How can I make my husband choose me and our marriage above everything (and everyone) else?

Wives who are at the end of their marital ropes often reach out to me. Sometimes it is very clear that they are at a point in their marriage where their husband is not making them the priority in her life. Often the wife believes that the husband sees her marriage as almost an afterthought. I heard from a wife who said, “We have been married for about five years. For the first three years of our marriage, things were wonderful. My husband came straight home from work and we were always together. We were both very invested in our marriage and it showed. We were very much in love and very happy. But a couple of years ago, everything changed. He stopped coming home from work and started hanging out with his friends. He took up golf. now he’s also gone weekends.I am so alone in my marriage right now.I told my husband that I don’t want to live like this anymore.I told him that he had to make a decision about prioritizing our marriage and choosing me over all his hobbies and friends. He listened to what I had to say but told me I was being too sensitive. And then he made no change at all. I’m at the end of my rope. How can I make him choose me and our marriage? Because if he doesn’t does, I’m afraid our marriage will end.” I will address this below.

Make sure your request doesn’t sound like a nuisance so he’ll be tempted to avoid you: I understand how wives feel. Once my husband stopped prioritizing our marriage, I withdrew and did the same. Finally, we parted ways. So I completely understand that you want him to notice and listen. But, there’s a real danger in asking for this so often that he sees it as a nuisance and starts ignoring you. I often hear from husbands in this situation on my blog and they often offer comments like, “everything my wife does tells me how I’m not meeting her needs. She focuses squarely on what I’m doing wrong. It seems like every conversation is “They focus on her asking me for more. If she had her way, I’d have no friends except her. I love my wife, but she asks a lot of me. So I just tune her out.”

I am not telling you this to discourage you. I just want you to see why her husband may be disengaging from you and why, if this is the case, continuing with the same plan will likely continue to get the same results that you are currently not satisfied with. That’s why it can really help to try to use positive reinforcement, which I’ll talk about now.

Try to catch him in situations where he chooses you and make it worth doing the same one more time: Earlier, I described a situation where your husband avoids spending time with you because he knows that when he does, you are likely to make demands on him. So, you need to change this dynamic. You want to set it up so that when your husband comes home or chooses you in some way, you make a big deal about it in a positive way. Instead of saying things like “well, it’s about time” or “no one was available to play golf, so now you’re staying with me,” you should tell him what a pleasant surprise his presence is to you and how much you care. I want to cherish this time. Then, follow through on those statements by making it a night your husband will want to repeat.

The wife in the above scenario had been married to her husband for five years. She probably knew very well the kind of things that would be memorable and pleasurable for her husband. The general idea is that if you give her some positive reinforcement, it is much more likely that she will choose you again very soon. And each time he does, you want to make sure that you both enjoy the time you spend together so that it eventually becomes a habit. The idea is that you get to the point where you no longer have to praise him or give him much importance because it has become a habit for both of you.

So if you’re stuck in a cycle where you scold him and he doesn’t change his lifestyle a bit, consider trying to back off a bit and focus on catching him doing something right and then rewarding him. It is human nature to want to choose his wife and come home as often as he can when she gives him a compelling reason to do so. And once this happens, both people feel happy and valued without anyone feeling like he has lost the argument or given up.