3 Changes Which Bring Back Power for Me in Marriage
If you read my other stories in medium, probably you already know that I was cheated on by my wife couple of years back.
But we stayed together.
After that incident, I did lot of introspection to understand what was going on in our life.
I understood that few things were not in right place.
#1 She didn’t have respect for me. I was weak as a partner.
I provided most of the materialistic items and did what she want but that didn’t help to get respect and love.
#2 Due to some unknown reason, she lost her urge to have sex with me within a year after our marriage.
#3 Many a times she talks really harsh to me. I protested her behavior but it didn’t help.
#4 And finally on top of it, she got involve in a secret affair.
I was devastated but I didn’t stop to dig down deeper and try to understand what was wrong.
We visited marriage counsellor but that didn’t help much.
I was very focused to find a solution otherwise I was thinking of filing a divorce.
But it’s my luck that I bumped on some blog posts and articles during some random search and got some clue on how to deal with my not so happy married life.
I was not convinced that this will help but still thought about experimenting that idea in our marriage.
I was open to experimenting because already our marriage was failing. So, I was ready to give it a try.
I didn’t explain to my wife that we should try to rebuild our marriage.
I knew if I explain her that I want to make things better, those sweet words will not help me to make situation better.
In fact, I kept it secret and worked towards a mission to try to make our relationship better.
But before going to the details of what I did, I would like to mention that most of the relationship advisors are bogus.
If your spouse is not respecting your views and have a bad temperament then no amount of words can make things better.
So, you need to act little unorthodox way to make things work for you.
I am sorry if I am hurting feelings of the female readers here, but I can’t help it.
I am sharing the details which worked for me to get powerful in my marriage and relationship.
There is always a power dynamics in any relationship. One of the partner is more powerful than the other. And the powerful partner mostly dictates the relationship.
In my marriage, I was the weak partner till I took 3 steps, that I explained below.
These 3 steps were so useful in my case that within 6 months it changed the dynamics of my marriage.
I saw a radical improvement in the behavior of my wife due to the changes I made.
She was ready to listen to what I was saying. She was respectful.
I could feel that she started valuing me more and there was no instance of harsh talking.
She became softer and a nice person to talk with.
On top of it, the sex life was becoming little colorful and she is interested to get intimate.
Now without further delay, here are the steps which I took to make it better.
But to understand the psychology behind these steps, you need to know what is biggest strength of a woman and what is her weakness?
The biggest strength is her ego. Women get lots of attention from beginning of their life from opposite sex.
Men do all sorts of things to get women’s attention and approval.
This makes a wall of ego for the women. Women know during their young age, because of their sexuality and beauty they can almost win any man in matter of minutes.
So, ego is the most important inner strength of a woman.
And seeking validation is the weakness she has.
Women needs attention and validation to feel empowered in a relationship.
So, when you act in the way which take away that power from her, she becomes more grounded with the reality.
So, with this background here are the three things which I did in chronological order to bring the power back in my side.
Showing lack of affection
Now this is tricky. You are a good guy. You are nice and then suddenly one fine morning you can’t be bad.
It doesn’t work in that way.
So, you need to be very slow with withdrawing affection from her.
First step is finding out a hobby or a cause outside of your job and family life, which excites you.
It could be a social cause, community work or a music club. Get involved in that and get busy in that. As a result, you are not available to your wife or family like before.
So, when you do that she is more easily get used to your withdrawal of affection.
The problem with a good guy is, when his girlfriend or wife is acting bitchy, he tried to do all sorts of things to make her feel good.
In my case, I tried to make her happy many times in the day.
I show affection by gifting her surprises, making foods she love, give her a hug when she is exhausted or irritated on something.
I stopped doing that slowly. It’s not a quick withdrawal.
It’s a slow but steady withdrawal of showing affection.
I am interested in her. I am attentive to her. But I am not showering gifts, I am not too sensitive towards her emotional needs.
I am busy and I have other things to do.
You need to ignore her, if she acts too bitchy during this change of behavior from your side.
If she challenges you, abuse you then don’t react a lot. Be calm and tell her — If she is done, you have better things to do and leave the room.
She is looking for your reaction. If you don’t react she will be more grounded to the reality.
So, your target in the beginning should be to slowly withdraw showing affection towards your wife.
If she comes to you for validation of love and wants to hug you, give her some assurance. Don’t hurt her.
Be sweet and short to her. Give her some affection but don’t change your stance.
Showing lack of attention
If the above doesn’t work to the fullest degree then, you need to take second step.
This step also needs to be taken slowly.
Here you are going next level by withdrawing your attention towards her.
Lack of attention means getting busier with life and have less time to talk with an abusive wife.
For example, if she needs you to visit a place you can avoid saying that you have an important project at that time.
Don’t tell her, I don’t want to go.
Tell her you have other important work and it is better if she go by herself.
Again the trick here is to show her you don’t have enough interest in her.
If she is pleading you or trying to pursue you, don’t hurt her. Go with her, give some assurance that you are with her.
But again come back to your original state, that you are too busy to be hundred percent available for her.
So, the target here is to slowly withdraw attention from her.
I did both. Slow withdrawal of affection in the beginning and then slow withdrawal of attention towards her.
It did wonder for me. But before going to tell you what happened in my life, let’s focus on the third step that you might need to take.
Communicate differently
This is a very powerful technique. Many a times we men forget that less communication is basically a lot of communication.
As we see in last two steps, you are getting busy with your life by other activities and slowly withdrawn affection & attention towards her. Here is the next step.
As you are busy, you don’t have enough time to tell her what you are doing now a days.
A nice guy do a big mistake by telling her wife or girlfriend about everything of his personal life. Where he is going, whom he is meeting, what he will do next weekend.
Telling too much and being too open is a attraction killer. Also this is another way of showing her that you can have a separate life of your own. And you are not ready to accept her harsh treatment or whimsical behavior.
Not sharing everything is a great way to show her that you are capable of leading a separate life from her.
If she is bitchy, it’s a reminder to her either get better or you are not interested in her.
When I stopped telling whom I am going to meet next weekend and what fun I have last Friday, suddenly my wife started showing more interest on me.
She is more softer and trying to get intimate with me physically !!!
See how powerful is this.
But before going to my personal experience, I would like to tell you some word of caution when using these techniques in your relationship.
If not done properly, this can make your wife or girlfriend hurt or irritated. And you need to work harder to get results.
So, here the most important factor is to genuinely get busy into other activities and not to fake it.
Get genuinely busy with your life and then slowly withdraw affection, attention and openness in communication to make her behave better.
Give her taste of how it feels when she is not getting all the attention she desires the most.
I bet, if done correctly this will make your presence valuable to her and she will be ready to behave and act in a much better way to make you happy.
She will try to do things, so that you feel good and reciprocate your feeling by giving her some affection and attention.
The other word of caution is during this change of behavior, she will test you with lots of questions.
It is known as shit tests. It is to understand the depth of your change or how strong you are emotionally.
She might ask you about how much you enjoyed in last weekend in your friend’s place ?
Don’t give a direct answer. You may say, “I didn’t have such a fun for years” and give her a wicked smile.
If she asks — who were there ? Just answer her, “lots of people and I didn’t care about everyone.”
The trick here, is to not answer her questions directly. Either dodge them or give little funny answer and you are done.
I call this framework — AAC framework. AAC stands for affection, attention and communication. You control these three things to make your wife or girlfriend understand that you don’t need them to survive and you have better things to do.
Rest assured 90% of the women stop playing their mean card and start getting to be a well behaved woman when you control your emotional availability to them by controlling these 3 factors.
In my case when I slowly withdrew my affection and attention, my wife got initially tensed because in many years she never saw this side of me.
She understood I am much stronger than her in this relationship and not a weak partner.
Then as I was busy with other activities and leading my life the way I wanted and she didn’t have complete idea about what I am doing now a days, she wanted to taste a little about my new life.
All her attraction came back like a little girl who wants to check new things. And she is very willing to get intimate with me physically.
That’s a welcome change ! Isn’t it ?
Always remember, there is nothing called equality in a relationship. Either you dictate her or she dictates you.
It’s your choice what role you want to play.
Always remember running few mind games with your spouse may not help you to improve your married life. If you genuinely want to improve your married life and want your girlfriend or wife to respect you as a man, you need to shape up your life in a better way. I found my own way to make my life better. It improved my relationship with my wife as well. Improving your life is not a rocket science. How did I do it ? I will share my personal journey in upcoming posts.
