In fact, this is the one piece of information I try to get into every person I see BEFORE they get married.  And it is my central goal of working on marriages.

Miss this one, and you will always be caught in malnourished and hobbled relationship.

Ready?  Marriage is about building a WE.  It is about becoming a solid team, always having each other’s back, and always in each other’s corner.

WE.  Get there, and you will have a successful marriage.  Notice, I did not say you would have a trouble-free marriage.  Only that you would have a successful marriage.

Every single marriage in the world has challenges and difficult times. The question is really about how you approach the difficulties, not whether you have them.

Being a WE is what gets you through the difficulties.

First, let’s talk about what this does NOT mean.  This is not being in a permanent “mind-meld” with the other person — liking the same things, wanting the same things, thinking the same things, completing each other’s sentences, blah, blah, blah.

Second, it is not giving up yourself for the other person, or the other person giving him- or herself up for you.

It is about two people deciding — committing — to being a team, a unit, a new entity.  It is about each supporting the other, but also looking out for what is best for BOTH, for “the whole.”

How close to that are you today?

• Do you find yourselves in power struggles?
• Do you argue about money, sex, parenting, and other central issues?
• Do those arguments often end with little-to-no movement?
• Do you feel like you are in a stalemate?
• Do you both constantly keep saying (silently or out loud) “What about me?”
• Do you feel like you are headed in different directions?
• Do you feel the need to disagree or argue your point, even when you mostly or completely agree?

The more you answered “yes” to the above the more you can be sure you have not “made the leap” to being a WE.

Or perhaps you can answer this one question:

• Do I feel more alone than I want to in this relationship?

If that is “yes,” then you know that you are not quite there.
But that doesn’t mean it is your fault!  Quite the opposite.  Unfortunately, our culture does a very bad job in preparing people for marriage.

In other words, nobody told you the goal of marriage was to build a WE, and if they did, they probably didn’t tell you

• a) how to do it, and
• b) how subtle it can be.

Some couples actually make it there, almost by accident.  Others seem to struggle against it, refusing to see the obvious need to get there.

So, let me make a blanket statement:  I have never, in well over 20 years of working with couples, seen a couple who made it to WE end in divorce.  But I have seen, repeatedly, when a couple does not get there, the relationship at least deteriorates over time, often ending.

There are several reasons why people don’t make it to WE.  Quickly, let’s look at why people don’t get there.

Lack of understanding that this is the goal.
This is where our culture has failed us.  We have done a poor job, as a society, of letting peope know this is even what marriage is about.  Thus nearly 50% of marriages end.

Fear of a loss of individuality.
While this is not what happens, since there is so poor of an understanding, people fear this.  Again, this is merely a misunderstanding of what it means to be a WE.

Caught in a Fear/Anger cycle.
So, if you don’t know this is the goal, and you get caught in the ensuing power struggles, over time, the anger builds.  And anger is really a secondary response to fear.  The fear is that you will not get what you need, which triggers a very primitive response, which only leads to more power struggle, more fear, more anger.

Perceptions and Misperceptions of each other.
And once you have slipped into the power struggle, and the anger/fear cycle, you begin to justify the situation.  We all misperceive the other person.  We begin to only see the shortcomings, the lack of investment, etc.  At that point, the perception is that the other person is not on your side.

Which raises the question, “How do you get there?  How do you become a WE?”

Let me assure you it is possible, and it is even possible if one of you is resistant to getting there.

And let me assure you that we humans are actually designed for this.  We are wired to be in relationship, to create that level of relating.

So, what we really have to do is get ourselves out of our own way and let what should happen actually happen — become a WE!

I tackle this in detail in my Save The Marriage System (learn more by CLICKING HERE), but let’s talk a little about how to get there.

Starting Points:

• Do not try to address WE with your spouse.
• Work on YOUR concept of WE.
• Until you understand WE as a concept, you cannot expect your spouse to accept it.

Specific Steps To Being a WE:

Step 1  

• Make a careful examination of the places that you think “you/me” instead of WE.
• Remind yourself that you are part of a WE.
• Ask yourself this, “Where do I need to let my spouse in MY world?”

Step 2

• Train yourself to think in terms of “we” and “us,” not “you” or “me.”
• Whenever there is a decision, ask the magic question:  What is best for US?
• This is a “magic question” because the answer is more creative than “what is best for me” or “what is best for you.”
• It forces you to move to WE.

Step 3

• Accept YOUR FULL RESPONSIBILITY to be a WE, regardless of your spouse’s outlook or actions.
• Refuse to be lured into an “if you don’t, I won’t” approach.
• Invite your spouse into WE by your actions, not your expectations.

Now, time to get started!  Go work on creating the WE you need in order for your marriage to survive and thrive!

Ready to find out exactly how to save your marriage?  Visit http://www.SaveTheMarriage.com

This morning, the voice on the phone said “Help! I am desperate! I don’t have time to go through all your material. Just tell me, what can I do RIGHT NOW to save my marriage?”

No, I didn’t laugh. Instead, I was sad. I always am sad when I hear about marriages in such deep trouble. But I am just as sad by the attitude that says “there has to be just ONE thing I can do to turn this around.”

Bad news: there isn’t.

Good news: there are plenty of things you CAN do.

Which led me to think: what can I do to get you some actionable information RIGHT NOW. Not one thing, but what if I can point you in the right direction with a number of small things?

Small things, added together, grow to large things. And large things can make the difference.

As Jack Canfield states, if you even take 5 whacks at a tree every day, no matter the size, one day it will fall.

With that, I decided that I would start a new series: 10 Rules For Saving Your Marriage.

These are rules I have gathered in the last quarter-century of working with couples. They apply to every situation — sometimes crucially and sometimes just enforcing the others. Violate any of the rules, though, and you will see your efforts to be limited, if not useless.

With that, let’s get working to save your marriage — not with ONE thing, but 10!

Stay tuned!

If you want to save your marriage, CLICK HERE and get started with the whole system!

Here is what I mean:  a solid marriage is created by two people.  However, one person can choose to end it for any number of reasons.  Sometimes, the reason is good.  For example, someone may choose to leave an abusive relationship.  Or someone may decide that being married to an addicted person is hurting them too much to stay.

But many times, people end marriages for the wrong reasons:  they feel unloved or unaccepted, they think somewhere else or someone else is better, or they think that they have lost love.

These are all issues that can be addressed and solved, and once it is solved, the marriage can even be stronger!

But many people are unaware of another solution.  And sometimes, people want to take the “easy way out.”  I put that in quotes because in the end, divorce is no easy way out.  It just pretends to be.

Marriage takes effort.  Marriage takes knowledge.  Marriage takes two people willing to let down their defenses, and to join together as a team.

Can every marriage be saved?  No.  But can YOUR marriage be saved?  You won’t know until you give it a try.  Learn what you need to in order to save your marriage here.

Here’s the thing:  for years, I have been a trail runner.  I love being in the woods, seeing the changing seasons, and running with my Yellow Lab, Sunny.  We have  a blast!

But then, winter hit.  It was cold, but worse, it was wet — very wet!  And it never stayed cold enough to freeze the ground.  And it seemed that on every running day, it rained.  Well, as much as I love running, I am not so fond of bathing my 110 pound dog. . . and he is not so fond of being bathed!

End result?  I kept putting off another run. . . until suddenly a few months had passed and I had not hit the trails.  The end result for me?  I got out of shape.

So, fast-forward to last week.  I decided enough was enough, and I started exercising again.  I got a plan, and I started on it.  I knew there would be a price. . . pain and discomfort.  Sure enough, the next morning after day one, I was a bit sore.  By that night, I hurt! 

But guess what I did on day 2?  I exercised.  Day 3?  New muscle pain.  I exercised.  Day 4, I had to get up an hour earlier to get in my exercise, but I did.  Same thing on day 5, 6, and 7.  In fact, that is my intention.  To get up an hour earlier, if necessary, and get in my exercise time.

I have to admit — when the alarm goes off, I have to argue with myself.  The bed is warm, the house is quiet, and I could easily grab another hour of sleep. . . but I don’t.  Because I made a commitment to myself, and I intend on keeping it.  As my wife reminds me, “consult your plan, not your feelings.”

So. . . what, you might wonder, does this have to do with your marriage (and saving it)?

Most people who come to me have not taken the best care of their marriage relationship.  Perhaps life got in the way — or fear, or anxiety, or anger, or just not realizing you needed to.

The marriage got “flabby,” out of shape, inflexible, and weak.  Sound familiar?

So, you decide to get that marriage back into shape.  Guess what?  It is not going to be easy.  You will feel pain in places you didn’t know you had.  You will discover things about yourself, your spouse, and your relationship, that you never knew before.

Oh, and did I say that after a week of exercising, I am not yet in peak shape?  I know — I looked in the mirror!  Frustrating as it may be, once you get out of shape, it takes both effort and time (in fact, sustained effort over time) to get to where you want to be).

Same is true for your relationship.  It takes time and effort.  It means refusing to get discouraged.  It requires you to make a plan, then stick with it, regardless of how you are feeling!  Remember, “consult your plan, not your feelings.”

When it doesn’t feel like you are making headway.  When another obstacle gets in your way.  When you just can’t quite get there.  That is when you dig in, keep getting up, and keep moving forward.

So, to quickly recap:

1)  This ain’t easy work.

2)  But make a plan.

3)  Stick with it:  “Consult your plan, not your feelings.”

4)  Reap the benefits.

Now, a reality check:  sometimes, people get so out of shape — let their bodies get to such a point of disrepair — that exercise can be deadly.

Unfortunately, that is sometimes true in a marriage.  Sometimes, the relationship has deteriorated too far.  The damage is too great.  The marriage might finally heave a final breath.  The marriage might end.

Problem is, you can never tell whether this is the case or not.  Some people who look like they are on the verge of death begin exercising and come back to life.  The same is true for marriages.

How can you tell?  Try getting your relationship back to life.  The worst thing that happens is you look in the mirror and say “I did my best.”  But the best thing that could happen?  You could save your marriage!

The instructions were simple: touch each others’ hand to the table as many times as possible in 60 seconds.

For the next minute, everyone in the room engaged in a strenuous match of arm wrestling. Few people got their count above 10, and that was mostly because of a mismatch in size and strength!

Then, the leaders pulled out a table and put their hands in position, but they cooperated! Each took turns having their hands hit to the table, and they were able to get over 90 touches in! They had given us the directions, but we were already poised to arm wrestle!

Now, back to saving marriages. When a spouse decides that he or she wants out, a tug-of-war can be set up. Our natural tendency is to pull in the opposite direction. In other words, they pull away, we pull toward the relationship!

So, this week, one woman told me how hard she was working to save her marriage. She also told me her husband had already had not one, not two, but three affairs! I suspect there were others! I told the woman that she needed to pause for a moment, and instead of trying to figure out how to save the marriage, she needed to ponder another question. She needed to decide on whether she could continue in a marriage with a philanderer. She suddenly realized that she could not do that.

The very next day, a woman started telling me about all her attempts to save her marriage, then noted the affair and abuse she had suffered through with her husband. Again, I got her to pause in her marriage-saving strategy and ask whether she wanted to have the marriage she was in. She is still thinking.

My point is this: are you just trying to save a marriage, or do you want that marriage? I am all about saving marriages, but I am also about having a marriage you want to have. Don’t get caught up in saving a marriage, and fail to see that if you did save it, you wouldn’t want it! Instead, focus on saving a marriage AND making it a marriage you can treasure!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

I had to chuckle. Marriage is the most intense relationship that any two adults will have in their life. There’s no way around it. Two people living together that intensely, making decisions together, having sex together, making decisions together, and doing everything else that married couple do are going to have difficulties. No way around it.

I turned to him and said “why do you say that?” He told me he just figured that marriages should just work. They shouldn’t be hard work, and when there are problems, they should just be able to be solved instantly. Now, I don’t generally laugh at my client, but it was all I could do to hold back the laughter, and only let out a chuckle. “You have got to be kidding,” I said. “Marriage is tough, whether it is in good times or bad, marriage is tough.”

I continued on for a second, “every single marriage has problems, the question is whether you work through them out or not. It is not a question of whether you will have problems.” You see, I really believe that every marriage is destined to have difficulty. That is just the way it is. Statistically speaking, half of those couples will choose not to work on their problems. About half will find a way to deal with the problems. That does not mean that there were no problems, only that they discovered how to deal with the problem.

“Come with me,” I said my client. I walked my client to the window. We looked out onto the parking lot. I pointed to car and said “is that yours?” “Yes,” he said, “that’s my car. Looks pretty nice doesn’t it?” I had to admit, it with a pretty nice car. It looked like it was well taken care of. I asked, “did you just grab the car, or did you do some research? Did you, when you were getting ready to buy it, maybe buy a car magazine? Did you look up the price on the Internet, maybe even did you research on what other people thought about the car?”

“Yes, I sure did! I spent months looking at my options. I probably went to the dealer like 10 times.” He chuckled, “my wife was tired of hearing about that car.” So then I asked, “have you had any problems with the car?” My client thought for a second. “Well, yes. It made some funny noises.”

“What did you do?” I asked. He responded, “first, I looked it up on the Internet. Then, I bought a book about the model of car I had. I found out that it was a fairly common problem, and it only needed a little bit of tightening of a couple of bolts to stop it.” I continued, “and did you do it yourself? Or did you take it to the dealer?”

“I took it to the dealer. They are the experts on this.” “So, you didn’t sell the car?” I pushed him. “No. It was just a little problem.” I pushed a little harder, “I’ll bet you would have had bigger problems if you hadn’t fixed it, and let it go on and on.”

“Probably so… Doc, is this about my car or about my marriage?” He had me. He knew I was really talking about his marriage. “How long have you been having problems?” I asked. He thought for a second, then said, “probably four or five years. But we had some of the same problems even before we got married.”

“Did you get a book about marriage? Did you talk to a therapist? Did you go to a seminar? Did you do anything that might address the issues?” I asked. I knew I had him. Just like most people, he had a problem in his relationship, but he didn’t seek good advice. In fact, as far as I can tell, the only people he talked to were his drinking buddies. Not the best place to go for marriage advice.

Marriage is tough. It’s tough because it requires us to set ourselves and our ego aside for the betterment of both of us. In other words, we have to get outside of ourselves, and look at the greater good of both people. That does not mean that one person has to give up everything. But it does mean that it takes looking at the good of the relationship when making decisions.

Someone once said, “You can either be right. Or you can be happy, but you can’t be both.” This is especially true in marriage. If you insist on being right, you both will be miserable. Choose to be happy. And when there is a problem, recognize that is normal, then seek out some help in resolving it.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

You see, they were caught in “ME mode.”What I mean by that is they were not even able to see outside of themselves. They were not able to see how they were getting in the way of the relationship. Each one pointing the finger at the other. In fact, every conversation quickly went back to “what’s wrong with you.”

I couldn’t see how they could make any changes because they were so caught up in seeing why the other person was wrong. They were never able to see why they were wrong. What a catastrophe! I couldn’t believe that we couldn’t go even 30 seconds without one pointing the finger at the other end telling me how right he or she was and how wrong the other person was!

You see, even therapist get frustrated sometimes! I played referee for an entire hour! At the end of the time, I suggested that each one needed to decide whether they wanted to really make any changes, or just point out the faults of the other person.

Sadly, this couple could probably fix their marriage with little effort… IF they were willing to see that each one had fault. I just needed a little room. I didn’t need any major changes. All that needed to happen was for one or the other to decide that it was not just the other person’s fault.

So why do we drive each other crazy? Why are marriages so difficult? Because we are rarely honest with our spouse. More than that, we are rarely honest with ourselves. Over time, everyone of us builds up resentments. Over time, few of us share our resentments. Each one may be very small, but if you add them up, you’ve created a tinderbox that leads to marital distress, frustration, and ignited of anger.

I am not suggesting that we have to tell our spouse everything that is on our mind. In fact, that would be quite destructive to the relationship. However, we often refuse to even tell the few things that could make a real difference in our marriage. In this case, the man simply wanted to feel like he was liked. Oddly, his wife did like him. She just didn’t express it in ways that he recognized. Tragic!

For her side, she kept waiting for him to tell her exactly what he was upset about. Why didn’t he? Because in his family, the rule of thumb was to not fight, not argue, and not tell what you wanted. Her family? They fought it out, argued it out, and told you exactly what they wanted.

Two different families, two different roles. And spouses the didn’t talk about it. In fact, didn’t even recognize it. Now, a marriage is about to end because both people think they are correct, and are definite that the other is wrong.

My advice? First, couples need to get in the habit of talking about the little difficulties. We wait until they build up, they suddenly become very personal, very painful, and almost always intractable.

Second, we humans are a lot like animals. At least in how we train each other. If behavior gives us something that we want, we keep doing it! For example, my dog is one big Labrador retriever. His head can easily rest on our table. Every now and then, my son lets a piece of cereal fall out of his bowl and onto his placemat. It only took a couple of times for my dog to realize that he got a treat as soon as my son left the table. Now, it is very hard to keep my dog away from the table.

When we humans get rewarded for “bad behavior,” in other words, when our painful actions towards others gets rewarded, we tend to repeat the behavior, even if it hurts the other person. In fact, we often fail to see that it hurts the other person.

Couples train each other in what behavior works and what behavior doesn’t work. Be careful in how you train your spouse. For example, with the couple I saw yesterday, when she pouted, he came to the rescue. But the difference between pouting and looking angry is very slight. Over time, her pout began to look like anger to him. From then on, she was pouting for attention, and he was feeling rejected.

Would either believe me if I told them about this? After about an hour of trying to convince them, I can tell you that neither one will believe what I’m saying. They have already made up their minds.

Third, one thing that is often missing in a marriage is our attempt to not just understand but to accept our spouse. All of us have our faults, and when we forget that, our spouse has a hard time living up to our expectations. Suddenly, all we can see are their faults.

So, the threat is in expecting perfection in our spouse, or seeing only fault. So here’s the conundrum: we want to be accepted for who we are, but we have a hard time offering that to our spouse. “ME mode”is probably the most destructive pattern in any marriage. When we get caught up in ourselves, we forget the other. Marriage is all about WE. Remember that, and you have increased the likelihood of success in your marriage a hundredfold.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

Here is an email I got yesterday (just one of about 100) about the video:

You wanted feedback? Well here is some:

My marriage has been in a state of crisis for almost a year, and I am trying to put it back together with a psychologist, who is copied.

I think your videos are freakin’ GREAT. I am an architect and I make decisions about how developers should spend millions of dollars based on building codes, market conditions, aesthetics, engineering considerations, etc., and I think I know a lot. But these videos are truly eye-opening, and may help me save my marriage, and the futures of 4 innocent young girls. Keep up the great work!

That was from Phil S.

Take a look! No obligation, no signup. Just go here and it will load and play.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.