Your marriage is worth saving, even though you might feel that a divorce is inevitable. Focus on the good things, remind yourself of why you married your spouse in the first place and look for ways to salvage things.
Ideally, you should talk to your spouse about saving your marriage and enlist their help and support throughout this process. Don’t hesitate to start working on things by yourself if your spouse does not sound enthusiastic about fixing the marriage.
Understand Why Your Marriage Is Suffering
You and your spouse might be talking about a divorce because of a specific event or a major fight. You or your spouse might also be considering divorce because the marriage has been slowly deteriorating. It is important to understand the reasons behind the marriage crisis or behind the loss of quality in your marriage.
A lot of couples become disconnected over the years, focus on their children more than they focus on their relationship and simply stop meeting the needs of the other spouse. This could be the result of a lack of communication or intimacy in the marriage. The reasons behind your marital problems might not be obvious at first, which is why you need to take some time to think about your relationship and you need to talk to your spouse to find out why they are dissatisfied with the marriage.
Commit To Saving Your Marriage
You cannot save your marriage unless you are fully committed to fixing things. Saving a marriage from divorce takes time and requires effort. This process can be emotionally draining for both spouses, and you need to be prepared to make some sacrifices and to go through times where you will wonder if your marriage is worth saving.
Keep the big picture in mind, think about your children and try to get your spouse to commit to saving the marriage as well. You should express your intent to change and to become the best spouse you can be and explain why you think the relationship is worth saving if your spouse has doubts.
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Put Together A Plan Of Action
Relationship that will be fulfilling for you and your spouse. These might include building a family together, traveling together, becoming each other’s best friends.
Also, spending more time socializing with other couples or even pursuing make you a better spouse. You can also invest yourselves in a mission or project bigger than yourselves.
You do need to have a plan of action with some ultimate goals to meet to build a good marriage and with some smaller things you can do on a daily basis to show kindness to your spouse and to make the life you share together more enjoyable.
These three steps will help you save your marriage. Keep in mind that you will meet some obstacles along the way and might not progress as quickly as you would like to. Think about getting help from a counselor, coach or therapist if you need advice or if you and your spouse can’t figure out how to fix things on your own.
Seek Outside Help If You Cannot Solve Things Yourself
Sometimes it just doesn’t work things out yourselves. That is partly due to being so close to the problems that it is hard to keep your perspective. An outside professional trained and experienced can bring expertise you do not have yourselves.
If you don’t try and end up divorcing, you will always wonder if you could have saved your marriage.
Please find someone local who is what I call marriage friendly or consider working online or on the phone with me. After working over 25 years with hundreds of couples I am still awed by what I consider miraculous marriage turnarounds!
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.