HER WRONG

If you have been listening to this video and taking what I said to heart, then wake up tomorrow and think “yeah, she isn’t necessarily right yet that it is all over…so what can I do now to prove to my wife that this marriage CAN be saved?”

Do not turn this into a campaign to prove her wrong. 

She does not need a presentation. 

She needs enough ordinary moments where her old prediction stops matching what is happening in front of her.

That may sound very uneventful and boring from the outside, but it is the counterintuitive action that is what helps turn the tide of her emotional disconnection. 

And it takes you being able to keep showing up even when you do not get an emotional reward every single day.

ONE THING FOR YOU TO DO THIS WEEK

So I don’t want you to give you 100 things to remember after this video, but I do want to give you one big takeaway. 

I want to give you one.

For the next seven days, focus on something that you are absolutely in control of. 

Start each day with intention, focusing on “what is it going to feel like being around me today?”

And the focus for you daily should be taking it upon yourself not to expect her to manage your emotions, making sure your actions match any words you’ve told her you were going to do, and any uncomfortable moments you meet them head on with calm. 

You don’t need to follow her into other rooms or get a read off her face trying to figure out whether she believes in the marriage again, you can finally pay attention to the part you actually have influence over.

YOUR NEXT STEPS

So really focus on that and understand the goal for you is really to grow into the leader your relationship really needs…

If her experience of the relationship has helped create that hopelessness, then one of the things you can begin changing is the experience you contribute to every day 

If you know you need to make those changes, but you are still struggling to understand what actually broke down underneath your marriage and what you should be focusing on now, I created a free Relationship Rebuild Masterclass specifically to help you with that.

I’ll leave the link for it in the pinned comment and description box below. 

I highly suggest you take the time to go and watch that today. 

And if one of the biggest things your wife keeps telling you right now is that she simply does not believe your changes are real, watch this video next, because I break down why she can still doubt you even when you are genuinely trying, and what actually starts changing that over time.