Staying Married When You're Unhappy: Should You?
Staying Married When You're Unhappy: Should You
?
Most of the time, most of my correspondence comes from a spouse who wants to save their marriage, but who is the only one who feels this way. Sometimes though, I'll hear from either one or both spouses who just aren't happy any longer and who ask me why they should stay married when they know that they are no longer happy together. I often hear things like "we're just at the point where we've both changed and want different things. Why should we stay married when the marriage isn't working for us anymore?" Or, "why should I stay committed to something that isn't making either of us happy? Don't we both deserve to be happy and fulfilled? I just feel like there is more to life than this and I feel stuck."
Of course every one deserves happiness. I would never deny that. But I do have a definite opinion on the previous questions, which I will discuss in the following article.
The Cause Of Your Unhappiness If Often Multi Faceted. Ending Your Marriage May Not Provide The Instant Happiness That You're Hoping For: People often assume that if they cut out the "dead weight" of their marriage or their spouse, then their life will suddenly look a lot different and feel a lot better. And yet, they rarely make any other life altering changes and are usually quite surprised and disappointed when they have to admit that they are still quite miserable.
Often, the source of your unhappiness is quite complex. It's typically not just one thing or one person. It's a combination of all sorts of disappointments, broken dreams, dashed expectations, and coming up short to where you hoped that you would be. It's so easy to project all of this onto the person who is closest to us our spouse.
Often we hope that eliminating our spouse will solve our problems. But what will typically happens is that, usually too late, people will realize that they keep repeating the same patterns and behaviors with a different set of people and in different relationships. It's often too late that we realize (several relationships and mistakes down the road) that it wasn't our spouse, it was our place in life, our perceptions, our priorities, and our expectations that were off.
And by ending the marriage without working on any of the other challenges that we're struggling with, we've only created yet another issue or problem without addressing our core obstacles. The truth is, our spouse can and should be the person that we turn to for help with other obstacles in our lives. They are often, though they sometimes shouldn't be, the people we instead turn on as a ready target when things begin falling apart.
Some Reasons People Feel Unhappy In A Marriage: I can't tell you how common it is that I get emails which say something like "I love my spouse, but I'm just not happy. I'm not sure how to fix this, but I'm just miserable and I don't want to keep living like this." Often when I ask the same person what they think it would take to make them feel happy again, they'll say something like "I just want the connection back." Or, "I just want the chemistry again."
They speak of this as though it's some mysterious thing that you either have or you don't and yet it leaves or comes based on luck or the skill of the other person. This perception is so unfortunate. These feelings are present or not based on how much effort, priority, and most of all, quality time that you put into it.
When I ask these same people what they are doing to cultivate the connection and to reinforce the spark, they will often tell me things like "well things are too far gone and too awkward for that." Or, "it just wouldn't work at this point" as though they've left the marriage for dead without first checking it's pulse to confirm that it in fact can not be revived.
This is so unfortunate. I can tell you first hand and from my research that both spouses almost always want the same thing, although they may not realize it. Everyone wants to feel understood, noticed, appreciated, and special. We all want to know that we matter enough for our spouse to take the time to show us how they feel. We want to feel as though they know us, understand us, and still want to be with us anyway.
And yet, when we shift our focus, time, and efforts, we are disappointed when we don't get what we want, but yet we don't connect the dots that our lack and effort and time is exactly how we, ourselves, have set it up. I firmly believe, and know from my own experience, that if you can change your perceptions and efforts, you will also see a huge change in the feelings.
Changing The Culture Of The Marriage To Change The Feelings That Go Hand And Hand With This: By now, I'm sure you can tell that I firmly believe that if you shift your time, priorities, and perceptions, the feelings will begin to change as well. Often people suspect that this might be true, but they just don't know how to start.
They worry about rejection. They worry that they're going to be the only one who is really trying. They worry that they will put in their best efforts and fail anyway. So sometimes, they will do nothing. Nothing is the worst thing that you can do. Isn't trying a few new things and giving a little more effort worth a try before you make this very life altering decision? That way, if you give it your best efforts and you still see no change, at least you will know that you did all you could. That way, you will have peace when you do reach a decision.
And yes, we form habits in our marriage that can be difficult to break. Changing things up can feel awkward at first. But, this can be worth the effort in a big way. Think for a second about the way that you used to feel when you were dating. You both put in tons of time and effort and were on your very best behavior. And, the feelings that came back were intense, pleasurable, and mutual. And yet, when we are no longer putting in tons of time and effort, we've surprised and disappointed that the feelings change too.
But it doesn't have to be this way. Begin to make small changes. If you want affection, give it. If you want attention and understanding, offer this to your spouse. They will often be pleasantly surprised and begin to reciprocate. As you're both getting more of a payoff, you'll often also give a little more and vice versa. And one day you might wake up to find that the feelings and the happiness are beginning to return.
There was a time that I thought my marriage was truly at it's end. My husband was extremely unhappy and definitely wanted out. Thankfully, even though I had doubts, I decided to try one last thing and approach it from another angle and this eventually worked. You can read a very personal story on my blog at http://isavedmymarriage.com/.
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