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!
It’s awesome to see a site like this out there, especially with skyrocketing divorce rates these days. As children of divorce ourselves, my husband and I know firsthand it’s devastating effects. For this reason, we are committed to making our marriage work – by continually working on it! In the process, we have learned so much about no only each other – but about our own faults, strengths, weaknesses and emotional wounds – and have been committed to love each other through it all. Divorce may seem like the easy way out, but I believe the greatest blessing is found in a committed and dynamic marriage-for-life. 1 Corinthians 13 (from the Bible). Again, thanks so much for this site!
It is awesome that this is available to read through and understand. We had some tremendous recovery to do since my discovery that my husband had a secret affair for the last five years. Our strength is basically based on that we respected and loved each other to give up on everything that we have built over the last 25+ years. We have been victims when we took each other for granted. Now that the children have grown up and independent in their own ways, we need the time to rediscover our original love feeling towards each other by spending more time together. The hardest hurdle is to push aside the negative feelings about the other woman and trusting that he is over with her. It has been exactly one year since I knew about the affair so the pain has diminished to less than 5% but it may explode if not controlled so it needs extra effort everyday.
am i buttered wife? it happens once or maybe there will be a second or third time who knows? in marriage life its normal that the wife is very talkative but its not the reason to hurt it physically…i have the reason to leave him but i am always thinking ’bout my son he is only 6 months..what should i do? please help me to decide.
I recommend you seek professional help immediately from someone
who specializes in treating cases of physical violence.
my husband has other woman and his woman get pregnat ive lost trust and almost the love since ive noticed that he well choice his mistress than me and my kid? what should i do pls help
I’m sending you an email soon.
it’s almost 5yrs.since the disovery that my husband had an affair.he is a doctor and his mistress is med.tech..i know i don’t trust him anymore but trying to bring it back.but my big problem is,,i don’t know if i still love him?i kept asking myself “if the love is still there?”..we have 2 kids and i think it’s the reason why i’m trying to save this marriage..please help me what is the best thing to do to keep this marriage happy.thanks
nfidelity is probably one of the most difficult issues that one has to handle in marriage. Once you are betrayed by your spouse, the pain that it creates can really make you overwhelmed and lost. It is never easy to recover from the experience. However, you have to remember that YOU can survive it and move forward.
There are three things that you have to be concerned with. The first one is your acceptance and recovery from this painful experience. The second one refers to the things that you have and should have to done to save the marriage, and the third one concerns your husband. What has he done to regain your trust and rebuild your broken relationship?
It has been 5 years since that transgression had happened and still you are suffering from what your husband has done to you. This is a strong indication that a lot of issues between you and your husband remain unsettled up to this time. But before we cover other aspects of the problem, I will just have to share with you some points regarding issues that you have to personally handle as the person who was on the receiving end of the infidelity.
It is pretty obvious that you have not yet fully recovered from the experience. After 5 years, you still feel the pain that he has caused you as evidenced by the apparent lack of trust in him. You will never be able to restore that trust unless you have fully accepted what has happened and made a serious intent to move past this dark episode in your marriage. You really have to heal. For if you can’t, you will continue to carry this burden in you and your relationship with your husband will never have a chance to recover.
Try to reflect and find out what are the reasons why you can’t seem to move forward. Is it something that he is doing or has not yet done after the discovery of the infidelity? The healing and recovery phase is the most difficult part and your husband has to do his part to help you move past this phase. Did he express repentance and remorse for his transgression? Did he openly take full responsibility for what he has done to you and your family? Is he doing enough to “woo” you back and restore the trust that has been broken?
If you feel that there are still issues that remain unsettled between you and your husband, it is important that you discuss this with him. Make your demands and tell him what you want to happen so that you can move past this dark episode in your marriage. Keep an open mind and allow him to share his thoughts. Try to see within yourself what you really want to happen in your relationship. If you want to save the marriage, then you have to start working to rebuild that “partnership” you have with your husband. You can’t do things as separate individuals. However, you and your husband must be fully aware of the things that you must do to save the relationship.
Your main concerns are healing, forgiveness and acceptance. Your husband, on the other hand, should focus on repentance and rebuilding of the broken trust.