4 ways to Save a Marriage

Sometimes, letting go seems like the easiest thing to do. But think about this: you've invested so much of your time and energy into another person (and possibly little ones); you've made a solemn promise; and you still know there's love, even if it's hiding underneath the surface. This article will show you how to save a marriage and avoid divorce, even if you're the only one trying. If you want to resurrect the happy times in your marriage and put the rough ones on the back burner, read on for a discussion of how to do just that.
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Method One of Three:
Finding out What Went Wrong
1
Make an effort to figure out what went wrong.You can't move forward if you don't know what's keeping you back. Most relationships — and people — suffer from a few flaws, and perhaps those flaws are getting in the way of a healthy relationship. Your job is to take a long, hard look at what you think went wrong. Here are just a few:
*.Growing incompatibility. Work, family, stress, finance and everything else our modern world throws at you can cause people to reveal their true colors. Are the real-world husband and wife very different from the fairy-tale version?
*.Infidelity. Is the guilt of an affair weighing on you or your spouse? Did confession cause everything to suddenly blow up?
*.Lack of communication. What you say doesn't get processed by your spouse, and what your spouse says doesn't get processed by you. Maybe neither of you says anything at all.
*.Death of a loved one. You or your spouse's world changed irrevocably after someone close to you died, and you can't go back to the life you had before.
*.Money. Someone is a spendthrift and the other is a penny-pincher, and the twain never meet. Or maybe growing financial insecurity is making home life bitingly negative.
*.Sex. If sex is a physical symbol of your love for one another, the wilting of that symbol can be both emotionally and physically saddening.
2
Figure out if what went wrong is something fixable.It's a perfectly natural response to try to save your sinking ship, but what if the ship is so tattered that it isn't worth saving? No one can make this decision for you, but know that certain flaws in people or relationships might not be worth trying to save.
*.Know that people rarely change. People often say they'll change, but they rarely do. After they're comfortable, they usually revert back to the people they were before. It's not impossible for someone to change wholesale, but it's unlikely.
3
Open communication with your spouse.Get information from them about how they think the relationship can be improved. When bringing up this difficult conversation with your spouse, remember a few things:
*.Don't be accusatory. Accusing them of something will only burn bridges. Instead of"I thought you were going to take care of that, which is why I'm angry it didn't happen,"you can say"We all know that no one's perfect. I just thought you were going to take care of that, so I was surprised when it didn't happen."
*.Count to three before you answer. A lot of the time, our impulse is to fight back instead of hear what the person is actually saying. Count to three before you answer, thinking about what your spouse has said. Calm and composure on your end will produce similar results on their end.
4
Seek out a marriage counselor (optional).A marriage counselor, while expensive, offers highly nuanced insight into the clockwork of your marriage. A counselor might be able to identify what went wrong from an informed, but emotionally distant, place. Because the counselor has no skin in the game, so to speak, s/he is less likely to lie, to cut corners, or forget inconvenient facts. A marriage counselor might very well save your marriage.