How to Save

How to Save a Marriage Sometimes, letting go seems like the easiest thing to

do. But think about this: you've invested so much of

your time and energy into another person (and

possibly little ones); you've made a solemn promise;

and you still know there's love, even if it's hiding

underneath the surface. This article will show you

how to save a marriage and avoid divorce, even if

you're the only one trying. If you want to resurrect

the happy times in your marriage and put the rough

ones on the back burner, read on for a discussion of

how to do just that.

Finding out What Went Wrong

1 Make an effort to figure out what went

wrong. You can't move forward if you don't know

what's keeping you back. Most relationships — and

people — suffer from a few flaws, and perhaps those

flaws are getting in the way of a healthy relationship.

Your job is to take a long, hard look at what you

think went wrong. Here are just a few:

Growing incompatibility. Work, family, stress, finance

and everything else our modern world throws at you

can cause people to reveal their true colors. Are the

real-world husband and wife very different from the

fairy-tale version?

Infidelity. Is the guilt of an affair weighing on you or

your spouse? Did confession cause everything to

suddenly blow up?

Lack of communication. What you say doesn't get

processed by your spouse, and what your spouse

says doesn't get processed by you. Maybe neither of

you says anything at all.

Death of a loved one. You or your spouse's world

changed irrevocably after someone close to you

died, and you can't go back to the life you had

before.

Money. Someone is a spendthrift and the other is a

penny-pincher, and the twain never meet. Or maybe

growing financial insecurity is making home life

bitingly negative.

Sex. If sex is a physical symbol of your love for one

another, the wilting of that symbol can be both

emotionally and physically saddening.

2 Figure out if what went wrong is something

fixable. It's a perfectly natural response to try to

save your sinking ship, but what if the ship is so

tattered that it isn't worth saving? No one can make

this decision for you, but know that certain flaws in

people or relationships might not be worth trying to

save.

Know that people rarely change. People often say

they'll change, but they rarely do. After they're

comfortable, they usually revert back to the people

they were before. It's not impossible for someone to

change wholesale, but it's unlikely.

3 Open communication with your spouse. Get

information from them about how they think the

relationship can be improved. When bringing up this

difficult conversation with your spouse, remember a

few things:

Don't be accusatory. Accusing them of something

will only burn bridges. Instead of"I thought you were

going to take care of that, which is why I'm angry it

didn't happen," you can say "We all know that no

one's perfect. I just thought you were going to take

care of that, so I was surprised when it didn't

happen."

Count to three before you answer. A lot of the time,

our impulse is to fight back instead of hear what the

person is actually saying. Count to three before you

answer, thinking about what your spouse has said.

Calm and composure on your end will produce

similar results on their end.

4 Seek out a marriage counselor (optional). A

marriage counselor, while expensive, offers highly

nuanced insight into the clockwork of your marriage.

A counselor might be able to identify what went

wrong from an informed, but emotionally distant,

place. Because the counselor has no skin in the

game, so to speak, s/he is less likely to lie, to cut

corners, or forget inconvenient facts. A marriage

counselor might very well save your marriage.

5

Test the waters for change. Is your spouse

absolutely unwilling to bend? If so, it might be hard

to create the change you want to see in your

relationship. If you're unsure, test the waters to see if

your spouse seems willing to make the necessary

changes to save the relationship. Again, it's hard to

help somebody who doesn't want to be helped. You

can test the waters by:

Asking your spouse if they're willing to see a

marriage counselor

Asking your spouse if they love you as much, if not

more, than they did on your wedding day.

Asking your spouse if they're willing to sacrifice —

along with you — in order to make the relationship

work.

Putting the Pieces Back Together

1 Create a safe space for this communication. A lot

of the time, a marriage begins to fall apart because

both parties forget to communicate, feel unsafe or

embarrassed communicating, or think they're

communicating when they're actually not. In order to

encourage the right sort of communication, think

about:

Setting aside a time of the day for you and your

spouse to come together and just talk. No sex, no

children, no TV, no work. Just talk. If you want to talk

about your issues, talk about that. If you want to talk

about your day, talk about that. Setting aside time to

talk will grease the wheels and encourage deeper

communication.

Let your spouse vent. Sometimes, your spouse just

wants to get something off their chest: they don't

want an analysis, they don't want direction, they just

want a pair of ears and a shoulder to lean on.

2 Don't use threats as a bargaining chip. Often,

threats are bandied about a failing marriage like

horseshoes on the 4th of July. Threats don't mean

you're a bad person, they just mean that you've

learned a bad habit, one you should unlearn. The

problem with threats is that they encourage people

to do the right things for the wrong reasons: your

spouse shouldn't want to save the marriage because

you're threatening to leave them — your spouse

should want to save the marriage because they

absolutely, deeply love you.

3 Learn how to argue effectively, with

humility. Arguments in marriage are bound to

happen. The couples that survive and build on their

love are able to overcome personal hangups, put

themselves in their partner's shoes, and learn from

their mistakes. If you want to save your marriage,

both you and your spouse are going to have to learn

how to argue the right way.

Don't dig up the past. It's really tempting to bring up

what happened 14 years ago as a piece of evidence

about why your spouse is undeserving or wrong.

This misses the point: the point isn't to "win" the

argument, it's to get your spouse to hear your point

and possibly change their behavior. If you constantly

dredge up old dirt on your spouse, they'll feel

attacked instead of involved in a discussion. That's

when the argument starts to go astray.

Don't use ad-hominem attacks. An ad-hominem

attack is when you attack a person (their physical,

emotional, psychological traits) instead of their

ideas. Sometimes, a trait needs to be criticized and

dealt with. But too often, it feels like a serious low-

blow and causes more mudslinging than than

coming together.

4 Say what you do and do what you say (and

expect the same from your spouse).A relationship

is all about trust. Trust is gained when expectations

are met, and when actions are followed through on.

If you say you're going to do something, do it. A

failure to follow through on your words causes your

spouse to believe that your words aren't what you

say they are. This leads to a breakdown in trust.

5

Learn how to celebrate the successes and

commiserate the failures. Every life is filled with

ups and downs, just as every person is filled with

strengths and weaknesses. In a failing marriage, we

too often use our partner's failures as a chance to

secretly gloat and pass over our partner's success

like we take them for granted. What more does a

husband or wife want than to have their loved one

be with them in times of despair and share

happiness with them in times of joy?

If the idea of celebrating your spouse's successes

and ruing your spouse's failures sounds horribly

weird, take a step back and think about what you

want to get out of your marriage. Most happily

married couples admit feeling joy for their spouse

when they're happy and feeling sadness for them

when they're not.

6 Leave time for some time apart. Falling back into

love all over again is great, but sometimes that

personal independence that we all yearn for gets

lost along the way. Often, what we need is an hour

or two of alone-time to engage ourselves in

something that we absolutely love, whether it's

gardening, fixing cars, or reading books. If one

person in the marriage feels smothered, they're

going to take that displease out on their spouse, and

it's unlikely to lead to happiness. During your time of

reconciliation, set aside time to do things you both

love, to recharge, and most important, to reflect.

7 Admit to your spouse that neither one of you is

responsible for this lull in your marriage. It's

tempting to blame everything wrong that's happened

on your spouse without admitting that you were

somehow also complicit. There's also space for

admitting that you both shoulder blame and

responsibility. The process of saying that to your

spouse can mean a lot, helping you to reform your

bond.

For example, it's unfair to say that your spouse

never made dinner with the family a priority if you

didn't try to work with them to fix that. You can say

something like:"You didn't make dinner as much of a

priority as I would have liked, but I was guilty of

holding that against you and not trying to work with

your busy schedule to accommodate you when you

were free."

Practical Things that You Can Do Right

Away

1 Rededicate your commitment by making it

tangible. A marriage is also about commitment, a

commitment that puts other people ahead of oneself.

If you feel like rededicating your commitment to your

marriage, consider making it physical or tangible to

that your spouse can see that commitment. Gift your

spouse a:

Ring

Picture

Flower or plant (something growing)

Meal

Work of art (made by you)

2 Switch up the environment. Couples whose

marriages are in danger often take trips, both

faraway and close, because the monotony of life

back home has them taking each other for granted.

When the obligations of work, kids, and family go

away, couples rediscover why they fell in love in the

first place.

Note: a vacation can be a pretty poor litmus test of

whether the relationship is going to succeed. A

vacation is all play and no work. Going back to the

familiar routine of work, family upkeep, and chores

can cause the fairy tale ending to end very quickly.

3 Try to go on a date. A loving marriage is one in

which both partners still enjoy the thought of being

with one another all alone. Some couples try to

engineer a date night every week, others every

couple of weeks. At the very least, try to plan a date

night with just you and your spouse once a month.

This should help reignite your passion for one

another, as well as eliminating some of the more

tedious responsibilities of everyday life.

Save Your Marriage… Starting Today!

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