How To Save Your Marriage
Each year in America alone, almost one million marriages end up in separation and divorce.This is an astounding number! That would be as if all of the citizens of Houston, Texas, were divorced (each divorce leaves 2 people).
The question is how many of those marriages might be preserved. Sadly, that is an unknown number. If your marriage stays together, it is impossible to find in the statistics. As Marian Wright Edelman wrote, statistics are stories with the tears washed off.
Can your marriage be saved? If I could answer that, I would be well-to-do. I can say this that if your marriage is in trouble and you do nothing at all, the end result is certain. For those who do something, there is a far greater chance that the marriage will be saved.
And I can let you know, in 4 easy steps what you can do in order to save your relationship. You can start immediately. But you have got to understand that I said “simple.” That is not the same as “easy.” These measures will not be effortless. They do, nevertheless, provide you with a path that you need to follow if you would like to change the destiny of a marriage that is struggling.
Here are the 4 steps:
1) Quit the blame game. Quit blaming your partner and also stop blaming yourself. This is the first step since marriages get frozen into a pattern of blame that immobilizes any prospect of progress. Instead, the momentum gets dragged down and down.
Blame is our way of avoiding seeing ourselves clearly. It is much easier to point the finger somewhere else and declare “It’s their fault.” But in marriage, it is possible to just as easily turn that pointing finger on yourself and place the blame there, stating “it’s all my fault.”
Regrettably, blame feels fine in the short-term, but in the long-term, it prevents any shift or change. Therefore, even if you could make a lengthy list of exactly why you or your spouse should be blamed, forget it. Whether or not that list is factual, it will not help you to put your marriage back together. Blame is the fuel of divorces.
2) Take responsibility. Decide you are able to do something. Change normally begins with one individual who would like to see a change. Understand that taking responsibility is certainly not the same as taking the blame (see above).
Instead, blame is announcing “regardless of who is at fault, there are many things I can do in different ways, and I’m going to do them.” What buttons do you permit your spouse to push? What buttons do you push with your husband or wife? Make your mind up to never allow those buttons to be pushed and also stop pushing the buttons.
What amazes me in my counseling is that everybody is aware of everything that they should be doing or not doing. But it is difficult to move in that direction. You shouldn’t be caught in that. Decide that you are going to take action.
The difference between blame and responsibility is the following: if I’m inside a burning building, I could stand around attempting to figure out who started the fire, exactly why it has spread so swiftly, and also who I’m going to sue when it is finished (blame), or I could get myself and anybody I can out of the building (taking responsibility). When a marriage is in danger, the house is on fire. Which way will you take action to rescue the relationship?
3) Get resources from professionals. If others have been helped, you can be, too. Experts with a good deal more perspective and experience are able to be a real support in such circumstances. Do your researching and separate the useless from the useful, then take advantage of the useful.
Do not think that your predicament is so different from every other circumstance. I can tell you that after over twenty years of giving counseling, not too much different comes through my doors. Don’t get me wrong; the tale changes, yet the dynamics are the same.
Don’t forget what Albert Einstein said, “The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.” In other words, the thing that got you into difficulty will not get you out of hard times. This calls for a totally new level of reasoning. And that is usually what you get from an outside expert, someone with a new viewpoint.
4) Take action. A lot more harm is done by doing absolutely nothing than by taking a misstep. It is extremely easy to get paralyzed by your predicament. Therapists often talk about “analysis paralysis.” This occurs when individuals get so caught up in their churning thought processes and attempts to “figure things out” that they never take action.
It is not enough to simply comprehend what may be causing the issue. You have got to then act! On a daily basis, I get people coming into my office having the idea that as long as they can just understand their issue, it is going to resolve itself. That just does not happen. Resolution of the situation takes action.
Will your marriage be preserved? As long as you follow my suggestions, you have infinitely more opportunity for salvaging your marriage than if you do practically nothing. Marriage is one of those areas where it requires two to make it work, yet only one to really mess things up. You can just do your part, but many times, that will be sufficient. Choose not to ask the question but to begin to act.
Are you ready to take action? Get the best-selling resource on the net for salvaging marriages: Save The Marriage, Even If Only You Want It! You can find it at Save the Marriage.
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