How to Get Your Husband to Love You Again

By

Laura Doyle

By Laura Doyle

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Laura Doyle is a New York Times Bestselling Author, Relationship Expert, Host of The Empowered Wife Podcast at Laura Doyle Connect.

| Updated: 01/05/2024

Medically reviewed by Marissa Zwetow, LMFT

Medically reviewed by Marissa Zwetow, LMFT

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Marissa Zwetow, LMFT, is a psychotherapist specializing in women’s mental health, perinatal mental health, and relationship coaching.

If you’re going through a separation, infidelity, or the threat of divorce, your world feels like it’s falling apart.

There’s nothing more painful than finding out there’s another woman or hearing the D word.

It’s a shock that is both heart-wrenching and gut-wrenching.

How can you make your husband miss you badly? How do you get your husband to notice you sexually?

Especially when he’ll barely give you the time of day?

If you want to know how to make your husband fall in love with you again after separation, cheating, or him asking for a divorce, you’re in the right place.

Here are four surefire ways to singlehandedly make your husband fall in love with you all over again, even if it seems hopeless right now.

1) Give Him Space

When Lizbeth’s husband said he wanted a divorce, she was terrified. What could she do to make him change his mind?

She had some ideas…

A. Ask him to give her more time
B. Ask him to go to marriage counseling
C. Promise him she would change
D. Nothing

The answer was D: Nothing.

She could not make him do anything. She knew that she could not control him. So she decided to relinquish control completely.

But who knew how sneaky inappropriate control could be!

From giving him disapproving looks to saying “We need to go to counseling.” I mean, who wouldn’t say that when faced with your marriage falling apart?

Yet somehow Lizbeth managed to quit worrying about what he was doing or not doing, quit trying to get him to do anything. Instead, she focused on herself, with the discipline of a student keeping her eyes on her own test paper at school.

The results were ridiculous.

They had dinner together for the first time in months, and he stayed the night. She said that they did a 180–and that it happened in just one week!

2) Cancel the State-of-the-Union Talks

If you’re not sure whether there’s hope for your marriage, it’s tempting to want to know what he thinks. If only you had the vital information of whether he thinks there’s hope. Or what his intentions are.

Right?

When Barb’s husband said, “It’s hard for me to see us together in the future,” she certainly had the urge for a state-of-the-union talk.

She’d flown out to see him for the weekend and they had a ten-hour drive ahead of them, the perfect opportunity for a big talk!

But Barb knew that asking him questions like what he wanted was letting her eyes wander onto his paper, back in control territory.

She set aside her urge for a big talk, managed to stay off his paper, and–get this–decided to show up as her best, happiest self.

Things turned around in unexpected ways.

He surprised her with a nice stay in a fancy hotel. He kept asking what she wanted to do and what she wanted to see. He got her a first-class seat on her plane ride home. When she mentioned that she wanted a new computer, he suggested they go buy one immediately.

But they were too busy enjoying physical intimacy to leave!

Let me tell you a secret, the same one I told Barb.

As the wife, you are the keeper of your relationship. So, regardless of what he may be saying he wants right now, the far more important piece of information is what you want.

He said “I do” to you, right? If he changed his mind once, he can change it again.

3) Start with a Clean Slate

Yanira’s husband was asking for a divorce every single day. Her own mother told her to face reality: that she would be getting a divorce. Her husband already had his bag packed. Yanira was crying and begging, even trying to block the door.

She wasn’t feeling very dignified. Plus, she could see that her desperation was not serving her or making him want to stay.

Clearly, she was willing to go to any length to save her marriage. So she did something big.

She uttered these words to her husband: “I apologize for being disrespectful for the past ten years, when I controlled your parenting, what to say and what to eat.”

He didn’t know what to make of that because in the past when they’d had those unfortunate state-of-the-union talks, she always told him what he was doing wrong and how to change it.

But it didn’t matter that now she seemed to be making his head spin faster than in The Exorcist.

In fact, it was a good thing.

After she cleaned up her side of the street, not only did he step up to parent their kids and help with their homework (unlike when she was trying to control his parenting), divorce threats became a thing of the past.

Now others actually ask Yanira, “Why is your marriage so intimate?”!

With the hurtful things your husband has said, chances are, he owes you an apology. Maybe you’ve tried to get him to show some accountability and it’s not working. At all.

Or even if it does and he mumbles a “sorry,” that doesn’t quite cut it for you.

If you really want mutual respect in your relationship, why not be the bigger person and restore respect yourself?

It’s not so much about why he may feel disrespected (where the focus is back on him) but how you feel you’ve controlled or criticized, dismissed or demeaned him. (Yup, this is yet another opportunity to get out of control land by keeping the focus on yourself.)

When you’re ready to make your man’s head spin, try this magic phrase: “I apologize for being disrespectful when I _________.” Then fill in the blank with something specific.

Then leave it at that, no explanation needed. Because now you’re clean.

4) Let’s Give Him Something to Talk About

Okay, so if you’re not indulging in state-of-the-union talks, what are you supposed to talk about?

I’m all about communication.

Preferably less communication.

At least if you’re anything like I was, someone who communicated wayyyyyy too much. Especially when it came to my favorite topics: complaining about what I didn’t have, telling him what he was doing wrong, and trying to get him to do it right.

As an outspoken woman, I thought I was doing things right, yet somehow I kept getting further and further away from the connection I really wanted.

The first communication tool I needed was a big ol’ roll of duct tape. To slap some over my mouth (figuratively, of course)!

It might as well have been literally stuck to my lips though, considering how uncomfortable it was for me.

As I pushed through the discomfort, something strange happened. My husband started talking to me more. A lot more.

Seems I was creating a safe space for him to want to open up and share with me. Just like I’d always wanted!

(I had communicated that too but to no avail. My husband was like Will Ferrell’s character in The Shrink Next Door, who says, “I have to talk about my feelings, but my main feeling is I don’t wanna.”)

Something I didn’t wanna talk much about before this whole new approach was appreciation for my man. That would have been out of character since I thought he was a big Loser Pants.

Now that I saw that my complaints and demands weren’t getting me any closer to what I wanted, I tried a very new tack: gratitude.

I expressed my thanks for everything, big and small, past and present, from him taking out the trash (even if he let it pile up far beyond my liking) to being a hard worker (even if he really should ask for a raise). I kept those latter parts to myself, obviously.

And I was so glad I did.

I found that gratitude is way more motivating than all my old complaints, criticisms, and demands combined!

As I caught him doing something good and let him know how much it meant to me, my man’s hero gene was reignited and now he was looking for more ways to please me. And giving me even more things to express gratitude for!

Sure enough, I had plenty to say after all.

5) Love Thyself as Thy Best Self

When Yanira started noticing the signs your husband hates you, she could have easily succumbed to self-loathing.

To think of all she had done to be a good wife, only to be faced with divorce. That would be demoralizing for anyone.

To get out of the NET (Needless Emotional Turmoil) she was ensnared in, she turned to self-care instead. She got serious about lounging and reading, doing yoga and breathwork, and taking cold showers (this is her list of what made her happy). She took a speed reading course she’d always wanted to do, went to a pottery class, and even tried to find a glass blowing class.

She also did something that she had never done before but was calling to her: soap making. She YouTubed and ordered supplies by day then, “in those lonely nights,” she says, “I made amazing creative soaps.”

Somehow, the NET subsided. Even with all the emotion she’d been going through, she didn’t have to be exhausted and overwhelmed anymore because she was taking such good care of herself.

And her magnetism increased. Seeing his wife pleasable made her husband want to pile on even more to make her happy. And be around her more and more (without mentioning the D word again).

What fills you up and makes you happy?

Imagine ditching the teary guilt trip and showing up as the lighthearted, fun woman who attracted him in the first place. Talk about changing the dance. I bet that woman was pretty irresistible.

Now that you know the five ways to get him to love you again, which will you experiment with first?

By Laura Doyle

Hi! I'm Laura.

New York Times Bestselling Author

I was the perfect wife--until I actually got married. When I tried to tell my husband how to be more romantic, more ambitious, and tidier, he avoided me. I dragged him to marriage counseling and nearly divorced him. I then started talking to women who had what I wanted in their marriages and that’s when I got my miracle. The man who wooed me returned.

I wrote a few books about what I learned and accidentally started a worldwide movement of women who practice The Six Intimacy Skills™ that lead to having amazing, vibrant relationships. The thing I’m most proud of is my playful, passionate relationship with my hilarious husband John–who has been dressing himself since before I was born.

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