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Save My
Marriage
It Is
Worth Saving...Is It?
How
do I save my marriage.
If this has come across your mind
before.
You may find comfort in the fact that it has crossed millions of people
minds before as well.
The hard truth is that not
all marriages can be saved.
In fact, not all marriages are
worth saving.
On the
other hand, some marriages that could have been saved, end up in
divorce.
When the dreaded ‘D’(ivorce) word comes
up in a marriage, there is one of
three scenarios:
- Both parties want a divorce
- One party is thinking, "save my
marriage"...while the other is not
- Both parties want to save their marriage.
The
sweetest sound to a marriage guidance counselor is the phrase: “Save my
marriage.”
Sweetest, because this desperate plea indicates a desire to
save the marriage and a willingness to do what needs to be done to save
it.
In an ideal world, both parties want to save
the marriage and so they have the strongest chance of doing so.
When
both parties want a divorce, there is less chance of the marriage being
saved, unless both parties can put aside their skepticism about
counseling and agree (for a limited period of time) to consider
alternatives and get help.
This is true also in marriages where one
party wants a divorce and the other doesn’t.
In
summary, saving a marriage requires the desire to do so, the
willingness to do what it takes and time to work out the issues.
What
these three factors boil down to is positive attitude.
When an
individual goes to a relationship counselor and says: “Please help me
to save my marriage,” they are being proactive. By asking for help,
they implicitly believe the marriage can be saved. This is half the
battle won.
When my marriage began to fray, I
never ever considered asking for help from anyone to save my marriage.
I just wanted out, but I still struggled with feelings of guilt,
remorse, doubt, fear, regret and loneliness.
On reflection, external
counseling could have helped perhaps not to save my marriage, but to
support both of us through the process of divorce. Instead, I struggled
for two years to recover from my emotional wounds.
I
believe that troubled relationships require help. I’d go so far as to
say even healthy relationships need occasional help, if only to fluff
up the romantic side of things.
Any kind of unhealthy relationship
needs relationship counseling before any question of divorce arises.
Once the question does arise, relationship therapy may help to save the
marriage or, in the instances the divorce goes through, help to deal
with the negative emotional effects of divorce.
With
hindsight, I can identify three factors that helped me and my
significant other deal
with our marital problems.
- We went for relationship counseling.
- We maintained a sense of humor and tried to
keep it as light as possible (as best we could)
- We tried to put things into
perspective and have a sense of being
a partnership because we were "in it together".
We
are not professing to be professional marriage counselors here at
dating relationship. We've just people like you that have
gone
through some of the pain...like you.
Every relationship is
different and has different needs. We also agree that some
marriages may not be worth saving...(in the instance of physical abuse,
drug abuse, sexual abuse and the entire gamut of bad relationships.
This may require serious "professional help".
If
you want to save your marriage, first try to address
these questions:
- What have you done proactively to deal with
your relationship problems?
- What about your relationship is worth saving?
- What about your relationship needs changing and
what help do you need
to make those changes?
For additional relationship
management
advice, such as the save
my marriage section here, please check out the
topics on:
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