How To Save Your Marriage and Stop Your Divorce : Let's Start Talking Again
It’s a fact that more marriages end in divorce than those that last. It used to be that marriages really were forever. The phrase “’till death do us part” was actually meant when it was uttered during wedding vows.
Now, we see or hear about celebrities who marry for 18 hours and couples that get hitched only to get legal status in one country or another.
Marriage is not a word that should be taken lightly, yet it is on a daily basis. But what do you do when your marriage is starting to fall apart, when everything you want is slowly slipping away? You rescue it.
1) Rescuing the Relationship
To save your relationship, you must first figure out what is causing it to fall apart.
Do you and your spouse talk about things, or are you too busy working and raising your family to discuss what’s going on? Have you gone on a date in the last six months?
Do you fight and argue all the time, or has one of you cheated on the other? What is causing the relationship to break down? Let’s face it; you don’t just wake up one morning and say, “I think I’d like a divorce today.”
In order to figure out what’s going (or gone) wrong in your relationship, you need to take a step back from your feelings to observe what is going on.
If you fight frequently, write down the things you fight about. Write down the amount of time you’ve spent together in the last few days, and write down what you were doing when you weren’t spending time together.
You will want to get everything straight in your head before you start to talk to your spouse about your problems and what you think might be damaging your relationship.
2) Talking—It’s Not Overrated
After you have gathered your information, approach your spouse.
Make sure you go into the discussion calmly and rationally. You also want to make sure that you’re not accosting or accusing, but rather asking and questioning.
If you go into the talk too aggressively, you are going to turn them off and nothing will get answered or resolved. Make sure you lay everything out on the table, from the things that are bothering you to the things that you wish you did more of together.
Explain that you want to know how your spouse is feeling, and that you care about where they want the relationship to go.
3) Scheduling
If you have a busy schedule, you may want to make an appointment to have this discussion. Actually, making a schedule for the two of you on a weekly basis is an excellent idea.
All parents know that children thrive on routine, which is why they have a time to wake up, a time to eat, and a time to go to bed. Relationships thrive on a somewhat of a timed schedule, as well.
For instance, take the case of my friend and her husband. Both of them spend every Saturday night together. They have young children, so most of the time they stay in instead of going out. They will rent a movie and either get take-out or some quick meal they can throw together once the kids have gone to bed.
They leave the lights on in the living room long enough to eat their meal, and then, once that’s done, they put the dishes in the sink (they will still be there the next day, so there’s no reason to spoil the mood by doing them), turn the lights off and snuggle together to watch the rest of the movie. They don’t talk about anything except the movie, and make sure that they are touching each other as much as they can.
It is not “un-romantic” to schedule time to be with your spouse. Make sure that you get some time together, whether it’s going out together, or staying in watching a movie. For myself and my boyfriend, sometimes we’ll pull out a board game, add some alcohol, and have a great night being silly together.
As you get along in your relationship, you come to take each other for granted. Spending fun, relaxing time together is one great way to get your relationship back on track.
If you’re thinking about filing for divorce because you can’t stand the fighting anymore, stop. Think about why you are fighting, and try to put yourself in your partner’s shoes. When you love each other and put a little work into it, marriages really can last forever.
