Finding out that your spouse filed for divorce can make you feel hopeless. However, this does not necessarily mean that things have to end. You might not be able to prevent the divorce if your spouse won’t change their mind, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.
Reach Out to Your Spouse
Don’t let the divorce papers make you feel powerless. It is possible to stop divorce proceedings at any time. You need to reach out to your spouse and let them know that you are ready to do whatever it takes to save the marriage. If you hurt your spouse, offer a sincere apology. If your spouse filed for divorce because they are no longer satisfied with the marriage, let them know that you are willing to work on building a new relationship.
Talk About the Marriage
Figuring out how to save my marriage should be a priority for you. In many cases, the marriage has deteriorated due to lack of nurturing and effort.
In a lot of cases, marriages fail because the relationship does not meet the expectations and the needs of one or both of the spouses. This might be because putting effort into the marriage was never a priority. It could also be because these expectations and needs were never clearly expressed or other reasons.
Figure Out How You Can Fix Things
You can save your marriage by creating a plan of action with different things that will allow you to build a strong relationship. Your goal should be to create a relationship that corresponds to each other’s expectations.
Your plan could include some specific activities that will bring you closer together, some small romantic gestures and a lot of conversations about the kind of relationship you want to have.
Learn to Communicate
Communication is one of the things you should focus on because you cannot have a happy and healthy marriage without strong communication skills.
Perhaps neither of you has been able to talk about anything with your spouse without getting upset. Developing strong communication skills will help you address your issues in the future. You and your spouse should be able to talk about your feelings without fear of being judged, put down or misunderstood by one another.
Following are tips to help strengthen your marriage. But first, check out my products related to marriage health.
Keep Investing and Putting Effort into Your Marriage
You can get back together and make your marriage work if you make your relationship a priority. Identify the things that you and your spouse expect from the marriage and work towards building a relationship that will make the two of you happier.
In addition, you may very well also need to also think about working on any individual issues you and your spouse might have since personal problems can and do negatively affect a marriage.
You are probably wondering how to save my marriage if your spouse filed for divorce. Let them know that you would like to work things out and that you are ready to do anything it takes to save the marriage.
Give it some time, get some help if you need to and focus on fixing own individual problems before figuring out how to build a marriage that will make you and your spouse happier.
Please read my other articles about also getting help from a marriage friendly profession coach, counselor or therapist. It is very common that couples have a hard time talking calmly about their problems.
When working with a third party, so many times as spouses you are able to accept or hear suggestions differently than you did from your spouse. Remember also that one spouse can make all the difference. So many people believe that both must go for help to make a difference which is not at all true.
Your marriage is worth saving unless there are irreparable difficulties that your spouse refuses to correct. Those would be situations where there is abuse of any kind, addictions, mental illness issues or illegal activities where there is no compromise.
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.