Posts Tagged :

how to save my marriage

When Your Plan Hits a Wall
150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

Did Your Plan Hit A Wall?  What to do now...Your plan to save your marriage has hit a wall.

Maybe things were moving forward, or maybe they have been stalled from the beginning.  But your plan?  It hit the wall.

First, let me assure you that this is not unusual.  In fact, it is typical.  Most plans hit a wall before success.

Second, let me assure you that this does not mean you have failed, that your marriage has failed.

But let me warn you, when people hit the wall, many give up and walk away.  Many throw away their plan, their hopes, and their dreams.  Unnecessarily.

So let me say it again:  just because your plan has hit a wall does not mean your marriage can’t be saved.  It means your plan hit a wall.  Time to adjust and shift.  Time to process.  Time to find clarity.

But it doesn’t have to be time to quit.

In this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, I cover what it means when you hit the wall, why it happens, and how to get restarted — and not giving up!  Listen below.

RELATED RESOURCES
Book:  Marriage Fail Point – Why Marriages Fail and What To Do
You Need A Plan!
“I’ll Try Anything” Is NOT A Plan!
What “Space” Is About
Save The Marriage System

Love and Respect: An Interview with Emerson Eggerichs
150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

“What’s love got to do with it??” “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what that means to me!”  Tina Turner calls for love, and Aretha Franklin calls out for respect.  But what is the connection between love and respect?

Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, author of Love and RespectEmerson Eggerichs is the author of the book, Love and Respect.  As you can tell from the title, Emerson is addressing just that issue.

In his work with couples, Eggerichs kept noticing the cries for respect by men and the cries for love by women.  He realized that while we all need love and respect, men tend to need respect more than love, and women need love more than respect (generally speaking).

Here is the problem:  men show respect, which can feel unloving; and women show love, which can feel disrespectful.  In the end, couples feel unloved and disrespected, creating what Emerson refers to as the Crazy Cycle.  And in the process, the marriage keeps spiraling.

The good news is that the cycle can be changed.  Love and respect can be restored.  And intimacy can return.  But only when you understand the dynamics that are fueling the Crazy Cycle.

A while back, I had the opportunity to sit down with Emerson Eggerichs and discuss his ideas about love and respect.  While originally, it was for another program, this is important for you to hear.  In this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, I let you in on this important interview.

Listen below.

RELATED RESOURCES
Love and Respect Website
Love and Respect Book
Importance of Connection
Communication and Marriage

Why These Approaches Are Dangerous (2 to avoid)
150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

There are some good and some dangerous approaches to saving a marriage. I tell you about 2 dangerous approaches… and what to look for when searching for help.I just googled, “how to save your marriage.”  There were 607,000,000.  Over 1/2 a billion results! How do you sort through them?  How do you find a real approach, from someone who knows what they are doing?

It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.

And the problem is, some approaches do more harm than good.  And many times, you don’t even know who it is that is giving you the information.  What are their qualifications?  How do they even approach it?

I started my website in 1999 (THAT makes me feel old! — so last century!), before Google even existed.  And to be honest, there weren’t many places to look for stuff.  I remember when Google started.  That same search, “how to save your marriage,” might get a couple hundred results.  Still a lot. But far more manageable.

With all that info, you are likely to feel overwhelm.  Which means that some people will do absolutely nothing, not sure where to start.  Others will try to do absolutely everything… also not sure where to start, but thinking everything is better than nothing.  And others will stumble upon approaches that do more harm than good.  There are two that are particularly prevalent.  And at best, not helpful.

In this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, I give you 3 criteria to use in judging any information, and I dismantle 2 common (and dangerous) approaches to “saving” your marriage. Listen below.

RELATED RESOURCES
Reverse Psychology as an Approach
No Contact is Crap
Why I STILL Believe in Marriage
Why I do this Work
Therapy Problems
Save The Marriage System

The Differences Between Happy and Hurting Marriages
150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

What is the difference between a happy and a hurting marriage?  4 differences that don’t matter and 4 that do.Marriages start at the same place:  two people in love, ready to face the world together.  And most believe they have already beaten the odds.  Their love is “the real thing,” enduring and lasting.  It won’t fall apart like those other marriages.  They have already won.

Except they haven’t.

Some marriages keep on moving forward, resolute and solid, loving and supportive.  But many hit an inflection point. They go from happy to hurting.

And many times, they can’t find their way back… mostly because they don’t know what the difference was; what made the difference between happy and hurting.

Interestingly, most people name differences that don’t make a difference between happy and hurting.  What they assume makes a difference, doesn’t.

Instead, there are 4 differences that do matter.  And here is what is important:  they can be changed.  Once you understand the 4 differences between a hurting and happy marriage, you can shift toward happy.  They are learnable skills, once identified.

Listen below for the 4 differences that don’t matter and the 4 differences that do.  They make the difference between happy and hurting.

RELATED RESOURCES:
The Power of Commitment
The Importance of Connection
What About Communication?
The Save The Marriage System

Survival Rules for Your Marriage
150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

How to survive a marriage crisis; survival mindset and rules.Your marriage is in trouble.  You know you want to save your relationship, but you aren’t sure how.

Step #1 is surviving.

Confession:  I have an abiding interest in survival.  I’m the guy who reads all the scuba accident reports, the shark attack reports, and the mountaineering accident reports.

Why do those who survive make it through?  What makes a difference for them?

They followed, on purpose or by accident, “rules” of surviving.  Those rules can help you, too.

Your first task is to survive.  That gives you time to take more action.  Those actions are designed to rescue your relationship.  In fact, that is one rule I cover… being the rescuer.  Check it out in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast.

RELATED RESOURCES
Simplify It (series)
Anti-Fragile Marriage
Surviving Specific Situations (series)
Save The Marriage System

 

Focused On The Wrong Things?
150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

Are you focused on the right or wrong things in your efforts to save your marriage?  Most people focus on the wrong things — and stay stuck.  Focus on the 3 things I note in this podcast in order to save your marriage.At the beginning of a coaching session, my clients often tell me what they have been focused on in their marriage crisis.  Almost always, they are focusing on the wrong things.

And in the process, they are not focusing on the right things.

Where we focus is what gets our attention.  Focus on the wrong things, and the wrong things get our attention… our energy… and our investment.

That can head you right toward disaster and further discord.  And when you focus on the wrong things, trying harder does even more damage.

“Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction.”
Kenichi Ohmae

There are three places people often focus their attention that are not helpful, at best, and can be harmful at worst.  And there are three areas that need your focus, that need your attention.

Focus on the right areas to make progress in your marriage crisis.

RELATED RESOURCES
Why Connection Matters
3 Levels of Connection
Dealing with Infidelity
Save The Marriage System

Hope vs. Hopelessness
150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

A hopeless spouse can’t see a way forward, a way to save the marriage. But what IS hope? How can you hold onto hope, in the face of a struggling spouse? We discuss it in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast.Miranda asked me, “What do I do?  My spouse is hopeless that we can save our marriage. I’m losing hope, too.”

A couple of weeks ago, I did a training for members of my VIP Program, noting three barriers in the way of a spouse working on the marriage… along with how to respond.  One of those barriers is hopelessness.

But if a spouse is hopeless… how can you hold onto hope?

There is an equation of hope:  hope = goal + pathways to goal + action to get there.

If you noticed from the equation, a spouse (you) can choose hope, even when a spouse is hopeless.  Especially if you recognize that the hopeless spouse cannot see that goal… cannot see a way forward (a path)… and therefore, can’t see a way to take action.

There are traps at each of those three elements of hope… and if one is not present, it isn’t really hope.  So, let’s talk about how to grab each element, keep it in place, and keep moving forward.

Listen to the episode below.

RELATED RESOURCES
NEW— Book, Beyond the 3 Barriers — Covers hopelessness!

Save The Marriage System
VIP Virtual Coaching
Coaching Services
Moving Forward… One Way or the Other
Stuck in the Negative
The Fatal Triangle

Why It All Came Tumbling Down
150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

When a marriage comes crashing down, what happened to create the marriage crisis?  Probably more than you think… and longer than you think.“It suddenly fell apart,” Jenny told me.  As far as she could tell, everything had been great until… one day… her husband said, “our marriage is over.”  Before that, Jenny said, there had been no trouble.

Why did it all come tumbling down?

Rob told me that, sure, there had been some issues along the way.  But he didn’t know his wife was ready to leave… until “out of the blue, she moved out and said we were done!”

Why did it all come tumbling down?

George told me, “I just want us to get back to where we were… before the crisis.”

My response to George was, “Where you were got you to where you are.  You can’t just go back to there.  You need to build a new relationship!”

I told both Jenny and Rob that I very seriously doubted that the crisis was quite so “out of the blue.”  They just didn’t see it coming.

But brick by brick, piece by piece, their relationship was being pulled apart long before it all came tumbling down.  And it is very likely that both they and their spouses bore responsibility.

In this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, we explore the roots of trouble, so you can begin to consider why your marriage didn’t just start to crumble.

RELATED RESOURCES
Book:  Marriage Failpoint
Save The Marriage System
Connection and Marriage
Healing Disconnection
Change Yourself

How To Guarantee No Divorce
150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

Over the last episodes, I have been answering listener questions (you can submit your question by email – CLICK HERE).  In this episode, I respond to Susan.  She wants to guarantee that she does not get divorced.

How you can guarantee that there is no divorce… and what to do when you can’t do the guarantee.  Also, why you SHOULD even do anything.So, I reveal how you can guarantee that you won’t get divorced (you may not like my answer, but it is important).

And then, I discuss what to do if it is too late to get that guarantee.

More importantly, I discuss why people want that guarantee, and what to do about that.

Oh, and I even tell you the exact ingredients in your process to save your marriage.

Simple.  Not easy.  But powerful when understood and applied.

Looking for a guarantee?  Tune in to learn more.

RELATED RESOURCES
Why Try
Continuing When You are Frustrated
When You Want to Quit
You Need a Plan
3 Simple Steps
Save The Marriage System