Keys to Saving Your Marriage
We all recognise that when two people take their vows of marriage and commit to one another, they do it hoping it is forever. However, sometimes, things change causing things to undermine that intention. If you are trying to work on saving your marriage due to some type of dishonesty or infidelity, your initial focus should be on rebuilding the trust in your marriage. This is vital to finding your way back to initial stength in the relationship that was the glue that will held your marriage together.
Trust happens to be the foundation of a marriage. Without it, the marriage will have a difficult time surviving. It is important to remember in times of marital strife what it is that you love so much about your partner. Reminiscing about the endearing qualities of your partner, and the good times you have had together, can help motivate you to work towards rebuilding your marriage.
It’s important to recognise, before anything that both parties are committed on saving the relationship and marriage. Without complete commitment from both parties, sadly any chance of reconciliation is likely doomed. You both have to want it before you can both start to work towards keeping it.
Saving your marriage will take time and effort. Exactly how much effort and time really depends on your specific circumstances. Below are some tips that can help you in your journey.
Tip #1: Commit to the idea that you will either forgive your spouse, or you will forgive yourself for what has happened to break down the marriage. Neither of you will likely forget what the other person has done, but it is important that you forgive so that you can move on from the past and start rebuilding trust.
Tip #2: Be open and honest about your feelings with one another. Seeking counselling for the benefit of mediation would most likely be the best solution. This way you can both more easily keep an eye on your emotional control as you endeavour to work through the rough spots.
Tip #3: Be responsible for your actions. During the process of saving your marriage, if you say or do something hurtful or inconsiderate, then make sure you own up to it, and make amends. Otherwise, you are only creating more issues that can undermine the marriage.
The process of working to save your marriage is not going to be straightforward or easy. However, if it is worth it to you both, then you and your partner will commit to working towards getting to a better place, where trust and respect are renewed.
Steve Mitchell
http://www.articlesbase.com/home-and-family-articles/keys-to-saving-your-marriage-741085.html
For those who have been divorced-What was the moment when you knew your marriage was over?
I have a question for those who have been divorced- what was the key moment when you *knew* your marriage was over and could not be saved?
when you get to the point that you just cant handle the situation any longer. you eventually get fed up with all the crap and say the h*** with it all. but no one person can tell you when it will be but your own self. you feel as if you would rather be alone than have to deal with him anymore. ive been with my husband for 17 years and i would say 15 of those years were really bad. i had come to the point that i was fed up with the crap and just wish that i would not have to come home to him any more. but by the grace of god, he woke up just before we broke up. good luck!
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When she remarried about 11 months after the divorce.
Seriously, it’s not over until you choose for it to be over. Didn’t like her much at all during the final few years, but love and marriage are commitments, not feelings. Could not imagine living with her again after all she put the four kids and me through, but marriage is a covenant relationship and reconciliation was a possibility (would’ve taken a whole lot of work) right up until the day she remarried.
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I asked a counselor this question once. Even though my husband had cheated on me while pregnant, I took him back ( what an idiot I was). I am pretty sure he cheated again, he treated me like doo doo, was abusive verbally, emotionally, physically etc and I STILL couldn’t make up my mind to leave him. I just wasn’t sure I was ready to call it quits. I asked my counselor "how do you know when you are ready for a divorce?" She said "you are ready when you can picture you spouse with another man/woman and it doesn’t bother you in any way." When I got to that point, I knew I was ready to move on. In fact, I was happy to hand him off to someone else. As I say now "He is someone elses problem now!!" LOL!!
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When he would touch me and the hairs on the back of my neck would stand up and not in a good way.
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Well as you can tell from my name, its not my first time around. With the first, I knew it was over when I found out he had been corresponding with a woman from Texas. He became distant and even more mean and abusive than he was before. It was actually my chance to get away.
My second, I knew it was over when I walked into my living room with my 9 month old in my arms to see "him" lying down with another woman.
Even though I tried to make the second marriage work, despite my gut telling me to run, I could clearly tell it was over by his actions.
You know, in your gut or your heart, when the other person isn’t willing to make an effort to make the marriage work.That is the time when you make the decision to leave and start over.
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http://document-do-it-yourself-service.com/
The day my mother died, I called my husband very distraught. I had just lost my mom, and I now had to inform my dad that his wife of 49 and a half years was gone forever. My husband’s reply to the news was "Well your mother wanted to die" WTF!!!
That, and the night before her funeral, I caught him masturbating, watching pornography! Have some respect for the dead!
I left two months later, best decision I ever made.
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Divorced three years.
The point I knew it was over was when he would drive up in the drive way and I would say to myself oh s–t he’s home and have a sinking feeling in my stomach, or wait for him to go to bed and fall asleep so he wouldn’t touch me , that’s when I knew I had to get away from him and divorce him.
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When he cheated and I thought to myself, "I have more respect for a skunk that crawls out of the gutters at night."
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There were a few signs………….when I was happier when he was away than home, when I felt nothing when he hugged me or kissed me, when sex became a chore, when I had more fun out with my friends then I did with him, when I enjoyed other men’s attention, when little things he did totally annoyed me, and when saying "I love you" was something I only said when I was put on the spot and I didn’t feel it at all. The biggest sign was when I started thinking what it would be like to be on my own, and those thoughts made me feel happy. Marriages can survive many things as long as u both have love still for each other, but once the love is gone it can never be the same and for both people’s sake u should move on and not waste many years in an unhappy and unfulfilling marriage. I hope this helps.
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Whenthe fighting would not stop, no matter how hard you tried. When a husband hits a wife for no just cause.When husband and wives stop sleeping in the same bed. Oh there are so many.
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After having tremendous sex with with my wife and she admitted she was faking it and ‘was not in love with me’ before getting out of bed.
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I am not divorced, but I have meet some divorce woman and in the majority I see the same common factor.
They knew when their marriage was over when they children were able to do their laundry by themselves, and that they started to feel attracted by single life, and started to love "girls night out" with her girlfriends and it was ok for their husbands to stay at home because she was needing some time and probably having a breast cirgury (getting ready for the next move). When that happened, they knew their marriage was over, they just didn’t want to admit it for now, same as her husband who didn’t have a pair of b*lls and allowed all that in his life.
Then there are the minority of women, who knew their marriage was over when her man told them that overnight, the news was shocking and it happened immediately.
In case of men, well, many deny it but it starts when she starts having "girls nights out" with a group of divorce women who claim they go "dancing".
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it was just a gut feeling…deep inside i knew-but i hung around anyway for the kids-not the thing to do-by the way….
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Personally, I knew the time had come when I found myself no longer "worrying" about what he was doing, or who he was doing it with. I began building my life from my own interests and making my own friends. When I no longer prayed that "we’d" be alright. When going to bed angry didn’t matter anymore and when saying "I love you" felt more and more like a lie.
A marriage is usually over long before anyone brings up a divorce. There is no way to pinpoint an exact time that it’s over, you more or less just feel it from within. When you start to care more about yourself than you do about making the union work it is safe to say it is over.
If there is a flicker of hope that both of you want to save the marriage you’ll know, if it is one sided, it is highly unlikely that it will happen. You can’t make yourself or your spouse feel things that just aren’t there.
When you sit and start to recognize all of the "faults" that your spouse has rather than seeing the "good", chances are you’ve reached the point of no return.
When you’re "in love" the faults are never obvious enough to hinder you, love does make you blind, when you fall out of love the blinders are off and nearly everything about the other person drives you insane. You wonder how you ended up with someone like that. You question how smart could you really have been to 1) have fallen for this person 2) married this person 3) spent so much of your time devoting yourself and energy to this person. You are more repulsed than anything and you find it hard to even look at the other person, much less sit down across the table and enjoy a meal.
Basically, we grew apart. Physically and emotionally there was no longer an attraction. Communication declined, there was no longer a common ground as our interests had changed and we shared no likes or dislikes (if he liked it, I hated it and vice versa), the friends that we had in common seemed to be lacking as well, we found new friends that didn’t know the other and began to do things seperately.
While he slept in the bed, I slept on the sofa (and vice versa). We found reasons and excuses to be on different schedules and to have "plans" when the other was going to be around.
The course of this took a little over two years to realize and then another year to seperate and yet another year to finalize the divorce. After thirteen years, looking back, I learned alot about what I don’t want in life or from my partner.
I wish you the best of luck, if you want the marriage to be saved, I hope your spouse does too and you can find ONE thing to build from, if you want it to be over, I hope you’re both on the same page as well and I hope that you don’t drag it out, the agony and wasted time don’t do either of you any good.
May you find the happiness that you desire, may you suffer little and may you find strength in knowing that you will get through this.
Good luck!
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For me, I lived with emotional/verbal abuse, so it was a long time before I figured it all out. There was 2 straws that broke the camel’s back. One was the fact he withdrew money (advanced) on our back account and hid it from me. Was gonna buy lottery tickets and pay it back (his excuse).
The second one and probably the one that really ended things was when he had me crying in the hall, yelling at me, and my son came out of his room and his father started making fun of me and laughing. My son got mad and told his father to just leave the house and get out.
I made up my mind that I was not gonna put up with things anymore – the marriage was over.
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when he physically hurt me and my son and cheated on me.
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After he got a 3rd woman pregnant, she had an abortion, and he suggested that I find a lover, so we could be even. I knew it was over.
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When you realize that being without that person would make you so much happier than being with them.
When arguing about any issue isn’t even worth it and doesn’t even matter anymore.
When you are happiest when they are not home, than when they are.
When you finally make the choice to love you more than you love them.
When you just can’t take another day of their sh*t, and would rather be anywhere else than under the same roof with that person.
When you seek to have your needs met elsewhere.
When their touch makes your skin crawl.
When the little things become HUGE things.
When you realize that every promise ever made within the marriage was fulfilled…but only by you.
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19 years of empty promises and two 1/2 years of freedom!
when I just didn’t care anymore and he couldn’t upset and annoy me.
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