Yesterday I received an email from a wife who wanted me to give her some advice. Her husband had informed her that he had decided to “give up” on their marriage. He told her that he felt there was nothing either of them could do or say to save the marriage and that it was better to just walk away and cut their losses before things got really bad and bad.

The wife disagreed. She felt that with a little work and cooperation, the marriage could be saved. I agreed with her, as I feel that there are really only a few marriages that cannot be rescued from the brink. Unfortunately, however, the tactics she was using to change her mind were completely flawed. He seriously doubted they would work. In fact, I suspected they would only have made the situation worse. In the following article, I will share with you the advice I gave him on how to convince a husband not to leave his marriage in a way that overcomes his resistance.

Look at the terminology you are using and the image you are painting:Very often when wives want to motivate our husbands to work with us to save the marriage, we use very unfortunate language that only inspires the exact opposite of what we want. We try to convince him to “fight for our marriage” or “work on our relationship.” Do these things sound pleasant to you? “Fighting?” “Labor?” This sounds like an undesirable thing you can do at your job, but you don’t necessarily like it.

Then, when the husband does not respond to these pleas as we wanted, we proclaim that he has “given up.” Again, this has a very negative connotation. To save your marriage, you will eventually have to be on board and at least cooperate a little. You are not as likely to get these things if you use language that implies that he will have to dig, roll up his sleeves, clock in, and get on the assembly line.

So what is the best way? You want to imply that what you are asking him to do will be enjoyable. But, there is often a catch, right? Because it has probably already started to disconnect you. You have already decided that nothing is ever going to change. He has already observed how you have tried different things that have failed and how you have talked until you are exhausted and yet no real change ever comes. Therefore, you cannot go on talking, talking, talking. Instead, you must take action. And you shouldn’t even tell him that you’re doing this. Doing so will simply resist you much more as you have been warned.

Let this unfold properly: Remember that we are going to let our actions speak for us. But first you will have to configure this. So, just tell your husband that you are sorry to hear that he has given up. For your part, this saddens you, but you find that you cannot control your thoughts or how you feel. Still, you worry about losing the relationship, no matter what happens to the marriage. You want to maintain a positive relationship, so you will only focus on making this process as painless as possible. You want to be as positive as you can. The reason you are doing this is because you absolutely need to change their perception of you from negative to positive. You want me to see that being with you can be quite harmonious.

You may need to be patient for this to happen. It will probably resist at first. However, there will be times when you will need to be together and interact and you will have to make the best of this situation each time it occurs.

Reminding you who and what you were: The woman who emailed me really felt things were hopeless. She was sure that her husband no longer loved her or did not find her attractive. She kept repeating “we have nothing in common. We are more like roommates.” These things were likely true. But, I still reminded him that we already know that it is possible for the two of them to connect on a very positive level. They had already done this. They were once deeply in love and at the time they seemed to have a lot in common.

But the circumstances were different then. They did not have the stressors of adult life. They weren’t trying to keep two jobs or raise children or make mortgage and car payments. Still, she believed that if they could put these burdens on the back burner and recreate the willingness to focus on their positive feelings when they fell in love, things would start to clear up. I recommended a couple of good books to the wife to read in preparation for this and instructed her to always focus on fun and fun encounters that didn’t even touch on what was going on with the marriage.

We’ll see how this works, but I must tell you, I’ve seen it work countless times. As soon as you bring out those qualities that he loved about you, the tension begins to subside. It begins to become a little less resilient and a little more willing. Finally, you begin to initiate contact and you begin to be more willing to believe that things can change. When it does, you should stick with what you are doing. Don’t go back to the negative and neglectful things that brought you here in the first place. Always remember that if you can maintain a constant flow of affection, appreciation, and attention, it will go a long way toward keeping you and your husband on board so that neither of you wants to give up on the marriage.