THE EXACT STEP-BY-STEP STRATEGY TO WIN YOUR WIFE BACK

🚨 If you want to save your marriage and Win Your Wife Back, watch my masterclass here: https://codybutlercoaching.com/broadcast?utm_source=podcast

Transcript

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Alright guys, so as I said, we're gonna talk about we're gonna go back to basics today and talk about the the step-by-step step strategy involved in uh winning your wife back, saving your marriage, changing her mind about divorce, or even better, preventative medicine here, right? Let's not get to this point in the first place that all these strategies are gonna work for that perfectly as well. So uh, where we're at, you know, what's going on? So your wife wants a divorce, maybe you're uh some people in, you're constantly thinking about it, in a state of fear, scared of making things worse, scared of saying the wrong things, you're looking for the right words, you're looking for the right actions, and quite frankly, nothing seems to be working at this point in time. So I think we can probably all relate to this at some some level or another, right? So this is this is where we're at. So what we tend to keep asking in this situation as men is what's changed, you know. Often we don't know or we can't see why she wants to do this. Is it too late? Does she still love me? Should I give her space? Should I fight harder for this marriage? How do I change her mind? These are all ideas and thoughts, questions that are going through my mind and or your mind potentially, and we're gonna we're gonna address all of these today and give you the strategy to work work around these. So the problem that that we're actually addressing is right now, every every moment is being treated like an emergency. You're you're in a state of constant high alert, constant fight or flight. You're in a state of fear. That fear is driving you, it's making your choices for you, it's turning you into the proverbial monkey with a machine gun. And you're basically just going at this without a clear plan or a clear strategy, which is never a good thing, right? So let's get that strategy. So the f the first thing that we've got to understand is this is not random. Life is a game of cause and effect. It's sowing and reaping. You reap what you sow. You don't sow, you don't reap. You sow bad seeds, you get bad results. And when we arrive at the conclusion that life is a cause and effect game, you eat high calorie, low quality food, you get fat. You don't exercise, you get fat. You have a poor health regime, you get sick. You treat your marriage badly, it falls apart. Everything is cause and effect, right? So if we can understand what the cause is that creates the effect, then we can change the effect. So the big problem that many of us have is that we're just looking at the effect, right? We're looking at the outcome of the situation and trying to change the result when actually we, if you want a different output, you need a different input. And we need to stop looking at the outputs that are happening right now and start looking at the inputs that produce the different change. So you have to understand that your marriage did not fall apart for no reason. So to understand why it fell apart, we have to go back to why she married you in the first place, right? And there's really only two reasons, and that was she loved the way you made her feel, and she she believed that a future with you, she saw that a future with you was significantly better than a future without you. You were the best option. So she loved, she loved how you made her feel. She believed in the marriage, she saw a good future with you, and life felt better with you than without you. This is fundamentally the causational events that cause the effect of her wanting and, in fact, marrying you. Now, the fact that she's leaving, which is a different effect, she doesn't like how she feels in the marriage anymore. She's lost hope that she's gonna feel good. She's lost hope in that you have the ability to provide those feelings that she's looking for. She doesn't believe things are gonna change. And she now looks at life as the it feels better without you than with you in it. And when you look at these two things, it becomes very we we zoom out from the micro, which is where many of you are at right now. You're looking at every single moment, every single micro event, and and you're allowing it to completely overwhelm you and keep you in a state of fear and lack of productivity. And when you zoom out and you go, okay, well, there's only really two things to work on here. There's only really two inputs, there's two causes that produce an output, an event, cause and effect, right? And it's how does she how do you make her feel? How does she feel around you? And what kind of future does she see with you? These are the only two things. If she if she really likes how you make her feel, and she sees that the future with you is spectacular, then it's a no-brainer, she's gonna come back. This is very logical, right? If she's not wanting to stay, it's because she doesn't like how she feels and she doesn't see a future with you. These are the only two things, and when we zoom out and see the big picture, the big map, these are the only two real questions in any situation that mean anything. What am I about to do? How does this impact how she feels? And what and what I'm about to do, or the question that I'm asking, or the event that I'm about to engage in, the causational event, does that make a life with me more attractive than a life without me? And when we break it down to this, and we got we got a bunch of steps here, I'm gonna I'm gonna walk you through, so you can have some uh first principles, right? First principles are what is the principle that governs the situation versus every single micro event. So by the end of this, you're gonna have everything you need. So the important part here to understand is again, first principles, right? Every marriage has different problems. Every man I talk to will say, well, my situation is unique, Cody. I think you'll find my situation is unique. Well, the patterns are often the same. Uh the the situations are unique, but the patterns are the same, right? It something happened that changed how she feels, and something happened that changed how she sees the future with you. Now, maybe you had an affair and then that made her feel worthless and made her see a future without you as being worse than a future with you. It made her see a future full of pain instead of a future full of promise and pleasure, right? Or maybe you just ignored her. Maybe you were just maybe you were just a workaholic and you were at work and you ignored her, which made her feel neglected, which she didn't like, which made her believe that a future with you was better, a future without you was better than a future with you. It goes on and on and on, right? It every situation, although yes is unique in itself, produces the same pattern. It leaves the woman feeling in a way that she doesn't like and it leaves her seeing a future with you as the worst option or a worse option than a future without you. And when we understand that, it that your situation is not unique. It resulted in these two events. She doesn't like how she feels, and she doesn't see a future with you. How you arrived at that to some extent is irrelevant in the big picture, right? So here's what we need to do to arrive at a at it in a state that makes us productive. When you're frantic, when you're overwhelmed, when you're the monkey with the machine gun, when you're just running around, the reason for this is because you're hanging on every single word that she says. So zoom out, stop operating in the micro, start looking at the macros. So she may have said, I'm not happy, I don't love you anymore, we've grown apart, it's too late. And if you're in the micro moment, these are gonna just throw you into chaos. But ultimately, these these are not the problems, right? Like the these are just the results of the problems. They're the final conclusion that she's arrived at based on the behavior that's led you to these points. They don't tell you the future, they tell you where she is now. They don't tell you either how she got there. So when she says this is over and there's no hope, it tells you very little about it, just tells you where she's at now, and quite frankly, it's a lagging indicator. When a lot of men get confused because they're like, she said this, she said that, and it's like, yes, well, that's a lagging indicator, right? When she says I don't love you, what she means is she doesn't love the man who's shown up for the last six months or twelve months or whatever. She's not saying necessarily that she doesn't love the this man in the moment or the future man, she's saying the man that I've experienced in the past, I do not love that man anymore. It's a lagging indicator. And when we understand that, it allows us to zoom out and get some perspective in what's going on. So what we need to do here is we need to put some we need to become detective, right? What is what does she complain about? Women tell us what the problem is. They she's tried for a long time to get you to modify the behavior, to change the causational events so there can be a different effect. So, what did she complain about many times? What did she ask you to change over and over again? What arguments kept coming up over and over? Men say, you know, we have this idea as men, it's like women never forget, they never let anything go. And that's that's true and it's not true. It's true in the respect that she's not gonna let it go and she's not gonna let it, she's not gonna forget until it's resolved. As men, we can agree just to push things off to the side and say, we'll agree to disagree on that, so let's just move forward productively. A woman's not like that. She can't agree to disagree and just put it off to the side so we can move on. Or she can move on. So when she when when something keeps coming up over and over again from 20 years ago, it means it is not resolved yet. She will let that go. She will forget it once it's been resolved. So what keeps coming up? What arguments keep coming up over and over again? This is telling you that she has unresolved issues. Or even even worse, right? What does she just stop talking about? At least when she's arguing or complaining, she's this she's doing it because that's a mechanism for her to bring about change. When she just stops, it means she just doesn't believe there's any possibility of change anymore. It means that she's given up hope altogether. So this is really important, right? What what did she finally stop talking about? And ultimately, what behavior did she no longer want to live with? What did she say? That's it, I'm just not living with this anymore, right? So the thing we need to understand here, man, is there's no one trick that saves every marriage. There's not a one-size-fits-all, as I've said, every marriage is different, every wife has different reasons, every man has different behaviors that need to change. But the bottom line is there's no one, there's no one format, right? No, no text message can fix a marriage, no sentence can fix a marriage, no apology can fix a marriage, giving space doesn't fix the marriage, etc. But even though every marriage is different and every pathway that led to the fracture, the breakdown is different, what can and is the same is there's an order of steps that took place. There's a way that you made decisions and make decisions. There's a way that you listen or don't listen, there's a way that you change or you don't change, and there's a way that you measure progress. All of these things can be the same within that container. And again, if we go back to first principles and we stop looking at the outcome, that the outputs, and start looking at the inputs, then this becomes very, very easy. So let's go through the steps. Let's put this into some steps. So step number one to save your marriage is you have to know what you really want. You have to get you have to know that your outcome, right? So possible goals are gonna be you want to save the marriage, right? We're we all say that. That's why we all say that we're here, but it it's not necessarily why we're here. The actual why we're here, the the the the true goals, if we dig, might be you just want your pain to stop. You want to get reassurance, you want to get affection, sex, you want to stop her leaving, you want to feel in control, you want to avoid being alone, etc. etc. These are all possible goals, right? But we've got to know, we've got to know what we really want. So step number so to do this, you've got to be brutally honest. Like all of us are saying that we're here because we want to save the marriage, but the truth is many of us are here because, you know, that's a secondary goal. We actually want our pain to stop, etc. So be honest. What do you what do you truly want right now? Are you actually wanting to truly help the marriage, or are you trying to feel better? And this is important because this can be engineered to where both can be true simultaneously. As human beings, we're inherently selfish people. That's not gonna change. You can't get angry at a dog because it barks, right? Dogs bark, it's what they do. Human beings are selfish, whether you want for whatever reason, like whether you want to call it the ego, the id, i the the fall of man, inherent sin, etc. Like whatever flavor you want to go with, whatever, right? It doesn't make a difference to me. But the facts of the matter are we are inherently selfish. So the question is not how do we overcome our selfishness, the question is how do we use that selfishness in a way that benefits us and other people simultaneously. So of course you're trying to feel better, but you can put that into a context to where it helps the marriage, saves the marriage as well. But you've got to be honest about this, right? If you're just saying my only goal is to save the marriage and I don't care about anything else, well, it becomes difficult to achieve that outcome. Because there's going to be an internal conflict, there's going to be an internal fracture where what you say and what you actually believe are two different things. Or you say, I only want to save the marriage. But the truth is you want to feel better. You know, if the truth is you only want to save the marriage, then just become a simp. Just bend over, take it without any lube, do whatever she says, be you know, just be a doormat. That'll save your marriage, probably. Just just forsake yourself in in the totality of yourself. Stop having any desires, dreams, hopes, aspirations, and just become her doormat. That'll save the marriage, probably. But is that what you want? It's not. So just saving the marriage is not true. You you want to save the marriage within certain conditions. And being honest about that helps you achieve those. So the simple test here is every choice that you make does one of two things. And I've put helps reconciliation or makes reconciliation less likely, but we can change this to helps your outcome or doesn't help your outcome. So the reason the reason we have to know our outcome, we have to know what we really want is because then every decision that you face becomes binary. It either helps the situation or it hurts the situation. And it makes your decision making very, very easy. Again, this is this is first principle, right? Like you don't want to have to talk to me every time you have a decision to make. And any given day of the week, every single day of the week, you're dealt a hand of cards that morning. Sometimes they're a great hand and sometimes they're a crappy hand, right? But you have to play that hand of cards that day or that week. You don't have a choice. And even when you're faced with a very difficult decision, when you have a clear outcome, a clear destination, even when you have two poor outcomes, one of those outcomes moves you closer to reconciliation or closer to the outcome that you want than the other. And this this provides an empowering state for you to operate in on a daily basis because without this direction, without having a clear goal, a clear outcome, and then understanding that that is everything points to one of two destinations, helps it or hurts it, it's very easy just to look at the situation and go, I've got the choice of shit or shittier. I've got the choice of bad or worse, I've got no good outcome here, I've got no good possibility here. But that's not true. You have a better choice. In any situation, you have a better choice. And if in every single given situation that you enter into you make the better choice, you will get the better outcome ultimately. And as I have just said, you have to play this hand of cards today, regardless. So you this is how you play the hand of cards on any given day, the best way possible to give yourself the best winning possibility, or at the very least, put yourself in a better position for when the cards are dealt again tomorrow, to maybe get a win in hand. So you want to use this before sending a text, starting a conversation, asking a question, making a promise, asking for affection, reacting to art uh reacting in anger or pushing for an answer, right? So let's just look at these. Reacting in anger. Is that if your goal truly is reconciliation, if your goal is if your goal for the day is to make your wife feel emotionally safe, is reacting in anger, does it hurt that outcome or does it help that outcome? If the goal is to make her feel emotionally safe today, is pushing for an answer when she doesn't want an answer, does that help that outcome or does that hurt that outcome? Your goal is reconciliation. She's asked for some space. So does trying to force a conversation help that outcome or hurt that outcome? All of a sudden, this test of what's my outcome and then a binary decision, it really makes every decision that you face on any given day very easy. So we also hear we need to stop hiding behind selfish goals and behind good words, right? Again, ruthless self-honesty here. So men say, I'm I only want what's best for her, I only want what's best for the children, I'm only fighting for my family. And it's like, okay, well, that sounds very magnanimous, right? That sounds that sounds great, that's fantastic, what a good guy you are. But I ask the question often when a man says that to me, Cody, I just want what's best for my wife and kids. Well, okay, well, what if you not being in their life is what's best for them right now? Would you go for that? No, I didn't think so. So you actually don't want what's best for them. The very the very best we can say here is you want what's best for everybody, you want what's best for all parties, right? But in all reality, you probably want what's best for you. But anyway, any way you slice it, I only want what's best for my wife, I only want what's best for my children, simply isn't a true statement. It simply isn't a true statement. It's a selfish goal hidden behind good words. And I don't say that to judge you or to shame you or to put you in a bad place. I say that because until you can communicate what's going on honestly, you're not going to get an outcome that you want. Like, I give share a quick story with you just to show this. I I had a I had a friend once, uh, she was she was a woman in her mid-30s, right? Aging out in terms of family and children. She's probably 35, single. And I was talking to her one day, and she said, I'd I'm not that fuss, Curdy. If I find someone, I find someone, and if I don't, I don't, right? Okay. Well, I asked her, I said, is that actually true? I said, because I know a lot of people that I could introduce you to, but if you don't care, I'm not going to. I'm going to save those introduction introductions for people who do care. Who it is important for them to meet somebody. And I said, everybody is like that. Like when you go around saying, if I meet someone, I meet someone, if I don't, I don't, I don't re I don't really care if I meet somebody. It's like you are coming into contact all the time who know people they could introduce you to. But because you've said you don't care, you're not being honest, you're hiding behind, you're hiding your goals behind whatever, good words or you know, self-protection, whatever, you are now excluded from that opportunity. I said, so let me ask you again. I do you not care, or do you care? She goes, No, I absolutely do care. I do care. I do want to meet someone, it is important to me, and it's bothering me that I'm single at 35 years old, and I would love to meet someone. Okay, well, let me introduce you to John. Let me introduce you to Matthew. Again, the the example here is that when she got really clear about what she wanted and she was able to communicate that, that outcome became significantly more likely instantaneously. So you gotta ask yourself, man, would I still want what's best for her if that didn't include me? What if what if the best thing for her and my children is that I'm not in the picture? Right? Am I acting from love? Or am I acting from fear? Am I acting from self interest? Am I trying to actually help her or am I trying to control the Outcome. And again, you can't treat a problem that does not have an accurate diagnosis. Until we can get brutally honest with ourselves and say what's going on and be honest about our intention, our motivation, etc., etc., the situation is not going to get bad, is not going to get better. Many men will say, I'm just acting out of love, Cody, but the truth is they're acting out of fear. And the treatment plan, the prescription for fear is significantly different to the treatment plan for I'm acting out of love. The treatment plan, if the destination is to save your marriage, for I'm trying to control the outcome here, is a significantly different pathway to I'm actually trying to help her and my family. Because people can only respond to the words that you give them. And when you say, Cody, I'm only doing this, it's like, well, then I have to take you I have to take that at face value and give you advice or share information that's based on that stated outcome. But if you're trying to help, if you say you're trying to help, but you're actually trying to control, the advice that you get is bad advice. So step two, we've got a few steps to get through here. So step number two is it is she gonna come back for for your reasons or is she gonna come back for her reasons? Simple, right? If she's gonna come back to you, it's going to be for her reasons and it's gonna have nothing to do with your reasons. So your reasons are you love her, you try to tell her you tell her you love her, you tell her you miss her, you miss the family, so on and so forth. You you fear losing your home, your retirement, your finances, your investment portfolio, you you fear losing time with children, you fear money problems, you you you fear starting over again. These are all your reasons. You know, and we try to point this out to our wives from the perspective of the divorce will cost money, the the divorce will cause the children to struggle, will cause them psychological damage, life will change, the future's gonna be difficult for you. This is in everyone's, it's like she already understands these things. She's thought this through. She's not a dum-dum. You're not the only one that sees this. But you have to understand. She's chosen to left leave in spite of all of those reasons, and those are your reasons for change, uh, for her staying. Your reasons are not important to her. When you understand that, you start trying to you stop trying to communicate your reasons, and you go, okay, well, there's only one logical thing to do here, and that is understand her reasons. So why do your reasons not work, right? Because they're your reasons, they're not her reasons. I went to, you know, I'll go to a car dealership to buy a new car, and they the bloody dealer will talk to me for 20 minutes about stuff I couldn't care less about. It's got carbon fiber, this, couldn't care, couldn't give a crap. It's got, it does zero to sixty in this time, couldn't give a crap. Just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on. I'll tell you a few things I care about. What's my payment gonna be? What's the warranty? That's it, really. Can I can I afford it? Is it is it gonna be reliable or is it gonna cause me problems? Like the car dealership will talk for hours about things I just don't care about, and quite often I'll end up leaving because I can't give him my reasons for buying the car. So your reasons don't work because they're your reasons, not her reasons. They don't fix her pain. When you tell her that this is gonna damage the children, are you are you fixing her pain? Or are you making are you creating more pain? Do you think she's do you think she's gonna stay with you when you create more pain? This is gonna socially damage you, this is going to ruin your reputation, this is going to damage the children. You're gonna have to start out, it's like you're just pain, you're just piling it on. Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain. And when you understand she's leaving because she doesn't like the way you make her feel anymore, what do you think pain is piling that pain on is doing for her? Do you think it's making her feel good? So we're gonna talk about this more in a minute, too. Don't you don't remove that your reasons do not remove the deal breakers. And they do not give her hope. All of her reasons try to motivate her through the avoidance, avoiding more pain versus giving her hope that she's gonna have a better future. So the better question to ask yourself is am I speaking to her reasons? Or even better, do I even understand her reasons? Do I even know what her reasons are? Well, in most cases the answer is no, got no clue. When I talk to men on a one-on-one basis and I ask the question, what are what are her reasons what would her reasons be for staying? No idea, no clue. The man just makes it up on the spot and goes, oh, uh, well, well, because because like you don't know, do you bro? You don't know. Like, don't make this up. You can't, you this is not a test where you get a passing grade and then she comes back. It's like if you don't know her reasons, you can't provide an environment that she would come back into. You have to know her reasons. So the next question is Am I asking, am I speaking to her reasons for coming back, or am I only talking about my reasons for her not to leave? Most of the time it's this you're talking about your reasons for for her to not leave. So step number three, how do we resolve this, right? We ask more questions. Stop making statements and ask, start asking questions. We've got some doctors on this call. Do you find out? Do you diagnose what a patient actually has going on by making statements about their condition or asking them questions? Simple stuff, right? Where does it hurt? What are the symptoms? What triggers the symptoms? When does this happen? When does it get better? When does it feel worse? Does it happen after you do this? Does it happen before that? Right? You find out about what's going on with somebody by asking questions. You don't find out what's going on by somebody coming into the office and they say, I need I've got this going on, and saying, I'm gonna stop you there. I'm gonna tell you what the problem is. As men, we like to make statements. I know what's going on, Cody. I'll get that all the time in a one-to-one. I know what her reasons are, Cody. Okay, well, that's a statement, right? And that that that's a brick wall. I know what her reasons are, means that you learn nothing from this conversation. If you said, you're right, Cody, I don't know what her reasons are. How do I go about finding those reasons? Well, now we've opened up a world of possibility that did not exist before. Statement shut you down and kept you in the psychology that's ruined the marriage, broken the marriage, versus a question opens up a possibility that wasn't there before, right? So stop explaining the situation, stop defending yourself, stop correcting, stop persuading, stop promising, stop telling her why she should stay. All of these things are detrimental. We think if we explain why she feels this way, she'll stay. We def she says, Well, you're doing this and this, John. And we defend ourselves that it's a court case, and if we win, she'll stay. We we go to school teacher energy. Well, actually, you're wrong. I understand that you're absolutely thoroughly miserable in this marriage, but the reasons you're thoroughly miserable are wrong. Let me correct you on that. Etc. etc. So again, let's take the doctor analogy. Like, does a doctor ask questions? Does the doctor listen? Does a doctor try to understand what the person is going through? Does a doctor stay calm when dealing with an irrational patient or a fearful patient, or does the doctor just go into breakdown? Does the doctor let the patient finish explaining the symptoms or finish when the symptoms explain and when the symptoms show up? Does the doctor listen to answers that he doesn't like because it makes the treatment more difficult, etc.? Of course, all of these things, right? Very easy to understand in this this this con in this context. And if the doctor didn't do any if the doctor didn't ask questions, he made statements. He didn't listen to the patient. He made no effort to understand the patient's pain. So any of that. The doctor was just a loose cannon, just like when the when the patient was hysterical, the doctor became hysterical, and the doctor did not let the patient finish in any statement or any explanation. What kind of doctor would that be? Would you want to go see that doctor? Would you want that doctor to treat you? Would you put your life in the hands of that doctor? I'll leave that question to you to decide for yourself. So here's some checks. But before you ask before you ask these questions to find her reasons, are you asking be ask yourself the question? Am I asking because I care, or am I asking to change her answer? Am I actually trying to understand what's going on here? Or am I looking for something to argue with? Am I looking for something to disagree with? Am I able and can I hear the truth without becoming angry? Or is every time she tries to tell me what's going on that I don't like, it's going to trigger me? Or in other words, can I accept an answer that I don't like? Can I hear something that I don't want to hear? And the answer for most of you is no, which is why you're here. So manipulation and care can seem to be the exact same thing. They can, on the surface level, to the uneducated individual, they can they can appear to be the same. But the difference between manipulation and care is the intention. Are you asking questions to get a result? Or are you are you are uh in manipulation you're asking the questions to get a result. When you care, you're asking questions to understand her truth. Two different things. So here's what we need to understand, which many of us as men do not, and this is a critical distinction. Her feelings are real, her truth is real. Perception is reality. If she feels if she believes you cheated on her and she 100% believes that, doesn't matter if you cheated on her or not. She's gonna feel that way, she's gonna treat you like you cheated on her, and the outcome is gonna be the same as though you treated on her. Objective reality plays no role in the situation here. Plays no role. This is why the typical man approach of explaining, building the case, correcting all of these things make no difference. Her truth is real. You may disagree with her, you may think she's wrong, you may remember things differently to her, but guess what, brothers? Her feelings guide her choices. And her view of the marriage is real, very, very real to her. If she feels like you're neglecting her, then you telling her that she's not, and make building a case that you're not looking neglecting her is stupidity at the highest level. There's no higher form of ignorance than to deny somebody else's feelings. I feel like you are neglecting me. Well, that's not true. You have to stop arguing with her feelings and correcting her feelings and understand that her behavior is coming out of her feelings and perception is reality for her and you as well. So when you understand that, that her feelings never, ever tell her she's wrong. Now that's not to say that you have to believe she's right. And the way to get her to the conclusion that she's wrong is through asking questions. It's not through telling her that she's wrong or building a case, it's asking questions. To get her to see for herself through your questioning that she's wrong. The same is true for all of you, right? If I tell you something, it might mean something, maybe. If I if I've done a good job and I have some influence over you and I have some credibility, if I tell you something, it might mean something, right? But if I if I ask you a question that draw leads you to the conclusion and you come to that conclusion yourself, and it's your conclusion, it means everything. If I say she's only she's not gonna come back for your reasons, it's like, well, that may you may go, okay, that's fine. But if I go through the whole process that I've just been through, right? If she's gonna there's only two reasons. She loved the way she made you, you made her feel, she doesn't see a future with you, whatever, right? Like that whole process. If I ask you the question, is she gonna come back to this marriage now for your reasons or for you for her reasons? It doesn't matter what position you had at the beginning of this conversation, that is now your viewpoint, that is now your position that you've arrived at by yourself by me asking you questions and leading you to that conclusion, not explaining why you should feel that way, not defending the situation, right? Not turning the conversation back to her or to you or you know, any of those things is by asking better questions. So never tell her she's wrong, never explain why she shouldn't feel that way. Never defend yourself straight away. Truth doesn't need defense, it can defend itself. Never turn the conversation back onto her. Meaning, I don't know, you neglected me, Cody. Okay, well, what about you? You neglect me all the time, just reflecting it back, right? And never punish her for being honest. When she tells you a hard truth that you don't like, don't punish her for that, because if you do, guess what? You're not gonna get any more honesty from her. So remember this, man. Her answers are not it's not always an attack on you. Her answers, whether good or bad, are just data points, they're just information. That's all they are. Treat what she says as a data point and inform as information, don't take it personally. Her answers may show you the real problem. If you can if you can become strong enough to listen to her without the need to go into typical man behavior, defense, logic, etc., her answers are gonna show you where the problems are. So let's move on. So do not make honesty feel dangerous to her. So when you f when you do defend yourself, right, because you know that she's wrong, and if she could just see that she was wrong, the whole situation would change, turn around. No, it's not gonna turn around. All that's gonna happen is she's gonna feel unhurt, she's gonna feel corrected, she's gonna feel unsafe for being honest, she's gonna feel punished for being honest. You're gonna train her that telling the truth causes her pain, and ultimately you're gonna reinforce that nothing has changed within the relationship. That's what you're gonna do, right? When you defend yourself. The only defense that you have is defenselessness. So here's what you need to do instead. And again, let's be a doctor, right? Is is calmness a desirable quality in a doctor? Humility, patience, self-control, curiosity, a willingness to hear the hard things, a willingness to be wrong. Many of us have none of these qualities. Or very limited qualities, right? We're not patient, we're not calm. We don't have humility, etc. So, step four, this is really, really important, right? Find the deal breakers. The main question here is what behavior would she rather divorce than keep living with? All problems are not equal, right? It's like the jar of rocks. You can have a jar, a big jar, and you can fill that jar with 10 million grains of sand, right? 10 takes 10 million grains of sand to fill that jar. Or you can put four big rocks in that jar and it fills 90% of the space. Four rocks fill 90% of the space, or 10 million grains of sand. Which is better, right? My point is that there are only that there are 10 million problems within the relationship, but there are only four deal breakers. There are only three or four or five major points that are causing the majority of the fracture. Or in other words, five percent of the problems or ten percent of the problems in the marriage are causing 90% of the friction. All problems are not equal. So, what are the what are the deal breakers? Again, buying a car, what are the deal breakers? Well, the payment's a deal breaker, the warranty's a deal breaker. You know, it's like it's a two-year warranty. Well, that's a deal breaker. I want a five-year warranty, or even better, I want a seven-year unlimited mileage warranty. If you're only going to give me a two-year warranty, that's a deal breaker, right? So, what are some of the possible deal breakers that she's just going, I cannot live with this anymore. This goes where I go. Anger, lying, addiction, control, cynicism, criticism, emotional neglect, broken promises, unreliability, right? Lack of affection, financial problems, avoiding hard conversations, emotional instability. These are just a few that I've put down to get you thinking. She just doesn't want to be criticized. She's sick of being criticized. Maybe you've got an addiction. Maybe you've just you've pathologically dishonest, maybe you've got anger problems. But some of these are going to be bigger than others, right? So, how do you find these deal breakers? Well, what does what comes up repeatedly over and over again? What does she keep coming back to? And you're like, great, we're back to this again. What has she warned you about repeatedly? What has caused the same arguments over and over again? What what what did you promise to change? Right? This is where it's going to be. She's telling you what those the the big ones are. She can bring up little things constantly, right? And she will. She'll bring up 10, 15, 20 things a day, probably that she doesn't like. But what are the what are the reoccurring patterns here? Let's zoom out and look at the macro, not the micro. What keeps coming up over and over again? Is it your drinking? Is it your anger? Is it your attitude? What is it? It's gonna be there. The patterns are gonna give it away. So step number five in this process is you've got to change the you've got to change the behavior, right? Remove, you've got to remove the deal breakers. The deal breaker is this changes or I go. This is a non-negotiable in the relationship. And you have those non-negotiables too, right? But it's not enough to understand, it's not enough to understand what the deal breaker is, right? You've got to change the behavior. Knowing about the problem is not the same as fixing the problem. Understanding that I don't exercise and I need to go to the gym is not exercising and going to the gym. Saying I know, I understand code, I've got to eat less junk food. That's not the same as eating less junk food. You get zero credit for saying that you understand, right? Understanding is not changing. And I would even go as far to say that you know, if you if you if you say that you understand something and you're not acting that out, you don't understand it at all. You're simply intellectually acknowledging something. Learning new words is not change. Learning new words is not transformation. It's not about text message or or or you know any of that stuff, or what do I say? It's not that's not transformation. Change and transformation does not come about from exposure to new information. It's why a lot of you will join this program and I'll talk to you day two, and you go, I've been through the whole program, Cody. I did it all on triple speed. Uh I've done the whole 32 hours or whatever it is, and I did it in in 10 hours and I've done it. What now? Nothing's changed. It's like, well, you learnt nothing, man. Like you went through God knows how many hours of content at triple speed, and it's like you you've you've learnt nothing. You just wasted 10 hours of your life, is all you've done. Transformation does not come about. Change does not come about from exposure to new information, it comes about from radically seeking out and aggressively implementing new behavior. She doesn't need you to know new stuff, she needs new behavior. Which is the same with you. You don't want her to acknowledge that she sh that you that she doesn't give you enough sex and you want more. That does make no good. Her saying, I understand, Cody, I don't I don't give you enough sex and I need to give you more means nothing. Unless the behavior behind it changes. So, what does she need? What do you need to be looking at? She needs the deal breakers, the bad behavior removed from the relationship, and she needs the better behavior at it. And this needs to happen with consistency, with stability and real change over time. Again, let's be clear about this, right? A marriage is a lagging indicator. Where you are at in your life today is not any indication of where you are in your life today. The body that you rock right now, whether it's ripped or whether it's obese, is not an indication of your current diet and exercise regime. It's a lagging indicator of the decisions that you've made of however many years, right? And even though in your mind you've changed, and even in physical reality, the behavior has now changed, you are exercising and you are going to the gym. That reality is not going to show up in your world for some time. And this is the mistake that men make. She's not leaving the you that you are now, she's leaving the you that you've been for the last 10 years. She's not dealing with the current version of you, she's dealing with a past version of you. And the truth, the reality is, it's a lagging indicator. If you've neglected your finances for a decade and all of a sudden now you've paid, you're starting to pay down your debt, you're starting to save, you're starting to invest. You're doing all the right things and you're making all the right changes and you're making all the right noises, but guess what? Your current finances are a lagging indicator. Your health is a lagging indicator. Your career is a lagging indicator. I can say I want to be a lawyer, and in my mind I can become that lawyer and I can start a lawyer and I can start studying law, right? But the truth of the matter is, even though I'm behaving like a lawyer right now and doing everything, it's a lagging indicator. The world is not going to respond to me as a lawyer for four years. And there's there is no way this is to change that is to say, Cody, I don't like the fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. I want it to rise in the north and set in the south. Well, I wish you luck with that, bro. But I'm gonna respectfully decline to participate in this one because I don't know how to get that result for you. We can't change reality. So what is your what actually what is what does change actually require, right? Like it requires new actions, new behavior. You need to change your diet. There needs to be repetition. You can't change your diet for one day. You've got to do it over and over again. It requires discipline. There are going to be days when you hate that diet. You just want something fatty and sugary and satisfying. You need accountability. Someone has got to tell you when you're screwing up. Someone has got to tell you when you are lacking discipline, repetition, and the new behavior. Someone has got to hold you accountable to the fact that there are no new actions. There's only that you you're still in the place of thinking that new beliefs is all that's required. There needs to be patience. You need to understand that this is your life is a lagging indicator. There needs to be the removal of the old habits, the deal breakers, right? You you you can do everything. You can you can go to the gym and you you can eat a healthy three meals a day can be healthy, right? But if the old habit is you lay in bed and you eat bloody three bags of Doritos, family-sized Doritos at night, while watching Netflix, well, then we're gonna have an issue. The old habits that are destroying your outcome have to be removed, and you have to build better habits, which requires accountability, discipline, repetition, patience, etc. etc. So stop trying to prove that you've changed. Don't say I've changed. Can you see a difference? Why do you not trust me yet? How long is this going to take? What else do I need to do? If you've lost weight, do you need to tell people that you've lost weight? If you've changed, it is obvious. If you're telling people I've lost weight, and it's true, if it's true, right? Like you may have you may have been 100 pounds overweight and you've lost 20 pounds, but you were so obese that that 20 pounds is imperceivable at this point, right? Keep going. At some point, people will go, man, you're looking good. Man, you've lost some weight, have you lost some weight, Cody? What's going on? If you need to tell people you've lost weight, you are not where you need to be yet. So, real change, man, and this is important, it does not need announcement, it does not need to be praised, it does not need a reward. The change in and of itself is the reward. If you've lost 100 pounds, do you need someone to tell you well done? Or is the fact you've lost 100 pounds the reward for itself? Do you when you lose weight, do you need someone to constantly praise you and say, well done? Or are you doing it because you know you need to do it and you're doing this for you? And whether you get praise or whether you get a reward, you keep doing it anyway. So real change doesn't need quick forgiveness, and it's shown through daily behavior. Little steps every day, are you doing this every day? The man, the man that that goes to the gym every day and eats a little bit healthier, he doesn't see the result on the daily basis. But every now and again you'll look in the mirror and go, man, I can see the results, or get on the scales. So this is the way I look at it, right? This is the fire test. I call this the fire test. You you if you're if you're on fire, you just need to stand next to somebody. You don't need to explain what fire is, you just need people to feel the heat. If you're on fire, they're gonna feel that heat. If you need to explain what heat is, if you need to if you stand next to somebody and tell them that you're the fire, and they go, I can't feel anything, and you have to explain what heat is, you are not the heat. You don't need to explain change. If you are on fire, all you need to do is stand next to the person and they will feel the heat. She needs to experience the heat from the fire, not hear you explain what heat is. And this is the problem, right? Many of you, you just you want to like how do I explain to her, Cody, that I am the heat? How do I explain to her that I am bringing the fire? Stand next to her, bro. Yeah, but how will she sit? Well, look at all let's look at all these bad behaviors, right? You didn't think, you didn't, you tried, you actively tried to hide the affairs, you actively tried to hide the lying, you actively tried to hide the gambling, you actively tried to hide the porn, you actively tried to hide the drinking, you actively tried to hide these things and she found them. Right? Everything you've ever tried to hide from her, she's found. If she finds the things that you're trying to hide, how much more is she gonna find the things that you're not trying to hide? Nothing is hidden, men. This is what we have to understand. If she's not experiencing your changes, it's because you're not changing. If she's saying I'm not feeling any heat, Cody, it's because you are not on fire. So step number six is change even without a reward. Weak change stops when she stays cold. Weak change stops when she doesn't praise you, when she's what weak change stops when she's when she doesn't come closer to you immediately, and it stops when you don't see quick results. I started when I started going to the gym, I had to go, I had to just power through, man. It was it was hard for a long time, man. A year or more. I had to go every day and it was just willpower, man. I hated it. People go, oh, you know, you go you you you get those. I hated it. No, there were no endorphins, man. It was just pain. It was just pain. There was no reward. My body didn't change. All I experienced was pain. Nobody said you're looking great. Nobody said, well done. But after a while, after about 12 months, I started to feel good. My body started to change, I started to get the reward. But guess what? I had I had to continue without reward. Had I needed praise, had I needed to see results, I would have stopped and I never would have got there. So real change continues without praise, continues without affection, continues without reassurance, continues without promise of reconciliation, and it continues simply because it's the right thing to do. And again, go back and watch this presentation again because this all ties together. I've I've I've talked to men who go, I'm doing all these things, Cody, I'm changing, I'm changing, I'm changing. I had a one-to-one, I had a one-to-one with the man. I said, What's going on? Whatever his name was, Steve. And he goes, I've had enough of this bitch. I was at a barbecue with her, and I'm making all these changes, and she says that she's still moving out. I've had enough of this bitch. And it's like, yeah, now we know, don't we, bro? It wasn't real change. You needed she your change was weak because it stopped when she was cold. It stopped when you didn't get the praise, it stopped when she didn't come close, and it stopped when it did not yield weak results. It was weak change at best, or I would honestly have called it performative change, not change at all. Real change would have continued regardless. Which category are you in? So the big question is, would you still become this man that you're claiming you're going to be if your marriage did not recover? That's the question. For this man who said, I'm sick of this bitch, the answer was no. He had no desire to make change at all. His only desire was to produce an outcome, and when he didn't get that outcome, he answered the question. Noah would not continue to be this man if it didn't produce the outcome. And he did not save his marriage. Why? Because it was not salvageable? No, because he didn't do the work. He did not change because it was the right thing to do. He changed because it produced an outcome. But here's the irony: it will not produce the outcome. So step number seven, and this is massive, man, this is where most of you are at today. Stop using her reactions as a scorecard to whether this is working or not. Success is not measured by her mood, her warmth, her text, her affection, her willingness to talk, her promise to stay, or her speed of response, right? Lagging indicators. Lagging indicators, man. Her willingness to talk is based on her nervous system, is a predictive mechanism and it's predicting every aspect of your maneuver move, your next move, right? Everything you do has a history. When you have a conversation, her nervous system is predicting whether this is going to end well or going to end in pain, whether it's going to end in hostility or whether it's going to end in understanding. Her nervous system is predicting what your next sex text is going to say. Everything that she's reacting to right now is not coming from who you are and what you're doing today. It's coming out of her predictive mechanism or her confirmation bias, we could call it, to saying, based on his past history, I believe that this is what he's going to do, and that is what she's going to respond to out of years and years of training from you. So you have to understand, she's not reacting to who you are today, she's reacting to who you were ten years ago or five years ago. And the only way to change that is through being stronger than the situation, understanding that what is going on is a lagging indicator that her predictive mechanism, her nervous system, you've programmed it, it was you. This is now, you're now dealing with an effect, the causational event was you taught her, the communication was you with you, was painful, negative, etc. And now you're reaping the rewards of that, you're dealing with the effect, and you're measuring success by this. The truth is, all of this can change. But you but not unless you understand that she's not responding to the current version of you, and you're not responding to the current version of her. You're both responding to past versions. So, what is the measure of success? Did I do the right thing? Right? Did I do the right thing? Again, know your outcome. Binary decision. You may and probably will be faced with many situations where you can do no right in terms of getting a positive response from her. Whether you say, whether you reach out to her, it's a problem, or you don't reach out to her, it's a problem. Both ways are going to be a problem, right? But it's like one of those two is going to be a better response based on the right thing to do. Did did you do the right thing because it was the right thing to do? And if you get a somewhat negative response or negative response, but it was the best choice based on your outcome, then you need to just you need to measure your behavior. And based on that, right? Did you stay calm? She may have a conversation with you that just is horrible, man. She tells you she hates you, she never wants to be with you ever again. You you're the you're Satan, as far as she's concerned, right? If you are in this place where you're measuring your success by her mood, you're going to react very badly, right? If you're in this place where you're measuring your success by did I stay calm, was I a stabilizing influence in a destabilized situation, then you behaved in a way that was successful because even though it was not a pleasant outcome for you, even though you did not enjoy it and you do not feel any closer to the outcome that you were looking for, you did the right thing, and that is that was given the two choices, staying calm or blowing up, that moved you closer to your stated goal. Did you act with care? Did you remove the old behavior? Did you live by your values, or did you allow fear to take over? Would I make the same choice even if I was not getting rewarded, or even worse, would I make the same choice even if it produced an outcome that seems to move me away from my desired goal? So again, let's talk about why change takes time. Hopefully we we we have, so hopefully you understand. But she remember, this is very important. She's operating out of her nervous system, which is a predictive mechanism. She may and probably has seen short-term change before. So what her predictive mechanism, her confirmation bars, is telling her is that you are capable of short-term change, but it will not last. This predictive mechanism has to be reprogrammed. How? If you want the benefit of, or if you want her to move away from only believing that this is short-term change, then you have to prove to her that it's not, and there's no way to prove to her that this change is not short-term other than making it long term. It's the only way you can do it. She's probably waiting for the old behavior to return, right? And it probably for most of you, it probably will, because you're you're coming from the wrong place. Like you're coming from a place where you're uh you're measuring success based on her moods and outcomes, versus measuring success based on did I do the right thing because it was right the right thing to do. She may be afraid of hope. She's got her feelings hurt so many times before. She just doesn't trust you yet. Remember, she's not responding to the version of you today. She's responding to a past version of you, and you're also responding to a past version of her. She may need time to believe that the change is real. Again, let's look at this. Somebody who's 100 pounds overweight and they say I'm gonna lose the weight, Cody. I'm losing a hundred pounds for sure. It's for real this time. Do you believe it? Three weeks, four weeks in, and they're still into the diet. Do you believe it? The alcoholic that says I've quit drinking. The man who's quit porn or whatever. I've quit for a week, Cody. Why don't you believe me? Why don't you believe it? It's like, because you're probably gonna go back to it, bro. You're probably not gonna stay on the diet. You're probably gonna start drinking again. Like, I need to see some history. And it's like I appreciate what you've done, and I respect what you've done, and I give you credit for what you've done, but do I believe this is a long-term transformation? I simply don't, if I'm being honest. No. Do I believe that you have that that you genuine you genuinely believe this is a long-term transformation? Yes, of course. I believe that you think that you're gonna change long term. I think that you're gonna see this, you believe that you're gonna see this through. But guess what? I've seen you ten times now tell me you're gonna lose weight. And here you are. I've seen you, I've listened to you ten times tell me you're gonna quit drinking, gonna quit smoking. But guess what? You're still drinking and you're still smoking, man. Your your history, the lagging indicator of who you are, makes it very difficult for me to believe that this change is real and long lasting. If you want me to believe that this change is real and long lasting, let's talk in six months. Let's talk in twelve months. So again, common mistakes, insignificant amount of time, right? Most people dramatically, dramatically overestimate what they can achieve in one year and dramatically, oh sorry, dramatically overestimate what they can achieve in one year, and dramatically underestimate what they can achieve in ten. Meaning that they have unrealistic expectations for the short term, meaning they get discouraged because they expect a reward, etc., and they quit too soon. Having no concept of compounding what you could compound over a 10-year period, the results that you could get over a 10-year period. People would expect too much in the short term and quit, meaning that they never access what could have been achieved in the long term. They expect a reward too soon, they feel ignored when they when their changes are not being acknowledged or responded to. They become angry as the man who says, I'm tired of this bitch. I've done all these changes and I've made all this effort, and all I get is she still wants a divorce. Screw this bitch. Became angry. Returned to the old behavior, and guess what that man did in that moment? Proved her fears were right. Guess what he did for her nervous system, for her predictive mechanism? Proved that she was right. Guess what he did for his ability to influence her in the future? Made it significantly harder. Because now she's got one more example that he never changes. So the full strategy here, summary. Repeatable steps. One, you've got to know your true goal. Get honest. What's your motivation for this? Understand that she three. Understand that she needs her own reasons. She's gonna come back for her reasons, not yours. She couldn't give two craps about your reasons for her coming back. Ask questions, start making statements. Listen to her answers without defending, etc. Uncover what the real deal breakers are. This is sales 101, right? Like, what are the objections? Remove the deal breakers. Remove the bad behavior. She's not coming back while there are deal breakers on the table. Gotta go. 8. Replace the deal breakers with better behavior. Stop trying to prove that you've changed. You cannot. The only way you can prove that you've changed is to live it for an extended period. You've got number 10. You gotta start, you've gotta start operating without a reward. This is the difference between a leader and a follower. A true leader does not need a reward, a follower needs a carrot. A true leader can motivate himself. A follower needs motivating. I.e. reward. Step number 11. Measure yourself by integrity, not outcome. And 12. Give the process time. For most of you, the biggest the biggest challenge that you have is like you're just not prepared to give it time. It took you a long time to get here. She went from loving you to being very angry with you over a very long period of time. And then she went from being angry with you to wanting to leave the relationship over a very long period of time. She's not making quick decisions here. So our conclusion: your marriage didn't collapse by accident. It's a cause and effect scenario. Understand, if you want to change the effect, you have to work on the cause. You can't simply work on the effect. Your marriage does not collapse randomly, and it's not going to be restored randomly. It follows predictable patterns. Recovery also follows predictable patterns. You cannot force anything here. You can't force her to come back. All you can do is create an environment that's conducive for her to come back. Or in other words, if you want her to come back, you have to attract her back. And the only way you can attract her back is to become an attractive person. How do you become an attractive person? Go back to the beginning of this presentation and watch it from the start. It's all in here. You can remove the reasons that she wants to leave. You can. And it's where the real magic lies. It's not in anything other than uncovering what are the deal breakers, what are the reasons she wants to leave, removing them, what are the reasons she stays, bringing them to the situation. Very, very simple. Right? I'm not buying this car car dealer. Why? Because it's a two-year warranty and I need a five-year warranty. Well, what about if we gave you a five-year warranty? Would that make a difference? Okay. Um it would, but I'm still not buying it. Why not? Because you've only got blue and I want red. Okay, so if we brought this car to you, if we got it in red, would you want it then? Sure. So if we come up with a five-year warranty and red, you're buying? Of course. Remove the reasons she wants to leave, add the reasons she would stay. And that will save every marriage that's saveable. Now I say every marriage that's savable because the truth is there are some, we're dealing with another human being here, somebody can blow hot air up anyone's ass and say this will change every situation, in every situation. I don't know what you've done. Some of you have done some pretty pretty bad stuff, right? But this this strategy will save 100% of saveable marriages. So, what is the strategy? It is truth, it is action, and it is consistency. Truth, action, consistency. That is it. And that's it, man. That's that's the exact step-by-step strategy to save your marriage, win your wife back. Let's jump over to some questions and answers.