I Want To Save My Marriage What Am I Doing Wrong

I really want to save my marriage, but nothing I try seems to work!” If that sounds like the thoughts you’ve been having lately, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Whether it’s due to well meaning bad advice or just reacting on emotion, there are thousands of us who’ve made mistakes that just end up pushing our partners farther away. Once you have an idea of where you might be going wrong, though, you have a much better chance of healing your marriage.

Pressuring your spouse!

It’s all too easy to do when you’re stressed out, but threatening or guilting rarely help matters. One of the most common forms of pressure is begging. You may not get down on your knees and wail, but if you’re pleading, crying, telling your spouse you can’t live without them or that they’ll destroy the kids’ lives, it still amounts to emotional blackmail.

Another thing to avoid is trying to pressure your spouse into counseling. Instead of pushing, appeal to logic. For instance, you might say something like “Considering all the time we’ve invested in each other, isn’t it worth a few hours of counseling to save that?  

Apologizing too much!

There’s nothing wrong with apologizing for mistakes you know you made, especially when you have a plan to help you keep from making them again. The problem comes in when you apologize for things you didn’t even do. It sounds insincere at best and mocking at worse. It also makes you look desperate, which is hardly attractive.

More importantly, it doesn’t solve anything. Accept your responsibility for 50% of the problems and acknowledge that you have some issues you need to work out together, but if you mean it when you say, “I want to save my marriage,” don’t take more than your fair share of the blame.

Jumping to conclusions!

Even if you’ve lived with your spouse for decades and think you can read them like a book, you cannot read their mind. Don’t assume you know how your spouse feels and why they feel that way. After all, it’s possible your spouse has been burying certain emotions about your relationship or unrelated events in the past that are interfering with the present.

Dishonesty!

Needless to say, lies do nothing to build emotional intimacy. Whether you’re hiding your feelings, facts about important events in your past, or your financial details, it all goes to drive a wedge between and your spouse. I’m not talking about those little white lies like “No, honey, I don’t think you’ve put on weight.” There’s plenty of room for those. What I mean is something that has an effect on the relationship beyond the next 30 seconds like lying about your needs in the bedroom or for time to yourself.

Waiting and hoping!

This is probably the biggest mistake of them all, yet it’s also the easiest to fix. So many people wait and hope things will work themselves out eventually. In the meantime, you and your partner are growing farther apart and any resentment only grows deeper. Marital problems don’t solve themselves anymore than they cause themselves. To save a marriage that’s headed for divorce, you need to take concrete action now. 

If you’ve heard yourself say “I want to save my marriage!” a few too many times, it’s very possible you’re making some of the mistakes most couples make when their marriage hits a rough patch.

How To Save A Marriage 5 Things You Can Do Today

Have you been looking for advice on how to save a marriage, but can’t seem to find anything more than vague tips about learning communication skills, not criticizing, forgiving each other? Well, sure, those things are great, but there’s a lot you can do today to make things better. While most of these steps for how to save a marriage take some time, they’re all things you can start doing right now.

Have a cooling down period!

Whether your spouse has just told you they want a divorce or you’ve been talking about it for a while, a cooling down period will do you both some good. Take about a week to get away from each other and gather your thoughts. This is no time to make a laundry list of your “future ex’s” faults, though!  Instead, focus on remembering why you fell in love with your spouse in the first place and think through some calm, respectful ways to address the problems when you see each other again.

Work on your own issues!

Yes, you have issues, too. Sorry. And these aren’t just issues between you and your spouse, but issues related to any emotional baggage you brought into the marriage, too. If you’re taking a cooling off period, that’s a great time to work on these problems, although you shouldn’t expect to resolve any deep issues in such a short time.

Keep in mind, too, that you need to be careful about assigning blame, especially if your spouse has been violent or verbally abusive. While many therapists who understand how to save a marriage will remind you it “takes two to tango,” don’t start thinking you “made” your partner act a certain way.  

Resolve conflicts!

If you’ve already taken your cooling off period and given some serious thought to how you might be contributing to the conflict, set aside a few uninterrupted hours (read: get a babysitter) to talk things over. If it seems like you always end up in shouting matches every time you try to work things out, you might want to do this in a marriage counselor’s office. A neutral third party knowledgeable about how to save a marriage can really help keep things sane so you can make some real progress.

Spend quality time with each other!

Not spending enough quality time together is often what starts marital problems in the first place. Then once the marriage is really on the rocks, you spend more and more time apart. Fortunately, it’s an easy trend to reverse. Find something you both enjoy doing, as long as you can chat with each other while doing it, and schedule a time for the activity at least twice a week.

Be Patient!

Most truly useful advice on, "how to save a marriage", won’t give you quick fixes that you can get done in one day, but a lot will give you tactics you can at least try out right away. Whether you think you need a short break from your spouse to ease tensions or you just need to focus on each other a little more to keep things from really falling apart, there’s always something you can do today to get started in the right direction. The important thing is to take action now and not waste
any more time hoping things will get better on their own.

Who Can Help Me Save My Marriage

Feel like you’ve exhausted every option you could think up on your own and you just want to storm into some marriage counselors’ office as shout, “Help me save my marriage? Please!” Except for the shouting part, you’re actually on the right track looking for advice from some place other than your own head.

Friends!

If you have any friends who’ve managed to dodge an impending divorce, ask them how they did it. Don’t just think about friends your age, either. Older couples can be a goldmine of advice on working through marriage troubles.

Even if they seem to have a perfect relationship now, you might be surprised to hear what they’ve gone through. Of course, the problem with asking friends for advice is their experience is limited to what worked for them. What worked for them won’t necessarily work for you, though.

Online forums!

The Internet is great place to find information on just about everything and marriage is no exception. The advantage of getting advice from forums is that you can ask questions anonymously and get opinions from a variety of people who’ll most likely have very different view points from you. The drawback is that you won’t get a truly useful response from one “help me save my marriage” post. The lack of real-time interaction means you don’t get the back-and-forth dialogue you’d need to really get to the root of your problems and find a workable solution.

Marriage counseling!

It’s one of the first thing well meaning friends ask when you admit your marriage is on the rocks: “Have you thought of counseling?” There’s good reason for that. A professional marriage counselor has training in resolving marital conflicts and many years of experience working with different types of couples and problems.

The trouble you usually run into here is that one spouse doesn’t want to go. Usually, that partner believes the marriage has already flat-lined and any attempt to revive it is a waste of time and energy. If you’re partner feels that way, don’t give up just yet. While you want to avoid pressuring or begging, simple logic can work wonders.

Counseling can help, of course, but it’s not a cure-all. Did you know the average marriage councilors’ success rate is only around 30%? That’s hardly enough to make it worth shouting “Help me save my marriage!” at the counselor.

Self-help books!

If you’ve been looking online for tips, you’ve probably run into a few of those ebooks that provide guidance for working through a rough patch in a marriage even when one partner is ready to call it quits. They may not seem like much, but in reality, the best of these can be surprisingly effective.

Most of these plans were developed by highly experienced marriage counselors who found a “formula” for what works, so they usually have a success rate higher than that of most marriage counselors.

Whatever you do, don’t delude yourself into thinking the problems between you and your spouse will disappear of their own accord. It’s not enough to sit and wonder “Who can help me save my marriage?” You need to decide where you’re going to go for sound advice and act on that advice as soon as possible. The longer you put it off, the harder your problems will be to solve.