Save My Marriage

Saving My Marriage

2011-04-01T16:00:00.000-07:00

If the primary concern going through your head these days is “what am I going to do about saving my marriage”, you are definitely not alone. At any given time thousands of couples are struggling with marital difficulties. Many are in a full blown marital crisis or have already given up and filed for divorce. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Allow me to share with you some steps I took to get my marriage back on track when, like you, all I could think about was saving my marriage.

Change expectations

When my marriage was falling apart I had to realize that if saving my marriage was truly important to me, then perhaps I needed to start by changing my expectations. I was young and naïve when I got married. I had all sorts of unrealistic expectations about marriage which were creating problems. Following were a few of them which I had to change:

• A good marriage should never have conflict
• My spouse should know me so well that I don’t need to say out loud what I’m feeling inside – if I’m upset, he should just know why
• There should always be lots of romance and excitement in our marriage

I wish I could say that is the entire list, but for the moment I will just share those. As you can see, I had expectations which were impossible for even the best marriage to live up to.

Be a giver not a taker

Another area which I really needed to change for the sake of saving my marriage was to stop always being a taker. While I didn’t mean to be, I began to realize that I was often very selfish in the relationship. I expected my spouse to give and give, but I wasn’t really giving much in return. I had to really step back and recognize that I couldn’t take my spouse for granted; that I needed to let go of my self-centered tendencies and start looking for ways to be much more giving to my spouse.

Build up my spouse’s self-esteem

One of the areas I had really let my spouse down was by not truly building up her self-esteem. I had just naively assumed that she never needed that from me. She had so many wonderful qualities. I rarely said or did anything affirming, because I thought she didn’t need it from me. Needless to say, when I really started focusing on saving my marriage, building up her self-esteem became a top priority.

Be supportive

One of the key areas I really needed to focus on with regards to saving my marriage was to be much more supportive of my spouse. I had foolishly taken her strengths and self-confidence for granted. I didn’t realize just how much she longed for my support, comfort and reassurance

Saving my marriage became a high priority for me. As I worked on each of these three areas I found that my spouse was responding by giving me more of the same in return. I had been neglecting my marriage for a long time. Hopefully, you will stop neglecting yours and begin taking some powerful steps. For me, it took time and effort, but it was well worth it. I hope it is for you also!

Saving a Marriage

2011-03-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

Many couples go through very challenging periods of time when they start wondering what can be done with regards to saving a marriage. Perhaps that is happening to you and you are desperately looking for some advice. While there are no simple answers, and each situation and marriage is different, following are some two things you can consider changing if your marriage is in crisis. While they might seem simplistic on the surface, even small changes can make a big difference when it comes to saving a marriage.

Not showing appreciation for your spouse

Sometimes we get so caught up in the busy-ness of our day to day lives that we forget to appreciate the things which are really important to us. This happens frequently in marriages, especially when two people have been together a long time. One or both people in the marriage fail to recognize just how lucky they really are to have each other until one ends up leaving or a tragedy happens. Sadly, saving a marriage at that point is going to be much more difficult than if this problem is detected and dealt with early on.

Take some time to consider whether or not you are doing this in your marriage. We all long to feel important, valued, and loved. A healthy marriage meets those needs to a significant degree. But if you take your spouse for granted and fail to acknowledge all the wonderful things he or she does, then this may be a contributing factor to your current crisis. Start paying attention to all the things your spouse does for you, as well as all his or her wonderful qualities. Show gratitude and appreciation. Doing this can go a long way towards saving a marriage which is on the brink of falling apart.

Failing to communicate

All relationships require quality communication in order to be healthy or to get back on track when there is a crisis. Many couples fail to really talk openly to each other. Women often make the mistake of presuming their husband can read their mind. Men often try to avoid challenging conversations which feel uncomfortable for them. Over time, a lot of issues which need to be dealt with get swept under the rug but start to fester.

If saving a marriage is truly important to you, it is imperative that you start working on your communication skills with your spouse first. If you grew up in a home in which your parents didn’t really talk to each other, this may be particularly difficult for you. But you can start by being the one to initiate more frequent and open conversations. With practice and effort, you and your spouse can become much more skilled communicators.

Sometimes in order for communication to go smoothly, you need to set some ground rules. For example, a good ground rule is that either of you can indicate when you need a “time out”. Sometimes a discussion can start to get heated and if one of you feels you might say something you will regret, this is the perfect time to step away from the conversation for a short while. You can resume talking later when both of you are calmer.

Showing appreciation and learning to communicate well are two significant steps towards saving a marriage which is struggling or in a crisis. Make the changes in yourself first. This will show your spouse how much you truly care and how important he or she is to you.

Stop Your Divorce!

2011-03-31T08:22:00.000-07:00

When married couples find themselves in a relationship crisis, the possibility of divorce often starts coming up more and more frequently. Certainly divorce will give you the freedom to go your separate ways and be done with the conflict. But if you truly desire to stop your divorce, there are several strategies you can begin implementing right now which may turn your relationship around. In fact, your spouse will never know what hit him!

Granted, these strategies take a little work. And most of the work, if you want to stop your divorce, is yours to do. Don’t put the onus on your spouse to change. In fact, if you try following these strategies, your spouse will likely be surprised and start changing in response to you. Keep in mind, that these will feel very counter-intuitive to you initially. They will likely be the very opposite of how you have been behaving. So be prepared to try on some new behaviors which will help you stop your divorce in its tracks!

The first thing you need to do is stop complaining about or criticizing anything about your spouse or your marriage. Every time you engage in that sort of behavior, you just push your spouse further away and give him more reason to want to go through with the divorce. So, work hard to catch yourself when you want to make a critical or negative remark if your goal is to stop your divorce.

Instead, take an unusually agreeable stance. If your spouse makes a critical comment or complains, agree with him. For example, if he says something like, “all we ever do is fight”, rather than try to convince him that that isn’t true, (and thus be letting him know how wrong he is) agrees with it. You might say (and you must be sincere), “you are right….we do fight a lot.” And once you have agreed, drop it. Don’t say anything else. Don’t give in to your urge to defend yourself or the marriage. Just agree.

Second, don’t pressure your spouse in any way. When people are having marriage problems, it is not uncommon for one spouse to be pressuring the other to make changes. If you want to stop your divorce, this is a huge mistake.

Whenever you pressure someone, you not only put them on the defense, you trigger their resistance. No one likes to feel pressured, so the natural tendency is to resist it. Stop yourself whenever you feel the urge to pressure your spouse to work on the marriage, make changes, etc.

Third, avoid having serious conversations. Those can do more harm than good in a fragile relationship. The reasons they can be so damaging is because they create undue pressure in the relationship. Again, pressure will backfire if your goal is to stop your divorce.

Last, keep things light hearted, casual, and upbeat. In other words, cliché as this may sound, “go with the flow”. So many problems arise when we try to fight against a situation. By allowing it and no longer fighting it, it frees up the resistance and will often lead to things turning themselves around. And it takes far less energy to go with the flow than against it.

Practice doing these things and you will be much more likely to stop your divorce. Keep in mind, you must do them consistently. If you slip back into old habits of criticizing, pressuring or complaining, you will just shift things back to where they were. But keep doing these, and it will give your marriage the best chance of working out after all.