How To Save Your Marriage

You might have read the action steps above and gotten a renewed sense of hope. On the other hand, if your marriage is at the breaking point, or you’re already in the midst of filing or signing divorce papers, it can seem like a far too Pollyanna approach.

You are probably feeling doubt, guilt, fear, frustration, and rage! This can cloud your judgment about how to handle the steps to building a good, solid foundation. It can even make you feel like your marriage is not worth saving after all.

I want you to consider for a moment that those feelings aren’t real. Sure, you’re having them, but they aren’t how you really feel. Being stubborn and trying to heal wounds can lead to irrational thought and hasty decisions. That’s why many divorces go through in the first place! It starts with a decision made in the heat of the moment, and it just keeps going like a snowball full of emotions and hurt feelings.

You need to meet these feelings head on. They are real, and they are there. What you need to do is take action to turn these feelings into something constructive rather than destructive. Instead of feeling like you need to end your marriage at all costs, you should turn those emotions into a drive to save your marriage at all costs.

Evaluating the reasons you married your partner in the first place is a huge part of this. You should also examine how this divorce will affect the lives of your children. Your family values and reconnecting with those early stages of love can be crucial here.

Try to trace things back to the point where you were happy. What changed? You’ll often find that you’re not exactly sure, or that it was a lot of little things. The good news here is that those little things are often not important. You can work on letting go of the past and working toward the future instead.

If it was a major event such as an affair or something else life-changing, there are other considerations you need to have. These will be covered in later sections.

The next thing you need to do is come up with your next steps. What is holding you back from moving on and building an even better life with the person you love? You might come across fear and doubt, but you can squash those feelings by renewing your commitment.

Yet another issue you might come across is falling back into old patterns. Instead of moving on and making some changes, you might find yourself doing the same old things time and time again.

When that happens, you need to learn what the “trigger” is. The trigger is what really sets you off to the point of no return. Close your eyes and think of a time you got angry with your spouse. What were the feelings and thoughts that led up to that? Now that you have identified them, you can figure out how to turn that trigger off. When you get those thoughts and feeling again, try to take a deep breath and become acutely aware of your actions.

This will be hard to do at first, but it’s very worth it! Keep in mind that it can take a month or more for you to get good at avoiding the trigger and for these new marital patterns to feel natural. Keep at it, and be mindful of your feelings and actions and your marriage will suddenly seem a lot happier.

Finally, after you’ve worked on decreasing the levels of conflict in your home, you might notice that you’re not able to express your love as easily as you used to. Take some active steps to show love! There shouldn’t be a day that goes by that you don’t tell your partner you love them. Do something spontaneous like a surprise date or a bouquet of flowers. Just like the little negative things can build up, so can the positive things!

In fact, you should make it your mission to think of your relationship like an ATM machine. If you take too much out of it, you’ll get a negative balance and you’ll be in a ton of trouble. If you put a lot into it, the balance will be abundant and everyone is happy. While that is a simplistic metaphor, it really does help you get a grasp for what the actions in your relationship should be. Always put more into it than you are taking out of it.