Saving Your Marriage By Trying New Things
Saving Your Marriage By Trying New Things
If you're reading this article, chances are you are in one of two situations. Either you somehow sense (or know for sure) that something is wrong in your marriage and wish to get it back on track before things worsen. Or, you're past this point and the relationship is already broken. It's possible that either you and / or your spouse has mentioned or suggested a separation or divorce.
But, it's also likely that if you are reading this article, one of you want to improve or save the marriage. I don't know your specific situation, but I know that my marriage was in real trouble a few years ago and ultimately I dove into any and all research that would save it. I learned a lot about what you should and should not do to prevent divorce.
At the time, I was the only one interested in saving my marriage. This made me desperate and panicked. I'm normally a stable, reasonable person, but I tried every tactic in the book to get my husband back, from reasoning, begging, threatening, etc. Here is what became evident in my situation: the old tactics just don't work anymore when one person has truly made up their mind to end the relationship. Even if you are initially successful at getting the divorcing spouse to change his or her mind, if you resort to what you've always done, you'll get what you've always had a relationship that in some aspect, big or small, is damaged.
From everything I have read (quite a bit) and from my own experience, in order to save the marriage long (not just short) term, you will have to change what is not working and try something new. However, this can sometimes be harder than it sounds. When I say try something new, I don't mean faking it or acting a certain way or changing certain things in desperation just to appease your spouse. Because if the effort is not genuine, eventually it will fail in the times of stress that will inevitably come. What I really mean is trying something that is both new and genuine that both you and your partner can live with and become excited about.
Here is one example from my own life. When my husband and my problems surfaced, I was finishing up an advanced degree and was under a great deal of stress. I was not really thinking of much beyond studying and work. Our intimacy suffered, but I assumed that he knew once I was finished with school, I would rearrange my schedule back to normal. He probably assumed that his wife took him for granted and placed school before him. This was not our only and most serious problem, not by a long shot, but its one example that I can give where we were both able to genuinely compromise.
I was not willing to stop my program. I had worked too hard and this was an unfair request, but I could scale back. It would mean graduating later, but getting a second degree would not mean nearly as much if I had no one to share it with. Having more of (but not all) of my time was enough for him and cutting back was ok with me. I seriously considered quitting altogether, but I believe that eventually I would have resented this and it would've caused more problems.
If the marriage is already broken and your requests for your spouse to change his or her mind has fallen on deaf ears, then you must stop what you have been doing. Each time you continue the repeated nonworking behaviors, (like: begging, following, questioning, texting, game playing etc.); you are only frustrating your spouse more and confirming that his or her decision to end the relationship was the right call. I was guilty of this as well. Finally, after much research, I figured out I needed to stop this behavior if only so I could look this person in the eye again even if we divorced.
I finally wrote my husband a letter and told him that I was going to stop this and that I was going to be going out of town for a few weeks. (In actually, I was running away back to my hometown for awhile). This completely changed the dynamic of what was going on between us and he no longer saw me as the crazy lady that was stalking him. This helped our situation tremendously, where at least he was willing to communicate with me and not hide from me.
This tactic eventually worked and led to several changes / compromises. Though commitment (and lots of mistakes and set backs), I was able to not only save the marriage, but make it stronger. You can read my very personal story of how I stopped the divorce (when I was the only one interested in doing so) on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com
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