Sometimes I hear from wives who have been trying all sorts of tactics to get their husband to commit and take an interest in their marriage once again. They could threaten to leave. They might try to become more independent so that their attention is not solely focused on their husband. They may threaten separation or divorce in the hope that this will motivate you to do something. But when these efforts fail, the wife wonders what, if anything, might work. Or, maybe she won’t at all, especially when her husband says he doesn’t care what they do.

You might hear a comment like, “For the past year, my husband has been very distant and cold. I can’t understand why he’s so unhappy. It started at work. But then the work situation eventually resolved and he’s still unhappy.” despite everything. He’s started to be more and more selfish with his time and affection. He doesn’t always come home right after work and has started spending more and more time at the gym. I suspect he’s having an affair, but no. He seems interested in no one or anything, so I find it hard to believe that he can really put time and effort into another woman.Last week, he forgot about our anniversary and when I confronted him about it, he acted like I was totally overreacting. It didn’t seem to faze him that he was angry I thought about this for a while and then decided I was going to tell him if he didn’t start to show me even the slightest amount of respect and put a little time and effort into our marriage So I was going to leave it. His response to me was: ‘I don’t care what you do. If you really need to go, go ahead. This made me stop in my tracks. Because now, I don’t know what to do. I really didn’t want to leave. I wanted him to act well. And now I’m in a situation where I either have to follow through on my threat or I just have to accept being treated this way. Now what?”

Determine the source of your unhappiness if you can: I’m not sure you have to accept that he treats you this way, although that may be his hope and his strategy. There are several reasons why it could be acting this way. First, he might be trying to put himself in a position to make you accept less. In short, he may actually be quite worried about your game, but he doesn’t want to show you this because doing so would mean he would actually have to make a trade. So to avoid this, you can try to backtrack a bit. To put it plainly, he is calling your bluff.

Why I think leaving should be the last resort and a very honest conversation should come first: Second, you may feel that for some reason you’re not that invested in the marriage, so you may genuinely think that you don’t care which way you go, and this can only change once you really see how it feels to be forced. To do it. live his life without you. Of course most people see it as a last resort and I agree. There is always a risk when one of the spouses leaves the home. I think it makes sense to try other things before doing something this drastic.

I would suggest at least trying to clear the air before having to revisit the game. You could try something like: “It was wrong of me to threaten you the way I did and I apologize for that. It wasn’t fair of me to threaten to leave. I take our marriage very seriously and I will give you an ultimatum. the right way to handle it. I hope my handling of this the wrong way is at least one of the reasons why you said you don’t care what I do. Because I hope it’s not true. It hurts to hear it. And it will hurt even more if it becomes our reality. It’s obvious to me that you haven’t been fully involved in our marriage for the past year. It seems like something is bothering you, but I haven’t been able to get to the bottom of what it is. I can’t help you. , and I can’t make adjustments, if you don’t share what’s wrong with me. I can tell you’re not. ‘t happy. And it doesn’t make me happy to see you dissatisfied. We both deserve happiness, so please work with me to discover the source of what is really wrong with us you. If you can share with me what is wrong, I would like to work with you to correct it, without threats or ultimatums. Just two adults working together to make things better. We can do that?”

I can’t guarantee that it will open right away. But I can tell you that in my experience you will get more cooperation from him if you approach him from a place of wanting to help him rather than from a place of wanting to threaten him. It’s possible she didn’t mean what he said about him not caring about him and that he was just responding negatively because of your threat. Now is the time to test that theory by trying to communicate openly.