You can make your marriage work again after going through a crisis. Fixing your marriage is a process that takes time and you will need to keep working on your relationship to prevent the same issues from affecting your marriage again in the future.
Understand What Happened
You need to take some time and reflect on what caused the marriage crisis. Common issues include a lack of communication, a failure to meet each other’s emotional needs and taking each other for granted. There might be some negative patterns that you keep falling into and that cause you and your spouse to constantly fight and resent each other.
Heal Your Relationship
You might have developed some negative feelings towards your spouse over the years because you resent them. You or your spouse might be hurt because of neglect or something very serious such as an affair. You need to address these negative feelings and give the relationship enough time to heal. Making marriage work will be easier if you are both able to work through the issues that have occurred between you that probably brought on the crisis.
Do Some Work On Yourself
Becoming a better person and overcoming any personal issues you might have will help you become a better spouse. If your personal issues have been affecting your marriage, it is time to address them. This also applies to your spouse. Your or your spouse might need therapy or might need to find new activities to help with personal growth. It will be easier to find fulfillment in your marriage if you make the decision and follow through to grow and change for the better.
If there has been an affair, that will involve working through the personal issues involved. In addition, it will involve healing work for the two of you as a couple and will take time and major changes.
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Set Some New Rules
You might need to set some new rules for your marriage if you encountered a crisis or if you and your spouse are both unhappy. You could for instance have some new family traditions so you can spend more time together or have some rules to follow when you discuss the marriage or talk about your feelings. Rules are necessary if you and your spouse tend to fight a lot, do not fight fairly or have not always respected each other in the past.
Get Some Help
Making marriage work again after a crisis can be difficult. You might have a hard time expressing your feelings and might not be able to get over the crisis itself. You will likely need to consider meeting with a marriage counselor, coach or a family therapist so you can talk with your spouse in a safe environment. Your counselor or therapist will teach you and your spouse ways to respect each other and to communicate more openly about your feelings. You will learn a lot about each other during these sessions and your counselor or therapist will provide you with some strategies you can use to avoid falling back into the same old negative patterns that put your marriage in danger in the first place.
Making a marriage work requires a real commitment from both spouses. You can fix things and build a healthy relationship even if you’ve gone through some difficult times with your spouse. However, you will need to be ready to make some changes and to really work on yourself and your own issues as well.
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.