How To Save Your Marriage

Every healthy marriage takes work. If you aren’t willing to put your marriage first, it’s going to take a lot longer for both of you to heal and to stop any thoughts of divorce that might have popped up. Making your marriage a priority is the best way to make sure you recognize how in love you are and how happy you can be.

Part of making marriage your priority is taking time to be together as a couple. Sometimes letting loose like this is all you need to spark those old, happy feelings again! Shut down the TV, close the laptop, and get out of the house.

You can:

l    Go to the movies
l    Go on a dinner date
l    Go on a hike
l    Take a weekend vacation

This will not only renew your marriage, it will also renew your spirit. We all work too hard in our day jobs and the kids can certainly add some stress. Taking the time to be just the two of you again can give you the energy you need to handle the other things.

It’s also important to show your kids that you are committed to your marriage. If you’ve been fighting a lot lately, the chances are good that your children have noticed. They are probably scared right now that you’re going to get a divorce, and they might even be harboring feelings of guilt that it’s their fault.

Sit down and tell them that mommy and daddy weren’t handling things the right way before (this will show that you’re human too and make mistakes) but that you still love each other very much. Ask them if they’ve ever fought with a friend and how that makes them feel. They might understand better why mommy and daddy were mad.

This will also help you both make the commitment in your mind that you need to make this thing work. Your kids are counting on you to learn valuable communication and conflict resolution skills. Not only that, they love their parents. They want to see you happy again so you can go back to being the great family you are.

The majority of couples who are going through a split could have saved their marriage through some simple communication. Luckily for you, you’re going to get that information right here that can save your marriage and make your bond stronger than ever.

Please understand that communication is the doorway to understanding. Have you ever just thought to yourself, “I don’t UNDERSTAND why they think/do/say those things!” If there were more communication in your relationship you would start to understand.

This goes back to the issue of having different views about the world. We often don’t honor their view or even consider that theirs is different due to a lack of communication. If you open up those lines of communication you’ll start to understand where they are coming from. You’ll be able to view the world the way they view it whenever conflict arises. This is a powerful relationship saver!
Another aspect of communication that you need to understand is that it works both ways. Your relationship cannot be strong if one person is good at communicating, while the other person doesn’t even make an effort. Don’t get me wrong — you can still improve things on your end even if your partner isn’t currently willing to. But the strongest relationships will come as a result of both partners giving it their all.

The steps of good communication include:

l    Committing yourself to sharing as much as possible
l    Fully expressing your thoughts without place blame
l    Repeating/mirroring statements and asking for clarifications

The first thing you saw on the list was committing yourself. If you don’t commit yourself to better communication, you won’t see it through! We’re so used to “talking” about things that it can seem like it’s supposed to be totally natural to do so. The problem is, that it DOESN’T happen naturally. That’s where this active commitment comes in.

Then, you need to express your thoughts using a lot of “I” statements. If you start placing blame right away you are going to run into a lot of resistance and you’ll be back at square one. No, this does not mean you ignore it if your spouse does something wrong, it just means you should let them know how you feel about what they did rather than saying, “well, you did this, that, and the other.”

As you communicate with your partner they will hopefully open up and communicate with you as well. You need to really listen to what they are saying! Listening often means repeating things back to them that they’ve said. You’re not being a parrot, just mirroring back some things they’ve said. This will show them that you truly do understand and care, and they will trust you a lot more as a result.

This step also helps you get things clear in your own mind. Instead of jumping to conclusions and looking at things from your own worldview, you’re suddenly forced to look at it from theirs. This step does wonders in helping to improve communication.