If you are struggling in your marriage, things have been stagnant or getting progressively worse, and you honestly don't know whether you should keep fighting for your marriage or just let her go, today’s video is for you.

Because those can feel like your only two choices: keep fighting and risk pushing her even further away, or stop fighting and wonder if you gave up too soon.

But before you decide which one to do, there is a more important question you need to answer first:

What are you actually fighting for?

Because that answer can completely change what you do next.

THE TUG-OF-WAR

I don’t want to oversimply it, but really think about playing  tug-of-war for a second.

You have the rope in your hands, and she is on the other side.

You start to feel that tension and can feel her pull away. 

So what are the rules of the game as our instinct writes them?

Of course, it is to pull harder on the rope. If she starts moving back, you have to dig your feet in like you’re on Survivor. 

Same thing for if she mentions needing space or when she says that she really is not sure if she still wants the marriage (or is confused); you start trying to close that distance or list all these (great on paper) reasons that the marriage can still work. 

You are spending energy and time trying to remind her of the good times, the fun with the kids, the awesome trips you took together. 

Rightfully so, in your mind, you are fighting for the marriage. Doesn’t matter if it feels like too little too late, or regret as to not waking up sooner.

But either way, you’re fighting for your marriage. 

The problem, though, is this…

If she already feels like she has to pull away from you to breathe, and your answer is to pull the rope harder…What is usually going to happen?

She pulls harder too and you get that built up resistance. 

And now both of you are using ALL OF this energy against each other.

That is where most guys drop the ball.

Sometimes what feels like fighting for your marriage becomes fighting against where your wife is right now.

Understanding that perspective shift can be the sink or swim in saving your marriage. 

So don’t sleep on this next part, because it can be a game differentiator for you…

WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHEN YOU SAY “I’M FIGHTING”?

When you tell yourself that you’re fighting for your marriage, what are you actually doing?

There can be some very different angles when you say you're fighting for it, and we will get more into three specific things in a moment…

But when you think about what you’ve been doing:

Are you trying to get her into another conversation because you need her to understand your side?

Do you want to send her long text messages explaining where you have understood your mistakes and everything you have learned?

Are you apologizing for the same thing again because you hope this apology will finally get through?

Are you doing a bunch more around the house and then quietly wondering why she still seems like a shell at you?

And this isn’t to nitpick exactly what you’re doing now, or to call you out and make you back up in your seat and feel bad…

Because I know that exact feeling you have had where it feels like “If I don’t do something now, I am going to lose everything with her”. 

From experience, that fear is a really sadistic guide that tells you every path that sounds right but is harmful for your goal. 

It’s like rolling dice but the only option is an all fear-sided “die”, and it will constantly land on “do more”, oooh let me roll again - “okay say more to her”, okay third time is a charm - “You better do something RIGHT NOW or you're going to lose her. ” 

Fear is really good at making everything feel urgent. It is terrible at helping you decide what actually matters. 

Actually, to play devil's advocate and be slightly more fair to fear in this case, sometimes fear just wants the pain to stop right now.

And the counterintuitive thing is that, as reasonable as wanting the pain to stop sounds, fear guiding you can cause you to make a very critical mistake. 

You start making choices based on what gives you relief today instead of what helps you become stronger over time, both for you and the relationship foundation. 

THERE ARE THREE VERY DIFFERENT THINGS YOU CAN FIGHT FOR

So I said I was going to give you a few different angles that you can fight for (these are the most common framings), and they can be very different when saying you’re fighting for something. 

I will give you three of them, and you’re going to have to pay attention to the one you think is the key to getting on the best path to reconciliation with your wife. 

THE FIRST is fighting against reality.

Your wife tells you that she doesn’t know if she wants to stay married, or that she doesn’t feel as close to you anymore…

And you fight against that by telling her that she doesn’t mean those things and she is just overwhelmed and stressed with life right now. 

Right off the bat, you are swinging against what your brain is telling you reality is, which argues directly with where she is in true reality.

You may hate where she is, think she is wrong…is making a huge mistake. 

That is fair…I get it.

But if that is honestly where she is today, fighting with that fact does not make it go away.

It’s just going to make her dig her tug-of-war heels in even harder to defend. 

THE SECOND THING you can fight for is her response.

This one lives a little more subtly in your actions and can be hard to spot.

It’s a pretty good chameleon as it looks like self-improvement.

You start to build more of you back, going to the gym or eating better, making all these improvements for yourself and giving her a bit more space so you can focus on you, maybe you’re watching YouTube videos (hopefully mostly mine) and becoming calmer…

These are all REALLY great things that are going to help transform you as a man (especially watching my videos - hint hint)...

But seriously, these are all great things…the underlying subtleness that starts to harm you is when you’re doing all of these things and your subconscious feels like it is asking, or you are literally consciously asking yourself: “Is this working on her yet?”

When that thought process starts to creep in, and it can very subtly and very easily start to happen…

What you have basically done (most times not on purpose) is turn your growth into just another way of trying to appease your fears on where things stand and where they are headed.

You may not be chasing her with words anymore; no direct asking and conversation ferris wheel.

But inside, you are still chasing the result.

AND THEN THERE IS THE THIRD KIND of fight..

I am going to give it away if you already haven’t figured it out yet by listening to the last two.

But THIS is the one I actually want for you.

This is the one I actually help men build inside my coaching program.

FIGHT FOR THE MAN you want to become.

Fight to become a better father and somebody who does not fall apart every time he feels rejected.

Fight to learn how to have a hard conversation without turning it into a battle.

This is a big one, one I was just so caught up in all the time to keep the peace…Fight to stop people-pleasing if you have spent years doing that.

Do all of these things because these are the traits of the man you want to be moving forward in your life, either getting them back from when you lost them or building these new skills and direction as a man.

That is a completely different fight, and the one that can turn your world from dark to light. 

HERE IS A SIMPLE FILTER YOU CAN USE

And that brings me to something practical that I want to give you, almost like a filter for how you are approaching wanting to reconcile with trying to figure out what you have to do. 

Before you do something in your marriage right now, ask yourself:

“If I knew this would not make her come back today, would I still believe this was the right thing to do?”

Like, if you knew this would not change her mind TODAY, would you still do it?

Would you still spend time with your kids?

I would hope so.

Would you still work on being healthier and getting in better shape?

Yes.

Would you still want to level up and learn how to communicate better?

Yes.

Would you still send that four-paragraph text explaining all the ways I have changed?

Maybe not…and for your sake, hopefully not.

This is how you can start to train your brain to separate you wanting to become who you want to be as a man from you doing this because you need her to give you something back. 

And this leads to another question that some men may have, and hopefully you’re not in this scenario, but it needs to be addressed.

BUT WHEN DO YOU ACTUALLY STOP FIGHTING?

When do you actually stop fighting?

If it is to become a better man, you should never turn your back on that. Striving to get better every day should be your goal, and if you do that you will live an incredible life. 

Now we have to answer the harder part.

There can come a point where trying to hold onto a relationship costs you your self-respect, your health, your relationship with your kids, or your ability to live your own life.

There can also be situations involving abuse, serious safety issues, addiction, legal problems, or other things where you need support beyond a YouTube video and where distance may be necessary.

But for you watching this, the question is not really: “Should you love her forever?”

The question is:

“How long are you going to put your whole life on hold waiting for her to decide what yours should look like?”

You do not need to know today who you are going to be married to five years from now.

But you do need to know who you are going to be starting today, and growing towards tomorrow. 

SO SHOULD YOU FIGHT FOR YOUR MARRIAGE OR LET HER GO?

So when answering the question, “should you fight for your marriage or let her go?”, I want you to start looking at it like this from literally at the end of this video forward.

I would be fighting for the kind of man and relationship you believe in.

And I would let go of trying to control whether she chooses it with you.

Because if she does decide to come back toward the marriage, you do not want to be spending all this time and energy nurturing the same thing that broke down.

You want to be ready to create something even better.

And if she does not move back toward your relationship, you need to understand how important doing this work matters.

You became a better father, a better communicator, a man with clearer boundaries.

A man who knows himself better and who does not need somebody else’s decision to tell him who he is.

That is not a consolation prize, that is actually the true work.

And sometimes when I talk to guys, I can hear how much of their whole world has become:

“What is she doing?” , “What does that text mean?”, “Why was she nice yesterday and inviting me out to zumba or whatever?”

And they are completely exhausted trying to piece together all these incomplete signals and what it means for their relationship. 

The bigger change starts when we move the majority of that attention back where it belongs.

To you… 

Because you are the part of this situation you can actually lead.

And when you start taking ownership of that, you give yourself the best chance of showing up differently if opportunities for connection start opening again.

THE PART THAT IS HARD TO SEE BY YOURSELF

Now, the difficult part is that “work on yourself” can be some of the most useless advice in the world if nobody tells you what that actually means.

It really becomes an x-factor when you have a guide who has not only been through it themselves, but has seen so many unique situations and helped so many men turn the tanker around. 

Who can hear your story and tell you what your pattern is, where you’re getting stuck, and what you have to change.

And they are exactly the kind of questions I help you with inside the Relationship Rebuild coaching program. 

If you are in this place right now and you feel stuck between fighting for the marriage, not sure what is going on with her, and even feeling like maybe the best thing to do is let go, I created the free Relationship Rebuild Masterclass to help you get a clearer path forward.

I’ll walk you through how to understand what actually broke down, what is within your control, and how to start becoming the man you need to be which will be a complete game changer in your life.

You can watch the masterclass for free through the link in the pinned comment or description box below.

And if your wife is asking for a separation and you are wondering what you should do next, click on this video here because what you do next becomes critical.