How to Save Your Marriage

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Often when you finally see that your marriage needs help, it has been heading down a destructive path for a long time. However, just as you and your partner chose to enter into your marriage, you can choose to save it. The first step is committing to make it work.

From weekly sessions with a counselor to attending an intensive marriage retreat, there are many couples counseling and marriage therapist options that can move you toward a positive change. Apart from the traditional approaches, at LIFE Family Training we also offer a unique in-home marriage rescue. Regardless of how you decide to address your issues you first need to determine if help is needed.

When to Seek Help for your Marriage

A marriage intervention doesn’t have to be a last ditch effort to save your marriage, though it can help in those situations. You should seek relationship counseling when you find yourself dealing with these pitfalls:

  1. Increase in stress: Any kind of stress from being with your spouse indicates deeper marriage problems that should be resolved.
  2. Bad communication: You can talk to your partner without saying anything important. Research shows that the average couple only talks about non-work or kid related subjects for four minutes a day. When you aren’t able to communicate about important things or at all, you need help.
  3. Change in intimacy: If you and your partner have suddenly (or slowly) stopped being intimate, touching, or kissing, there may be an issue that couple therapy could end.
  4. Relationship trauma: Loss of trust as a result of mistakes from either or both partners can lead to problems when you think they have been left in the past. You have to repair the relationship and rebuild trust before your marriage can succeed again.
  5. Reoccurring problems: Frequent arguments about the same subjects, common anger outbursts, or other reoccurring problems can build stress and stop communication vital to your relationship.
  6. Parenting clashes: Differences in parenting styles can cause complicated family arguments and marriage strain over time.

You may have a combination of these pitfalls to overcome before you find peace and joy in your relationship again. This will require a real desire to save your marriage, whether through couples therapy, a couples retreat, or other marriage help. There are also couples therapy exercises you can start at home.

How to Fix a Marriage

You can start the healing process at home and prepare for the best counseling experience by looking for marriage counseling questions or lists like “how to fix my marriage.” Here are a few simple steps you can follow before you enter a marriage counselling office.

  1. Call out the problems: Sit down with your partner and write out all the issues you argue about, including the things you avoid talking about. Your marriage will be on track when you develop the skills to resolve all of these issues.
  2. Be positive: To have a successful marriage, research shows you should have at least five positive interactions for each negative interaction with your partner. When you have limited time during the day, the best way to increase positivity is to decrease negativity. Avoid blame, sarcasm, anger, and criticism, and look for opportunities to compliment, encourage, connect, touch, and invite.
  3. Focus on yourself: You can’t change your partner, but you can change yourself. Rather than finding fault with your partner, look to your own actions and perceptions and put your energy into building your relationship through you.
  4. Show what you want to see: It’s easy to point out things you wish your partner would do for or with you. Make a list of all those things and then start doing them yourself. Say “I love you,” show your partner you trust him or her, be more intimate in ways you like, and organize time together to reconnect. You may find that your partner reciprocates your push to do more for your relationship.
  5. Research marriage guidance options: Most marriages will succeed with the help of someone who is more than a referee, and instead will work with you and guide you to lasting change. Decide what counseling style works with your schedules, goals, and price range, and remember what your marriage is worth to you.

Does Marriage Counseling Work?

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Some statistics say that marriage counseling only helps 20 percent of marriages. The truth is marriage counseling works for those who are committed to it.

LIFE Marriage Retreats is known for having a much higher success rate. Couples who attend a LIFE Marriage Retreat report happier, healthier marriages and lasting change in their lives.

However, your busy schedule may not allow you to leave work and home for a marriage retreat. For those couples, an in-home marriage rescue could be the answer. Rather than weekly piece-meal sessions with a general family therapist, an in-home marriage rescue offers a week of intensive training, counseling, mediation, and experiential learning activities around your busy life. You will have exclusive, private, and confidential access to a professional mentor for your marriage intervention.

You can resolve your everyday marriage conflicts when they happen in your normal surroundings and schedule. Get your marriage back on the path to happiness with a marriage rescue in your own home, or discover our marriage retreats, and take time to commit to your marriage again with LIFE Marriage Retreats. Contact us or learn more at lifemarriageretreats.com.

Resources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/resolution-not-conflict/201303/marriage-problems-heres-8-step-rescue-plan

http://marriage.about.com/cs/stagesofmarriage/a/marriagemodel.htm

http://www.aish.com/f/m/5_Steps_to_Save_Your_Marriage.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/27/marriage-counseling_n_1833482.html