Probably, it has already been a few months or years after your divorce; you still feel unhappy after leaving your ex-wife; and now you regret that you ever made a critical error in your last relationship. You start to miss your ex-wife more and more often, you desire to win her back. Now you wonder whether you can get back together with her after the divorce. And you want to take practical measures but you may have no idea what to do next.
The following are some valuable tips that may help you repair the broken marriage:
- Reflect upon yourself:
Your ex-wife might still harbor a lot of emotional hurt from the divorce; for a long time, she may have complained that you and she are no longer on the same page; so now you should put yourself into her shoes: try to better understand her inner feelings about the relationship and what she may have gone through before and after the divorce; meanwhile, you need to think about where you ever went wrong in the relationship. Maybe, you come to realize that you have ever neglected him/her because you were too absorbed in your work, business, or relationships outside of the marriage; maybe you start to empathize with his/her negative feelings that you could not feel in the past; maybe you start to regret that you just became emotionally distant and left the relationship to unravel; or maybe now you have the courage to acknowledge your bad traits like overly jealousy, codependency, and controlling… Anyway, you need to figure out how to change yourself to better deal with past relationship issues. If you ever cheated on your ex-wife, you need to look inside yourself deeply to find the root causes of your dishonesty and insecurities … The first step to winning her back after divorce is to reflect upon yourself and decide how to change yourself significantly.
- Take care of your ex-wife’s needs:
On the other hand, you must be highly concerned about what your ex-wife needed from you. Therefore, if possible, you might directly ask your ex-wife what you should have done to salvage the relationship. If your ex-wife is willing to speak to you, listen carefully to what she says and ponder the issues that she raises. Probably you always hold the view: for a woman who really loves you, she should respect you regardless of the situation; but you may ignore that her respect for you needs to be earned, not demanded. So ask yourself whether you have done enough things that could earn back her respect for you. So you should try your best to be the man that she needs: be present whenever she wants you, accept her as who she is; respect her private space; support her emotionally when she is down; if she expects you to be responsible for a part of relationship issues, never attempt to shift responsibility, instead you should admit what you did as a man… Remember, your ex-wife ever desired to feel respected and loved by you, but you may not do this well; the more you respect her, the more she is willing to return the favor.
- Be attractive:
In the past, your ex-wife ever decided to marry you, which means you were very attractive to her and she did love you. So now you should try to attract her back to you: try to be the man that you used to be when your ex-wife fell in love with you. Maybe you had not taken care of yourself for a long time, and you had become too comfortable in your married life and let yourself go. If so, you need to look after yourself again from now on; specifically, you might pick on every bad habit and change it. For example, if you admit that you were locked into a lazy lifestyle and got kinda flabby and out of shape, now you should try to eat in a healthy way and exercise regularly; to win your ex-wife back, it is necessary to pay attention to your appearance and temperament again. When you keep working hard to improve yourself, your ex-wife can realize that you are committed to making changes; if you admit that you ever became bad-tempered and even violent when quarreling with her, now you should try to cultivate your patience kindness, generosity…
On the other hand, to attract your ex-wife back, you should try to be a happier, more positive, interesting, and more confident person. So you might try to find various hobbies that you are passionate about, get more confidence by doing things better, and embrace a more positive mindset in daily life. And try to be more concerned about her feelings, especially her innermost feelings that she just secretly wants you to figure out by yourself. For example, if you ever lost your cool on some occasions and degraded your ex-wife with a fiery and adversarial speech, now you should learn to speak respectfully and kindly, regardless of the occasion. And probably she also desires you to learn to work through critical relationship issues in a calm and peaceful manner.
- Be patient and be mentally prepared to start all over:
Surely, when you decide to improve yourself and work on your relationship issues, you need to start from scratch and do it step by step. Specifically, you may have to start a friendship with your ex-wife, you may have to date her again from the beginning, and you may need to speak to her (e.g. text her, and call her) as much as possible, just like you ever did when you first met her; in general, it is better to keep the conversation fun or light-hearted unless she actively raises serious issues. Sometimes, you might compliment her and tell her what you missed about her and how much you have missed her; you might share the warm memories of your married life; and you might remember a happy event in detail and share your inner impressions of the event with her. If your ex-wife feels well during such a conversation, then you may ask her out on a date. Surely, you should suss out the situation and try to figure out the best time to date her; if she accepts your invitation, make sure to treat her like when you did on your first date. For example, did you make her feel romantic and special? Did you buy her flowers? Did you actively open your car door for her? Don’t ignore those petty actions that may gradually soften her heart.
After you have rebuilt the friendship with your ex-wife, you will feel that things seem to go well, you can talk with her about more past relationship issues, especially some critical issues that damaged the marriage. And meanwhile, you should always be open about what things went wrong, your innermost feelings and thoughts. Besides that, it is important to be open-minded and listen carefully to what she speaks to you when she is revealing her feelings and thoughts; and try not to be too emotional when she mentions controversial issues. It is critical to work through your ex-wife’s negative feelings about the past unpleasant events, otherwise, those similar issues may crop up again and cause havoc one day.
Remember this is just a new beginning of the relationship with your ex-wife, you have to be mentally prepared to start from scratch all over again. Mutual trust and respect need to grow over time. And during this period, you should not stop working on yourself, and she will be pleased to see a better version of you. For example, if your ex-wife felt unappreciated and unloved in the past, make more efforts to make her feel appreciated and loved. Specifically, you might buy her small gifts, send romantic text messages, or leave little notes to express your appreciation/love; even if you are still unwilling to compromise on some past relationship issues, you do not have to reject her view firmly, you might as well give her some space to reconsider her decisions, or you might also allow her to do something that you did not want her to do; relationship recovery takes constant communication and work. So make sure to express your true feelings and don’t bottle the past things up, and meanwhile try your best to empathize with your spouse’s feelings
- As long as you decide to change, don’t blow hot and cold:
Remember, take the new relationship slowly, and never rush things. Even if you feel things are running well currently, you might give it some months to fully test the waters. Don’t just make those changes to win her back; otherwise, this will be interpreted as a sneaky trick; once you revert to old bad habits/ways, she will be very disappointed and consider leaving you again; so if you decide to make some positive and significant changes, you had better keep up the hard work and move forward in the same direction.
The final word:
Make sure you sincerely want your ex-wife back; otherwise, you can hardly earn her respect and trust, and you will have difficulty validating her feelings and making her feel loved. After being lost for so long, you need to rediscover yourself again in the relationship and work hard on who you want to be. Understandably, as regards what caused the marriage rift in the first place, it is a profound and complex question that can leave you scratching your head, and you can hardly find the most correct answer; but you should not stop thinking about it and working on it.
For more marriage-saving tips, you might go on to read the page below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a well-known marriage coach who has 12+ years of experience helping couples survive and thrive in unhappy marriages:
Your marriage is salvageable, even if you are the only one fighting to save it.
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