marriage and counselling

Introduction

If you’re reading this book, you’re probably in one of two situations: your marriage is facing challenges and, you would like some guidance on how to make it better or your marriage is going well, and you’d like to take things to the next level. Regardless of the situation, you’re in this book is for you because there is no such thing as a perfect marriage. You probably already know this. There is always room for improvement. Unless there is violence involved in your relationship, there is no hopeless marriage either. You only need to have the right mindset, come up with the right arrangement, and you will both be able to find hope for your marriage. There are no two ways about it. Regardless of how seemingly problematic your marriage may be, there are still elements in it that can save it.

To become a GOOD spouse, you must first need to focus on becoming a BETTER spouse than you are now. It’s tough to run a marathon when you can barely walk. Focus on where you are and taking things one step at a time. Regardless of what state your marriage is in, you only need to build on what you already have and focus on your current role so you can become a better spouse. This book steps you through the process of identifying key strategies you can improve to enhance your skills as a spouse. Becoming a better spouse involves fine-tuning your interpersonal skills with your wife and your children. That’s all there is. It’s quite technical. There is no magic bullet that would transform your essence as a person. You have to take each day at a time, learn the skills that you need to learn as well as hone and fine-tune the skills you already know. That’s how you make serious progress in going from a not-so-good spouse to a better spouse and, finally, a good spouse.

It is only as possible as your willingness to put in the effort. Nobody can do it for you. You have to take the first step. You have to be proactive, and most importantly, you have to learn to sacrifice. Any relationship worth saving or improving is worth sacrificing. Always wrap your mind around that crucial reality, and you will eventually achieve your relationship goals. If you lose sight of this reality or buck against it, then you’re just going to be making things harder for yourself and your partner. That is the bottom line.

Chapter 1: Why does Marriage fall apart?

Trust is perhaps the most crucial aspect of a relationship. Would you marry someone if you didn’t trust him or her? Of course not! Lack of trust brings many problems into our marriages, and when it is not resolved, marriages fail big time. A lot of times, lack of confidence is a misconception we create for ourselves. Let’s suppose our spouse is at the gym by herself or himself. We know there will be people of the opposite sex there as well. If we let our minds go with this idea, it will lead to unwanted thoughts, thereby breeding jealousy. We will discuss how to avoid this game, our mind plays, in the later chapters of this book. Another way people encourage distrust is by not being reliable and dependable in their relationships. We lose trust in someone that promises to do something but fails at it several times. It could be anything from small things, like taking out the trash, to more critical tasks, such as taking the kids bowling when one spouse has to spend the night away.

Lack of respect is another problem that harms our marriages. Emotional relationships get hurt when an unloving atmosphere is created wherein spouses don’t respect each other. When we don’t recognize and admire our spouse’s ideas, for example, we are responsible for their low self-esteem. Without mutual respect, many aspects of our marriage, such as love, honesty, and empathy, will fail.

Many times we find ourselves continually using blame as a common denominator in our relationships. The “blame game” can be very disastrous, mainly when we are being blamed for acts we didn’t commit, or perhaps we did commit them but meant no harm — blaming means that we’re running away from our responsibilities by not focusing on how to make improvements. When being continuously accused, spouses develop low self-esteem by thinking they’re to blame for things beyond their control.

Accusations differ from blaming as they put guilt on one spouse even before anything has happened. Whether the allegations are true or not, trust is hugely affected. It negatively changes the way spouses see each other. At this time, the teamwork ethic is gone, and now we are faced with an atmosphere of competition. This means that there are two sides, and we compete to see who is right or wrong. We find ourselves in an accuser versus a defender scenario. As the fight goes on, and we gather facts and information about our spouses, we tell ourselves, “We shall see who finally ‘wins.'” There is a false feeling of victory: “See, I told you I was right.” Couples shouldn’t compete in this win/lose the game, but instead should focus on the things that led to the disconnection in the first place. Not spending enough time with our spouses and being uncommunicative are things that can create an environment where accusations are predominant.

Chapter 2: Reconnecting

When you’ve been married for a long time with the same person, things can get pretty familiar. It can become so commonplace, in fact, that you and your spouse end up living together but not sharing anything. You end up losing your connection as a couple.

This is a very regular and common occurrence in many couples who have been together for a long time. Losing your connection with your spouse can make you feel lonely and even afraid. You don’t know what they are thinking, and sometimes, it can feel as if you don’t care. But if you want to make your relationship, you will have to care and care a lot.

Show appreciation

One of the things that make a relationship stale is when you and your spouse no longer acknowledge each other’s value in your respective lives. This can be caused by familiarity, domesticity, or just being used to all the little things your spouse does for you. You may be so used to how your wife makes you breakfast and coffee in the morning, or how your husband brings home the laundry every Tuesday after work that you no longer thank him or her for the little things.

But showing a bit of appreciation for these little things can do a world of good for your relationship. Try saying thanks the next time they do something nice or thoughtful. You can opt to make a special dinner for him or her, or bring home a nice bottle of wine you can both share. Or better yet, just say so. Tell your spouse about how grateful you are for the little things that they do for you and how important they are in your life.

A little bit of appreciation now and then can spice up your marriage.

Be more attentive

Although a lot of you can say that you spend a lot of time with your spouse, how much time do you spend paying attention to them? Do you give them your attention when you’re having dinner together, or are you spaced out because of some problems at the office? Do you talk at breakfast, or are you both mindlessly scrolling down your social media feeds? How much of the time that you spend with your spouse is quality time?

Keep in mind that physical presence does not automatically equal quality time. You may be spending a lot of time together, but you can be thousands of miles apart mentally.

So how do you solve this? By being more attentive. Try to know more about your spouse’s life by asking more questions and listening. Be interested in what interests them. Be engaged in your marriage rather than just going through the motions. The more emotionally invested you are in the marriage, the stronger your marriage becomes.

Share the little things

When you do simple activities with your spouse, you are building your cache of shared experiences. This cache will be one of the buoys that can keep your marriage afloat when a storm comes.

Watching a movie you both like, going for a walk, or talking during meals are all simple everyday activities that you can do with your spouse. You can cook a meal together or clean the house over the weekend, or even just do some grocery shopping.

These may be things that you already do together, but this time, you go into it with a conscious desire to reconnect with your spouse. This means being attentive, appreciative, and considerate of them.

The truth is it doesn’t matter what activity you choose to do as long as you make it count. Don’t waste a single moment of the time that you spend together. Make every word, gesture, and glance count.

Make a date

A great way of reconnecting and rekindling the spark with your spouse is by settling on a date night. You don’t have to go out to a fancy restaurant or watch a movie at the cinema. You can choose to do anything that you like or something convenient for you, as long as you want to spend that time engaged in your relationship.

Losing your love connection with your spouse can happen gradually, and sometimes without you even noticing it. The important thing is for you to make a clear and conscious effort to reconnect when you do see it.

Chapter 3: Communicate Effectively

Communication is the key to unlocking understanding, intimacy, and connection between two people. It’s also the key to success in the Eight Steps—you and your partner must be able to communicate to address the issues that cause conflict.

It’s a complicated thing, to communicate effectively. The information must be transmitted from mind, heart, across space between you, and received into the mind and spirit of another person. You must combine a vast array of tools to do the transmitting: words, punctuation, body language, voice tone and pitch, and facial expressions. There is a different array of tools to do the receiving: distraction or attention, beliefs and expectations, interpretation and understanding, and avoidance of argument or validation. And you have to take turns sharing and listening, which means switching back and forth between two entirely separate sets of skills.

Common Problems of Communication

Let’s start with all the ways communication breaks down, derails, or is ineffective. The following information is supposed to help you think about your style of communication now— where you’re getting stuck and where you’re successful as a couple.

DESTRUCTIVE PATTERNS OF COMMUNICATION

These five common problematic patterns disrupt clear, productive conversation:

1Escalation: Responding negatively back and forth in a way that amplifies that negativity (increased emotional intensity in comments; anger turns to contempt)

2Invalidation: Dismissing or minimizing the thoughts, feelings, or character of the other person (subtle or direct; putting the other person down)

3Absolutes: Using words like always and never (inviting argument and disagreement; blaming or criticizing)

4Negative Interpretations: Believing that the motives of the other person are more harmful than they are (confirmation bias: tendency to pay attention to evidence that confirms what you already believe is true)

5Withdrawal and Avoidance: Unwillingness to stay with or engage with meaningful conversations

FILTERS IN COMMUNICATION

Filters change what we hear, what we say, and how we interpret. These are some of the common forms:

1Distractions: Factors in the environment that affect your ability to pay attention and focus (for example, street noise, thinking about something else, bad phone connection)

2Emotional states: Mood (for instance, bad moods or stress lead to negative interpretations and negative responses)

3Beliefs and expectations: How you think about and what you expect from the person (for example, assumptions about where the other person is coming from, beliefs about the person from the past)

4Differences in style: The script you carry in your mind about what is appropriate, relevant, meaningful (for example, culture, gender, past experiences, childhood modeling)

5Self-protection: A response to anticipated rejection or pain (for example, amplifying what you say in preemptive attack or saying nothing at all to avoid conflict)

DISTORTED THINKING

These ten examples of distorted thinking can also wreak havoc on communication because they convince us that what we’re thinking is true and accurate without all the facts:

1Mind reading: assuming you know what the other is thinking without evidence

2Fortune telling: anticipating that things will turn out badly, that your prediction is an already-established fact

3Catastrophizing: thinking that what has happened or what will happen is so awful that you won’t be able to cope

4Overgeneralizing: perceiving a global pattern of negatives based on a single event

5Dichotomous thinking: viewing events or people in all-or-nothing terms

6Disqualifying the positive: rejecting positive experiences or thoughts by insisting they “don’t count,” thereby maintaining a negative outlook contradicted by day-to-day experiences and thoughts

7Emotional reasoning: assuming that feelings reflect the way things are

8″Should statement”: behaving or making decisions motivated by “should” or “should not” beliefs

9Personalization: accepting responsibility for an adverse external event that is not personal

10Regret orientation: focusing on the idea that you made a mistake in the past rather than on how you could be better in the present

From Agreement to Alignment

Effective communication in a marriage transmits important emotional information, solves problems, and bridges connect. It’s not about right versus wrong. You’ve seen the bumper sticker: “You can be right, or you can be married.” Being right is about being in control, about winning the upper hand. Being wrong feels like losing, and often you experience internal conflict because, inside, you don’t agree that you are wrong.

But here’s the thing—you can’t control your partner’s thoughts or how they feel! You can’t monitor what they do! In a happy marriage, we must let go of our need to control our partner and accept them for who they are. We need to find ways to compromise by blending our different perspectives into a common understanding.

So instead of communication with the aim of the agreement, let your goal be aligned. Let it be about attunement, partnering with each other as a team. You don’t have to agree. You don’t have to become a clone of your partner and see things the same way. But you have to communicate what is in your heart and listen to what is in your partner’s heart. You need to be able to tune in to your partner to solve problems together, make decisions together, and get along.

When you’re aligned, both of you can walk away from a conversation saying to yourselves, “I know that my partner understands what I said and how I feel.” (Which means since your partner is saying the same thing as they are walking away, that you were able to communicate your understanding of their ideas and feelings.) You do this through two fundamental communication skills: assertiveness and validation.

ASSERTIVENESS

I want your stance as a speaker and a listener to be assertive. To be confident is to claim the middle space between your own experience and the experience of another. Assertiveness is the stance that allows for cooperation without it being at the expense of oneself or the self of your partner. The following table helps you identify the qualities associated with three types of stances, with assertiveness as the happy medium.

ASSERTIVE SPEAKING FROM YOUR HEART

Speaking assertively from your heart is how you keep your message both valuable and valued. Usually, it’s our heads that do the talking, the part of us that is reactive, seeks agreement, and seeks to convince or prove. Your heart is the part of you that is receptive, seeks alignment with your partner, and seeks to love and be loved. Speak from that part. Here are two tips for how to assertively speak from your heart and an exercise to practice each one:

1Communicate the softer side of your emotions. When we speak from anger or frustration, our partner’s alarm bells can go off. But violence is often a secondary emotion, and the primary one is usually more tender and more challenging to say—emotions like sadness, disappointment, fear, regret, embarrassment, and hurt.

2Use “I Statements.” Speaking from your perspective is an essential part of assertiveness and of speaking from your heart. Start sentences with “I” and then follow with a verb: “I think” or “I believe” or “I wish.” But be careful with “I feel.” Sentences that start with “I feel” must remain a strong signal to your partner that important emotional information is about to come next: I feel sad, I feel overwhelmed; I feel misunderstood. We often use the phrase “I feel” to soften a thought or opinion by putting like after it. “I feel like you . . .” Instead, use phrases like “It seems to me” or “I would prefer that” to soften a thought or opinion.

ASSERTIVE LISTENING WITH YOUR HEART

Listening assertively from your heart is how you maintain your perspective while helping your partner feel heard. Again, when our heads do the listening, we drift into the debate, r what is True with a capital T. But when we allow our hearts to do the listening, we are seeking to understand rather than judge. And not just any other person’s reality—that of our partner in marriage.

Then, after you listen, you need to speak. This is the work of validation, to communicate back to your partner what you heard them say. Just repeating it isn’t enough. You’re not a parrot! You’re meant to be a person who—even if you experienced the situation differently or feel differently or think differently (of course you do, you’re a different person!)—can understand what your partner sees, contacts, and figures. And you should be able to communicate that understanding back to your partner.

But wait! I hear you shout. If I tell my partner that I understand, then I agree with them!

You’re not after agreement here; you’re after alignment. It’s possible to disagree and validate. It’s possible to have experienced something differently or interpreted something differently and to communicate an understanding of how your partner experienced that same thing and understood that same thing.

Here are two tips for how to assertively listen from your heart, and an exercise to practice each one:

1Pay attention through mindfulness. Mindfulness is helpful no matter what type of therapy my clients are seeking. That’s because learning how to harness the power of mindfulness and feeling its benefits in your relationships is a great way to start experiencing positive results from therapy.

One of my favorite ways to teach mindfulness is through a well-known quote by Jon Kabat-Zinn: “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”

Let’s break that quote down to understand what he’s saying:

Mindfulness means paying attention. . .

Mindfulness requires us to turn off the autopilot that is so often in control of our thoughts and actions. And, let’s face it, sometimes autopilot is helpful! Routine and muscle memory may make task completion quicker and easier, but when we’re setting out to be mindful, paying attention is critical. It requires focus and consideration.

In a particular way: on purpose,

Kabat-Zinn builds on the idea of attention by pointing us to intention. You’re practicing mindfulness on target because you want to because it’s essential to stay focused on the information coming from your partner so you can fully absorb it. Paying attention with intention is how your partner feels heard after sharing and how you’re able to reflect the fullness of what they shared. Doing something on purpose gives it meaning and importance.

In the present moment

Mindfulness is synonymous with the present. When we’re mindful, we resist the urge for time-travel in our minds, either to the past down memory lane or into the future of worry and what-ifs. Train your brain to quiet its thoughts and learn to ignore distractions. When you’re paying attention, you’re not interrupting, you’re not preparing your rebuttal, and you’re not thinking about what you want to eat for dinner.

And non-judgmentally.

At the end of the quote, Kabat-Zinn reminds us that our orientation to mindfulness is important, too. For some of us, being nonjudgmental may be the hardest part about it. We must shift our thinking from judgment about what we hear (labeling, opinions, preferences), to curiosity (What do I notice? How do I feel?), and finally to compassion (empathy, tolerance, acceptance, kindness). There is no right or wrong way; there is no success or failure. There is only listening to your partner in the present moment, just as they are, without changing what you hear.

2Listen for what’s underneath. When you’re having trouble wrapping your head around what your partner is saying, remember that by listening with your heart, you can hear what is underneath their words or body language. Ask yourself what might be motivating them to act this way, say these things, and believe this reality.

VALIDATION

Validation is a tricky word—couples in my office get hung up on it all the time. “If I validate what she said, I give it validity—legitimacy, rationality, truth. But what she’s saying isn’t true!” you tell me. “He sees it all wrong!” you shout.

Yes, according to you. But not according to your partner. I’m asking you to give up your goal of being right, of forcing agreement. Instead, focus your energy on the purpose of being aligned, of moving together in the same direction.

Validation is how you communicate that you understand what you are hearing, that your partner’s thoughts/feelings/actions make sense given their situation and perspective. And you are giving what your partner is saying validity; you’re acknowledging that there is more than one way (your way) to think about a problem, feel about a situation, or believe about the future.

Validation reduces conflict intensity, is nonjudgmental, and is suitable for all relationships, not just marriage.

Rules of Engagement

When you are in the midst of a conflict with your partner, remember these simple rules of engagement: Stop, Drop, Swap. It is a trick for fighting fair that I teach couples in counseling. It’s a shorthand way of remembering and simplifying the rules of engagement when you’re in conflict with your partner and want to get the conversation back to a good place.

1Stop—Stop what you’re doing! Minimize distractions—put away the phones, turn off the TV, pay attention to your body language. Tune in to your feelings and triggers so that you understand your emotional state.

2Drop—Drop your agenda, your defenses, your judgments, and your assumptions so that you can participate with love and respect and remain curious about your partner’s feelings and words and ideas, even if—primarily if—they differ from your own.

3Swap—Talk to each other with painful honesty; soften harsh truths you anticipate will be hard for your partner to hear without minimizing your own need to be open and honest. Use practical communication skills like an assertive stance, mindfulness, and validation.

And if things still spiral into miscommunication—take a break!

The pause

Even though communication may be complicated right now, here’s some excellent news: Positive shifts in your thinking from seeking agreement to seeking alignment, and in your interactions with your partner, can all boil down to one small step. Here it is:

Pause.

Yep, that’s it!

Just pausing for one moment opens you up to new possibilities for response, engagement, and choices. During the pause, you ask yourself questions like “What is my primary goal here?” and “What is a nondefensive way to show my partner I want to try again?” During the pause, you remind yourself about all the love and joy you’re capable of, like “I believe in us and I know we can recover from this disagreement” and “You are worthy of my love, even when you make mistakes.”

It’s just one small step, but it’s pretty radical. A pause is all it takes to break out of ineffective communication patterns and make a different, healthier choice toward loving each other, aligning with each other, and reconnecting with each other.

Active Listening

Active listening is the phrase our culture uses to name effective communication, but it’s admittedly not the best name. After the couple in my office roll their eyes, they usually dismiss active listening as workplace community-building mumbo-jumbo, or they assume it’s about parroting back what you heard. Communication “examples” go like this:

“I want to make a salad for dinner. I like salad better than pasta.”

“I heard you say you want to eat salad for dinner because you like salad better than pasta.”

Doesn’t that fall flat? Active listening is so much more than repeating what you’ve heard. It requires two significant parts—the speaker part and the listener part. I use the metaphor of passing a rock back and forth with every couple I counsel to illustrate what this process is.

You carefully select the rock you want to share. You spend some time studying it, deciding how you want to describe it. Then you hold it out to your partner. You say, “I have something to show you. This is my rock. Do you see how it is this color and has this shape? It has these features, and it’s bumpy here but smooth there. Its where I first collected this rock, and this is why I still have it. I must be careful with this part of the rock—it’s sharp. This is how heavy it feels to me. This is how I feel about this rock. This is what it means to me.”

Your partner is listening. They are paying close attention to what you are saying and how you are saying it. They are not interrupting you, challenging you, or dismissing you. They are absorbing the feelings behind your words. You hand the rock to your partner, and they hold it.

They look down and say, “I see your rock. I see its color and its shape, and I understand the ways you described it. I see its features and how its texture changes. You found it there, and that is why you still hold on to it. I’m careful with the sharp part. I can see why you must be careful with the sharp part. I understand how its weight is heavy for you. You have these feelings about the rock. This is what the rock means to you.” Your partner has matched your tone and your emotions.

Your partner hands the rock back to you. It’s the same rock you passed to them.

Things that didn’t happen:

You didn’t throw your rock at your partner. You didn’t leave it lying around, hoping they’d stumble upon it. You didn’t hand over more than one rock at a time. You didn’t hand it over without a considered explanation. You didn’t refuse to hand it over. You didn’t grab it back.

Your partner didn’t drop it or refuse to hold it. They didn’t put it in their pocket and keep it for their own. They didn’t take a chisel or paintbrush to it. They didn’t mold it with one of their rocks. They didn’t argue about its color, its shape, or its weight. They didn’t throw it back at you.

Chapter 4: Courtship After Marriage

One of the many challenges that couples face in making marriage work is keeping the intimacy going. The burdens of living together, being always busy with work, and having children can dampen any relationship, no matter how solid and passionate it was, to begin with.

As it always does, keeping the intimacy going in your relationship will take effort. There are simple things that you can do to rekindle the romance in your relationship. All you need to realize is that courtship does not end when you reach the altar.

Getting romantic again

Sweet nothings

It may seem clichéd, but doing sweet things just because it is a great way to bring the romance back into your marriage. You don’t have to wait for your wedding anniversary or a birthday to bring flowers and buy them a gift. Making sweet, thoughtful, and romantic gestures are a great way to breathe life into your intimate relationship.

Buy them flowers, chocolate, or you can even go for a”naughtier” gift. Gestures like these can make your spouse feel attractive and wanted, giving them a confidence boost that will make them more romantic and forward towards you.

Flirt

Although flirting may seem more appropriate in a bar or club, flirting with your spouse should be something you often do. Give them a seductive look over dinner, or give them a quick butt squeeze as you pass each other in the hall of your home. Little gestures like this can excite you both and can get your blood pumping.

Make use of any excuse to touch

Be playful with your spouse, even when you feel like you are at an age that should be past playing. Tickles, pats, gentle slaps, and playful pinches can add a touch of fun and spice to your relationship. Just because you are parents and adults doesn’t mean you can’t have fun and play together anymore.

Emotional intimacy

Just as important, if not more so, than physical intimacy, is emotional privacy. Being emotionally intimate makes physical intimacy more rewarding. This, in a sense, has to do with staying connected, which is already discussed in chapter two. But it is also in the context of being honest and laying yourself bare before your partner.

This means not having any secrets from each other, knowing each other intimately. This emotional vulnerability with each other will strengthen your relationship.

Sexual intimacy

It can also happen that the goings-on in the bedroom become a bit repetitive and sometimes, few and far between. Having a healthy sex life as a couple is an essential aspect of having a fun and healthy relationship. How do you spice things up in the bedroom again?

Take it out of the bedroom

A great way to heat things in your sex life is by taking your lovemaking out of the comfort zone of your bedroom. Try the living room, the sofa, or even the kitchen. The added stress and the new environment will make you and your spouse feel much more adventurous and can reinvigorate your sex life.

Start the foreplay early

Giving little hints and come-ons before actually getting to bed can give your lovemaking an extra spin, not to mention that the anticipation can add a few degrees of heat to the bedroom.

Intimacy should always be something that couples share, whether it is physical or emotional intimacy. Keep in mind that when you find you and your partner drifting apart, it can merely be a sign that you aren’t available to them. And never forget that this can be remedied with a little more effort from you.

Chapter 5: Nurturing Fondness, Admiration, and Trust

As already stated, falling in love and choosing to stay in love are two very different things. There will be times when you feel as if you no longer love and admire the person you have vowed to spend the rest of your life with. Times like these come and go for every couple, but you can still do quite a lot to save your marriage.

Fondness, trust, and admiration are things that you can continue to foster and nurture in your relationship. These are crucial factors in keeping a healthy and loving marriage together. Even if you and your partner argue about certain things, or if your partner’s flaws tend to annoy you to high heavens, as long as you still have feelings of respect, trust, and admiration for them, these little annoyances won’t matter.

Stay positive on your views about the marriage

Feelings of contempt that have crept into a marriage can distort how you view the past and the early years of your marriage, not to mention the present state of things. Having a mostly cynical and pessimistic view of how your relationship started and how it’s going to end up will almost inevitably lead to a divorce.

But if you continue to harbor positivity regarding how your marriage started out and if you continue to have hope for your relationship, then you are also boosting your chances together. Studies have shown that couples who hold on to fond memories of the early years of their relationship also have a higher chance of saving their future.

One of the things that you can do is to recount the happy memories you once had as a couple. Don’t let arguments or disagreements sully the happiness that those memories once brought. Talk about the things that first interested you to each other, to the day that you realized you were in love. Reminiscing, in this way, can rekindle feelings of admiration and fondness.

Be friends

At the core of any happy marriage is a deeply rooted friendship. If you don’t like each other, then there isn’t much of a chance that you’ll stay married. Your spouse is your best friend, the one person you can count on when you’re in trouble, the one person who will drop everything if you need them to, and they should be worthy of your respect and love.

You have to be able to enjoy each other’s company, as well as be able to speak your heart to them. This fondness for each other has to be nurtured if you want your marriage to last.

Send out positivity

Human beings have the natural tendency of focusing on the negative aspects, whether it’s in themselves or in the people they love. People always tend to remember the negative things more than positive.

Isn’t it easier to remember that one time that your husband didn’t bring home the carton of milk rather than note the dozens of times that he did? Or isn’t it easier to remember that time your wife burned dinner rather than the perfect dinner she cooked two days ago? It is this kind of thinking that can lead to many arguments and disagreements. You or your spouse may feel put down or belittled because of this.

Don’t beat yourself up about it, though, because this is a pretty standard human way of thinking. But this doesn’t mean that you can’t change it.

You can rewire your brain and train yourself to think more positively about your spouse and your relationship. You can consciously try to think more positively about them. Staying positive and choosing to see the good can keep contempt from rising and taking control of your marriage. You both have to make an effort to cultivate admiration and positivity towards one another.

An exercise to develop fondness:

Step 1: Choose a specific time in your past when your relationship was just blooming, such as your first date or the when you got engaged.

Step 2: Each of you should write all the right things and fond memories you have about that particular time on separate pieces of paper.

Step 3: Now choose a particularly difficult time for your marriage.

Step 4: This time, separately write down the reasons why you stayed together and why you both decided to keep working on it.

Step 5: Read your answers to each other. Be honest and open as you reminisce and rekindle the feelings of fondness and admiration you had for each other.

Always give them a chance

Trust is another major foundation for a lasting marriage, but it can also be very fragile. Earning back trust that is lost can be one of the most challenging things to do, and getting your trust broken can be a challenging thing to get over.

But since you have decided to keep working on your marriage, the best thing that you can do is to do it with sincerity. If you have decided to keep working on your marriage, then you should try to give your spouse a fair chance. This is the same when you want them to change or improve a specific aspect of their personality.

The times when you nag, guilt, or blame your spouse are the times when you are not fair to them. Saying things like, “I should have known you would do this again!” or”You’re never really going to change, you still keep doing the same things, “are all accusatory statements that tell your spouse that you don’t trust or believe in them. Saying things like this can even discourage your spouse from actually trying to change in the first place.

On your part, you have to show them that you do trust and believe that there can be a positive change, and you can do this by changing how you express your disapproval.

You can say, “You still haven’t put the laundry in the basket as I said! You never listen to me,” or, you can say, “Haven’t we talked about putting the laundry in the basket? Can you please do it now?”Again, the first statement is an indictment and a judgment, while the second statement is a reminder and an offer to right the wrong. You can guess which statement leads to the best outcome.

When it comes to saving a marriage, building trust, fondness, and admiration back up are one of the first things you should work on. No matter how much you argue and no matter how many differences you may have, as long as you continue to trust, love, and admire your spouse, you are more than likely to get through.

Chapter 6: Rituals and Shared Meaning

When we meet our partners and start building a relationship, there is a lot of passion and excitement as we embark on the first stages of our relationship. Unfortunately, some of this excitement and love fade away as the years go by, and we advance to the other stages of our relationship. More responsibilities come up, involving work, kids, and social responsibilities. Our social responsibilities increase as we have to focus on both ours and those of our spouse. Given that we may not feel the same excitement that reigned during the first years of our marriage, we surely can find many ways to re-activate that sense of purpose and love. We achieve this by giving our marriage a shared meaning.

You might think that your marriage already has shared meaning because there are obvious things that you and your spouse look forward to–for example educating your kids in some way or expecting them to do well in sports. It may also be a desire to have success in your career or to have a better quality of life. The shared meaning that we will study here concerns developing a shared vision or goal to which you and your spouse will contribute equally to achieve. It can help you see the big picture in your partnership instead of focusing on small details that make up daily life. Little everyday things might be insignificant in the long term, mainly if they include displeasures. Marriage is a long term endeavor, and by having something to look forward to in your relationship, you are supporting it. This will allow you to build a culture of togetherness, where you and your spouse have the same beliefs and talk about the same goals not only between yourselves but to other people as well. Shared meaning can be created by having long-term goals such as buying your dream home, being fluent in a different language, traveling to an exotic part of the world, or simply volunteering at a local charity to complete a long-term project. There are so many long-term ventures that we can choose from, depending on our financial conditions and mutual interests.

Besides having long-term goals to promote shared meaning in your marriage, you can implement daily and weekly rituals as well. By having time together and performing activities that both you and your spouse enjoy, you also create the desired positive mood, which will promote happiness in your marriage. The desired feeling might last a day or a week, but it’s a powerful tool to help you cope with the usual strains of marriage. This is where consistency in performing daily or weekly rituals becomes super important. You can start having routines with your husband or wife by picking a day of the week to do some volunteer work, dining out, watching a movie at home, reading a book, cooking dinner, etc.

By creating long-term goals and daily or weekly rituals, you get to know your spouse even better. You get to discover many new things about your husband or wife by learning how they operate in different life settings.

Sit down in a quiet place, where you can have some time for yourself.

1. Think about a long-term goal you and your spouse can sit and write it down. Remember, both of you must be actively involved in achieving this goal, so ask your partner if this goal is attractive to him or her.
2. Think about a weekly activity you and your spouse can enjoy together. It can be any simple thing, and it doesn’t have to take up too much time. Go ahead and write it down.

Chapter 7: Getting Through Arguments

No matter where you look, there will never be two people who agree entirely about everything all the time. Even identical twins hold different opinions about certain things. Getting into a relationship means accepting a person with a whole different set of beliefs, quirks, and attitudes into your life. This is the reason that arguments often abound.

Disagreements and arguments are reasonable, though, even in the happiest marriages, what is important is how you deal and resolve those arguments for the better.

Changing your tone and your objective

As already discussed, the tone of a statement most often leads to an argument rather than the actual subject in the first place. Being temperamental, angry, or out of sorts when talking about a specific topic can lead to a misunderstanding, which then aggravates the argument.

But changing your tone and your entire objective in the argument can make arguments easier to manage. When people argue, their goals are often to prove themselves right and prove the other person wrong. Already, this is a recipe for lack of communication. When you are resolved in trying to determine the other person wrong, you are already keeping yourself closed off to the validity of their argument. You are no longer LISTENING. Situations like these can lead to raised voices, regrettable words, and the eventual icy silence.

You have to find a new way to approach and settle arguments. You should change your objective. Instead of wanting to prove them wrong, try to find points of agreement and build it up from there. This means you are now arguing about uniting your ideas rather than prove who has the superior idea. This means you have to become receptive to what they are trying to tell you, while also expressing yourself calmly and clearly. Find common ground where you can level off and discuss the merits and disadvantages of both ideas. This way, you will give equal weight and validation to both of your thoughts.

Another way of cooling down an argument that’s heating up is by being courteous and patient with them. Treat them as you would a respected colleague or friend. Talk to your spouse civilly and with respect, and you will find that they will be more disposed to treat you with the same respect.

Here are a few helpful tips when you find yourself falling into an argument:

Bring it up gently. Starting a subject that can be possible grounds of an argument in an explosive and temperamental way can only worsen the situation. Try not to be antagonistic when you introduce the topic. Saying, “Hey, can you help me unload the washer? I’ve been so tired lately,” is worlds away from saying, “You can’t even unload the washer? You just sit there while I do all the work!”Again, you are making a calm and valid request of your spouse in the first example, while the second example is harsh, critical, and will most likely lead to an explosive argument.

Be open to a positive outcome. Another great way to diffuse a strained argument is by offering your spouse a way out. It means you are no longer barreling into them with your arguments in an attempt to crush their defenses; you are offering them a way to bow out gracefully. This is especially effective when they are in the wrong. When your spouse has committed a lapse in your agreed-upon chores, you can try to say, “Hey, I know you forgot to take the garbage out, but I know you can still do it tonight,” rather than scolding them about that lapse.

Stay calm. Remember to stay calm. Don’t let your feelings get the better of you. When you let your temper get the better of you, you often end up saying and doing things that you regret. You can also end up hurting the people you love the most. Try not to let things escalate and go out for a breather if you feel like you have to. Take time out to get your feelings and temper in check and return once you feel calmer and ready for a talk. This will keep things friendly and civil as you resolve your differences.

Compromise. Try to find a way to compromise. A marriage is about letting yourselves be influenced by each other, and settling arguments should always be about compromise. It isn’t about one person always getting his or her way. There has to be a compromise between you. You both have to be willing to see the world through each other’s points of view. Find common ground where you can level off and try to reach an agreement that brings satisfaction to both parties.

Accept and forgive. Once you eventually reach a compromise, be ready to accept and forgive your partner. Bringing up the touchy and raw details of the arguments over and over can only harm your relationship. Once you have reached a compromise, koklput the argument behind you, and continue to move on.  Try to be considerate and gentle when the arguments do pop up again and stay away from harsh tones or critical words.

Respect their opinion. There are times that you both feel strongly about a particular subject, so firmly in fact, that you might be unwilling to compromise. Trying to pound into this subject for extended periods can only make you feel tired and frustrated. The best thing you can do is learn to respect each other’s differing opinions.

There are couples whose personalities might be at odds. For example, you might love going to parties or hosting dinners, while your partner would much rather stay home and curl up with a good book. You can resolve this by giving them their space while continuing to support them and getting the same in return. This means that you give them time to be alone with a good book (you can even join them), while you can have the freedom to go to parties and enjoy yourself. Do not try to impose your views on them. Instead, respect and cherish the differences that you have.

Spending the rest of your life with another person can be a lot of work, and you can end up having a lot of disagreements. But these disagreements and arguments don’t automatically have to be wrong. These can be the gateway to more growth and a better understanding of each other.

Chapter 8: Make the commitment

I’m going to help you and your partner commit to each other to take care of yourselves, take care of your marriage, and maintain your progress toward a lasting partnership. Each of you is responsible for doing your part, for finding your happiness and joy, and for sharing a vision of the future that honors individuality as well as partnership.

You have the tools you need now, and you’ve done the hard work to restore your marriage. A hammer is excellent for pulling out a nail or hammering one in, but it’s not so great for a screw or a bolt. Use the right tool for the problem at hand! And don’t let your tools become weapons. A hammer can do serious damage to walls or fingers if you’re not careful. Be intentional with your relationship toolbox—take inventory of it, know which tool is for which problem, and commit to using your tools only for good.

Personality and Lifestyle Challenges

Understanding your personality and the way you think and how you respond helps you teach your partner about you and helps you more clearly articulate what you need. When issues like depression, anxiety, trauma, and low self-esteem occur in the marriage, it is important, to be honest with each other about them. These issues are often challenging to manage on your own, so work as a team to get the support you need. Common issues that bring people to therapy (either because they have the problem or their partner has the problem)

IDENTIFY CHALLENGES

In the worksheet below, place an X in the column that best describes you for each challenge listed.

PRACTICE EMPATHY AND PERSPECTIVE TAKING

When one or both partners are experiencing stress, anxiety, depression, or any other distress, the skills of attunement, or the ways we demonstrate our partner is seen and heard as a whole person, are more important than ever. I’m going to name those skills empathy (the ability to connect with another person’s experience, especially their feelings of pain) and perspective taking (the ability to accept another person’s experience as their truth). Here is an exercise to help you practice these skills by “leaning in” to your partner:

STOCK YOUR MARRIAGE “MEDICINE CABINET”

In this worksheet, choose words from the list to stock your marriage “medicine cabinet.” Add any other remedies you’d like to try as well.

Continue Working on Your Relationship

Throughout this workbook, you have been taking important steps to heal and strengthen your marriage. If you need more support than this workbook has been able to provide, where do you turn next? What kind of counseling would be helpful: individual, marriage, or discernment? Here’s a description of each.

INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING

Individual therapy is something you do just for yourself. It means you allow yourself time to make yourself a priority in your weekly schedule. Individual therapy is self-care and self-love, and it can be deeply healing. Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have. Together with your counselor, you’ll sort out your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and goals in a safe, sensitive, and collaborative way.

Individual therapy is usually a combination of talk therapy, lifestyle changes, mindfulness techniques, and coordination of care with other professionals who may prescribe medication if appropriate. Individual counselors at my practice work from what we call a systemic perspective—meaning we explore the ways in which your inner life is influenced by your outer life, or most important, your closest relationships.

MARRIAGE COUNSELING

Marriage counseling requires a commitment to the relationship as well as a commitment to the work. The goal of couples therapy is to get right down to the hard work of restoring your marriage to health. Your therapist will help you process past emotional injuries, improve communication and understanding, deepen intimacy and sexual connection, and learn conflict resolution skills for a healthy and happy future.

Some marriage counselors are trained in a specific approach, such as the Gottman Method or Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). Other marriage counselors tailor their approach to your unique relationship and goals, using empirical research and their own experience to combine interventions that will help you repair and enrich your marriage. Choosing a licensed marriage and family therapist means you can be confident you’re working with someone specially trained to work with couples.

DISCERNMENT COUNSELING

Discernment counseling is a specific kind of short-term counseling for couples unsure about the future of their marriage. A metaphor I like to use is that discernment counseling is like  a conversations you’d have with a doctor before a major operation: You haven’t decided to do the procedure yet, and you want to think carefully through the risks and benefits, as well as what it might mean not to do the  procedure at all.

Discernment counseling focuses on helping each partner gain clarity and confidence about a direction for the future of the marriage, based on a deeper understanding of what has happened in the marriage. The goal is not to solve the marital problems—yet—but to decide what it would take to solve them and which of three paths to take going forward: (1) attempt to restore the marriage to health through couples therapy, (2) move toward separation or divorce, or (3) take a timeout from counseling and return to the status quo.

During each session, the therapist spends time with the couple and also spends time individually with each partner. At the end of each session, each partner decides whether to schedule another discernment session or whether a decision about what to do next has been reached.

MAKING DECISIONS

It’s not uncommon for couples to get caught up in whether they’re making a “right” or “wrong” decision. Using this kind of all-or-nothing thinking isn’t helpful—mistakes in decision making are unavoidable, but that doesn’t mean you got it wrong. Instead, think about these decisions as “course affirming” or “course correcting.” Did your decision to keep you on the same path or help you change paths? Do you need to alter your path after the decision, or is this the way you want to keep going?

It’s also not uncommon for couples to freeze when making these decisions, not because they’re afraid of making a wrong choice but because there are so many choices. Fear of missing out is a real thing, and it’s true that sometimes saying yes to one thing means saying no to another. But it’s not possible to do it all. We can’t be everything in one person to our partners, and we can’t be 100 percent at work and 100 percent at home. Instead, let’s aim for enough—for getting most of what we want most of the time.

PRACTICE THE 6 STEPS OF DECISION MAKING

All couples must solve problems and make decisions together as a team. Here is a six-step plan to help you make decisions effectively:

1. Define the problem to be solved or the situation that requires a decision. Be specific, thorough, and detailed. Include information about how this decision has been made in the past, why that solution isn’t a good fit this time, and the ways each of you is feeling torn or stuck or conflicted.
2. Make a list of all possible decisions or solutions. Get creative, think outside the box, and don’t censor any idea as too outlandish or unlikely.
3. For each possible decision, make a list of the factors involved. Financial cost? Time required? Emotional resources? The burden to execute?
4. For each possible decision, acknowledge what would be gained and what would be lost. What are the pros and cons? What are you saying yes to, and what are you saying no to?
5. Evaluate each possible decision from your different perspectives, as well as the different relationship roles you each embody. Which choice feels best to you, and which feels best to your partner? What would the “manager” decide? What would the “peacekeeper” choose? What would the “adventurer” decide?
6. Look over the lists and notes of the previous five steps. Does a decision emerge as the best option, one that you both agree on? If so, give it a try! Make a plan to put the decision in place. Keep digging—a decision will eventually emerge.

Conclusion

Thank you for downloading this book! I hope this book was able to help you discover new ways to develop a healthy marriage. As you know, for us to have a healthy marriage, we have to commit ourselves. Don’t just think about how to “fix your marriage.” Before considering this way, give yourself some time to think about your problems and insecurities and how to deal with them. To “fix” our marriages, it is necessary that we first fix ourselves. By accepting that the opposite sex thinks differently, we can start working towards having better communication. For example, if we focus on how to cherish our partners, we might act in specific ways that we think are appropriate. However, many times it turns out those actions are not sufficient or are not the best ones. So it is crucial to have open and efficient communication with our partners. When we are patient and willing to learn from our partners, we can achieve the highest level of confidence and intimacy.

A lot of times, we do things that will help our marriages, which is excellent, but more than that, we should endeavor to be consistent, doing those things over and over. If you fail to plan something, perhaps a weekly ritual, don’t give up! Start over and think about another idea of how to implement daily or weekly routines. Take some “alone time” and learn about yourself. Discover how you can overcome personal barriers and become a better person.

I wish you well and encourage you to start taking action. You can begin by changing or implementing small things. The important thing is to START on your journey to a healthy marriage.