It is urgent that you react and look for ways to save your marriage if you feel that you are headed towards a divorce. A lot of couples have successfully saved their marriage by reconnecting with their spouses and looking for ways to build a relationship that would satisfy them both.
While it is true that saving your marriage will not be quick and easy, there are many different things that can be helpful.
Close Friends and Relatives
It can help to open up to friends and relatives about your marriage. They might be able to offer some advice or at least to support you in your efforts to fix your marriage. They may help you with some babysitting or in other ways that allows you more time and energy to spend on your marriage.
However, I have some very strong cautions to share. A lot depends on the attitudes of these friends and relatives. If they are supportive of your marriage, it could be helpful, but there can also be a lot of bias.
Additionally, when you allow others to know personal matters, so much gossip and talk can go on that you are even further polarized from one another.
I have personally had couples who had doubts about going forward with filing for divorce but almost felt forced to go ahead. Those situations were created due to much more damage being done to their relationship due to so many opinions and bad-mouthing by others.
Those situations had been complicated by family and friend’s attempts to be supportive of the spouse with whom they were most empathic.
Normally it is best not to have others involved and taking sides but instead doing all they can to support the marriage and encouraging them that they will work through their problems in time.
Other Couples
Do you know any couples who have been through something similar? If yes, you could reach out to them and ask for advice. Find out what they did to save their marriage. If you have any divorced friends, you could ask them what they wish had been done differently.
Many divorced couples will share later that they wished they had not moved so quickly, but given time to problem solving rather than running toward divorce.
My experience with hundreds of couples has shown that relationships can be turned around in a pretty brief period. It is my opinion that many couples go for divorce because they are unhappy and in so much pain and they don’t know what else to do.
As you probably can tell, I am passionate about saving marriages for this reason.
Marriage Books and Webinars
For those who are readers, there are hundreds of helpful books both print and on Kindle that can help so much. My particular book, which I never intended to write, is available on Amazon. I ended up just writing down what I have been doing with hundreds of couples that works. Everything there is very practical and actionable! On my website, I also offer a workbook and action guide to go with it.
My book is entitled How To Divorce-Proof Your Marriage! Stop Marriage Pain, Start Reconnecting!
Because I am unable to help everyone personally, this is one way I can help many more couples turn their relationship around to enjoying one another again.
Marriage Classes and Retreats
There are many wonderful marriage retreats available if you will look online as well. Marriage Encounter or World Wide Marriage Encounter is one of those retreats that is very intensive, but is also very effective for hundreds of couples who are not doing well in their marriage. Gary Smalley and his sons also offer great seminars.
Marriage Counselors, Coaches, Therapists
If you know you need help to save my marriage, your best option is probably to meet with a marriage counselor. I limit this recommendation to what I call a marriage friendly professional.
Do not hesitate to ask questions about this aspect before your first meeting.
Do they favor helping people save marriages? Do they have a good success rate and lots of experience?
These professionals will help you and your spouse develop the tools you need to communicate and solve your issues. It will be easier to open up about your issues and to find solutions with a counselor who listens to you and your spouse and who offers helpful and practical problem solving tools.
Most of the time, my experience has been that the problems are not just about marriage but additional personal issues. Either or both of you may have fallen into unhealthy patterns that have become habits and it can be difficult to know how to address these issues.
Following are tips to help strengthen your marriage. But first, check out my products related to marriage health.
Your Spouse
Getting help from your spouse to save your marriage should be a priority. Your first option is to talk with them and explain that you want to save the marriage and will do whatever it takes. If possible, encourage your spouse to commit to saving the relationship too.
Show them by your consistent actions that you can be a better spouse and that you can have a better life together if you put some time and effort into building a stronger marriage. Be patient and don’t give up if your spouse does not seem willing to help out at first.
Addressing marital problems can be draining and you are going to need all the help you can get. If you feel that you and your spouse won’t be able to save the marriage by yourselves, please do get help from a therapist or from a counselor.
Stay positive and remember that you can save my marriage if you adopt a proactive attitude, address your issues and seek the help you need.
From Your Faith in God
As you may or may not have noticed in the picture at the top of this page, I finally realized that they both have their eyes closed. At first, when I chose the picture, I thought they were just holding hands and I loved the camera angle being different than usual.
For those of you who have a faith, I have been amazed at how many couples have shared with me that they never have prayed together.
It can be an amazing breakthrough to begin to pray for each other. Whether you pray together or pray separately or even better, both ways, you will find it does help a lot.
This is not a practice I talk about unless I know couples do share a faith or are open to the idea. I wanted to share here that I personally have continued to find my faith to be what has sustained me through the tragedies I have experienced in my own life.
If you would like to experiment with reaching out to God together, it will help you to give up the usual blame game used by most couples. You will keep realizing you each have your own faults and stuff to deal with individually along with your other responsibilities with careers, extended family, raising children, finances, managing your household hobbies, showing love and caring, etc. etc.
Waverly Hanson
Marriage Counselor & Author
In my personal life, I have had a long successful marriage and have remarried following my husband's death. I have had three sons and helped raise a niece for three years and have seven grandchildren. I have loved spending time with them as they were growing up.
I also enjoy getting together with family and friends, ATVing in the mountains, photography, hiking, and traveling. I also enjoy reading, creating art, decorating, and serving others by volunteering.
Assisting couples in rebuilding their marriages has been so rewarding as I've had the privilege of seeing hundreds of couples reunite and get back to being positively connected to one another.
I also work with personal development and those who want to move forward by making positive improvements such as goal setting, self-care, boundaries, behavioral improvements, overcoming procrastination, conflict management, etc.