Is your relationship in serious trouble? Do you see your marriage teetering on the brink of divorce? Unfortunately, you are not alone.
Every year in the USA alone, almost 1 million relationships come to an end…destined for the divorce courts. This is an unbelievable situation. That’s like if all the people living in Houston, Texas were divorced (each divorce affects 2 people).
This statistic begs the question, how many of those relationships could have been saved? Realistically, it’s almost impossible to know. If a relationship lasts, it is difficult to find in any statistics. As Marian Wright Edelman wrote, statistics are stories with the tears washed off. Nevertheless, many marriages that should have endured…didn’t.
You may well be asking yourself how to save marriage . Well, if I could answer that, I would be a very rich man. What I can say to you is that if you feel your relationship is having problems and you don’t do anything, the ending is guaranteed. If you take it upon yourself to do something, there is a much greater prospect that your relationship can be saved. As Wayne Gretzky says, "you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take."
I can tell you in four steps, what you can do and how to save marriage if you are willing to start right now. But you must understand that I said "four steps". That is not the same as saying “four easy steps" because the steps are not easy. Having said that, they do provide you with a path that you must follow if you want to save your marriage and turn things around.
How to Save Marriage in 4 steps :
1) Forget the blame game. Quit blaming your partner and stop blaming yourself. This is step number one because relationships can become stuck in a pattern of blame that prohibits any hope of improvement.
Blame is our way of avoiding having to look within ourselves and evaluate what we see. It is whole bunch easier to point the finger at your partner and say "It’s your fault!" In reality, you can just as easily take that finger, point it at yourself and place the responsibility there, saying "it’s my fault."
Blame can feel good in the short-term, but over the long-term, it stops any shift or change. So, even if you can think of a multitude of reasons to blame your spouse…you should forget it. Even if it’s all true, playing the blame game won’t help you to save your marriage. Blame is the firewood of divorces.
2) It’s time to take responsibility. You can decide, right now, that you can do something to change the way things are heading. Change always starts with one person…the person who wants to make that change. Understand that taking it upon yourself is different to taking the blame.
Instead of laying blame, take responsibility by saying "it doesn’t matter who is at fault, there are things I can do differently, and I will do them differently." Which of your buttons does your spouse push? Which of your spouses buttons do you push? Make up your mind not to let those buttons of yours be pushed…and stop pushing those buttons.
What I find amazing is that almost everyone knows what they should be doing but they find it is difficult to move down that path. Don’t allow yourself to be like that. Decide right now that you will take decisive action.
The difference between blame and responsibility is this: if I am in a burning building, I can stand around trying to figure out who started the blaze, why it has spread so quickly, and who I am going to sue when it is over (blame), or I can get myself and anyone else I can out of that building (taking responsibility). When a marriage is in trouble, the house is on fire. How will you take action to save the marriage?
The difference with blame and responsibility is this: if I am caught in a towering inferno, I could try to figure out how the fire started, why the sprinkler system failed to operate and who to sue for damages. Or, I can pick myself up and get myself, and anyone else I can help, out of there. When a marriage is having problems, it’s like the house is on fire. What action will you take save the marriage?
3) Get guidance from the experts. Many other couples have received help so there’s no reason you can’t too. Experts with a lot more objectivity and experience with these problems and situations can be a real help. Spend some time on a bit of research and find some useful resources.
Don’t think that your circumstances are that different from other peoples. Marriages have been having problems for centuries and the experts pretty much understand the dynamics of relationships. Your particulars may be your own but the underlying issues are the same.
Albert Einstein once said, "The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them." To put it another way, what gets you into trouble won’t get you out of trouble. It demands a whole new way of thinking and that is something that you can get from an expert, a person with a fresh point of view.
4) You must take action. More damage will occur if you do nothing than by taking action and making a mistake. It’s all too easy to become paralyzed by the fear of where things seem to be heading. Councilors often talk about "analysis paralysis." This happens when people want to be 100% certain of the outcome before they take any action. So they keep on thinking about it and try to figure things out instead of doing something.
It simply won’t do any good to just understand the problem. You must act!
Will you be able to save our marriage? If you listen to what I am suggesting then you will have far greater chance than if you don’t do anything. Marriage takes two people to make it work…but only one to mess things up. You can only do what you can do; you can’t control another human being. But many times making a change will be enough. Make up your mind to never again utter the question “How to save marriage ?” but be determined to take action.
