Rebuilding your marriage

To recover from a crisis and create a healthy and happy marriage, you need to think not in terms of a marriage in trouble, but the marriage you want. 
 
When you first got married, what did you expect from your marriage?  Is it all you thought it would be?  If you could customize your marriage, what would your ideal relationship be like?
 
By now, you should have envisioned what you think would be the ideal marriage and more than likely, you have centered your marriage on a possibility that has become quicksand.  If you are thinking that as long as we’re happy, then we’ll stay married, you’re swimming in dangerous waters.  You know there is no way that anyone can be happy all the time.  You never know what life will deal you and the same is true with marriage. I’ve interviewed married couples that have been together for 50+ yrs. and when I asked “how did you stay married so long?” they almost always said “it takes a lot of work” and/or “friendship is very important”.
 
Let’s begin by taking a look at what your marriage is currently based on by answering the following questions: 

1, What do I hold as the most important aspect of our marriage? 

2, What keeps us together? 

3, What are the traits of our marriage? 

4, What are our strengths?  

5, What are our weaknesses?
 
Now complete these statements to begin your visioning: 

a, My ideal marriage would look like…. 

b, My marriage would be successful if. . . 

c, When I look at other marriages, I admire. . .  

d,  I need this from my marriage. . . 

e, My spouse needs this from our marriage.

 
After you have completed these questions, you can now complete the statement:  My Marriage Vision is…

 There are two emotions in a marriage that can destroy your relationship. 

They are ANGER and RESENTMENT.  Anger is often used as a “primary” instead of a secondary emotion.  Anger really is a secondary emotion, the primary is hurt.  If you are angry, you need to understand what you are hurt about otherwise you will only respond to anger.  Anger is a reactive response and when you or your spouse is subjected to anger, you will naturally react with anger.   Soothing a hurt is much easier than calming anger.
 
You’ve heard comments like “we never communicate anymore”, or “we never solve anything when we argue”.   You can bet that the lack of communication as well as interpretation of that communication is at the core of every fight.  Communication is important, however interpretation is crucial.  Your spouse’s understanding of what you are trying to communicate can be totally different than what you meant to say.  In other words, as part of the interpretation process, there are a number of filters that communications must flow through.  Filters are your basic understanding or assumptions that shape what you hear and what you believe about what you hear.  Example:  Your understanding may be based on a Republican point of view versus your spouse may be a Democrat, or maybe you were raised Catholic versus your spouse was a Baptist.  Now given this paradigm, you should be able to better understand “where your spouse is coming from” as you communicate.
 
People seem to have the idea that they should start with improving love and passion when working toward reestablishing their marriage. When passion and sex are the main focus, the marriage is already doomed. Although love and passion are very important, you need to start with rebuilding the foundation of your marriage.  Couples working towards rebuilding their marriage would do well to make friendship and companionship a priority.  We are not saying abstain from passion and sex; just don’t make it the main focus.  Passion and sex are considered a by-product of a nurtured and developed relationship.  As your marriage recovers, the passion and sex will return.
 
A marriage in crisis needs immediate attention.   No one likes conflict or confrontation with our mates, but to put off issues that need resolve is a recipe for disaster.  So get the ball rolling…take the first step today!