April 2013

Every week, I have the privilege of working with a very talented group of Relationship Coaches.  They are on staff for one purpose:  to help you learn how to save your marriage.

But I get the benefit of their talent as we all learn from each other.  Since we are spread all over the map, our meetings are by phone.  And this past week, on that phone call, I got a gem of an insight I wanted to share with you.

Annette told us that she asked a client, “Are you committed to your relationship, or are you committed to your complaints?”

Let that sink in for a minute.

Where is your commitment?  Is it to being right, to hold your spouse’s perceived shortcomings, mistakes, missteps, and failures up for the world to see?  Or is it a commitment to building a loving marriage you both can treasure?

Here is a fairly universal truth — we all secretly believe that we are right, and our beliefs are true.  Oh sure, we may have some moments of doubt, but in the heat of a moment, we lead with our secret belief — not our humility.

This is true, even if you are working hard to save the marriage.  Even if you are here, looking for advice on how you can turn your marriage around, this is a question to ponder.

You see, over the years, I have heard from the spouse who is trying to save a marriage and I have heard from the spouse who wants out.  The difference between them is not a belief in their personal innocence and rightness, but that one still wants to move forward and the other does not.

I am blessed with a loving wife and a strong marriage.  Yet this still applies to me.  A few years back, my wife and I got into a “heated discussion.”  The content, like almost every other argument, is long lost to time.

During this particular discussion, we were in the midst of daily life in our house.  So, the argument would go for a few exchanges, then we had to get something done.  During one of the lulls, my wife had to go downstairs to take care of something.

Standing there in the kitchen, my mind kept playing out the discussion we were having, and a commitment grew in my mind about how right I was!

As that little scriptwriter in our mind often does, it created a script that I just knew would win the debate.  In my mind, my wife would see how right I was and how wrong she was.  So, against the better judgement of my neo-cortex, I followed to the basement.  I was just warming up to deliver my argument.  My wife turned and said “Before you say anything, if we are going to be together for our entire life, is what you are about to say going to help?”

I gulped down my words.  I thought about what she said, and apologized.  The argument ended there.

When I went to the basement, my commitment to my complaint was stronger than my commitment to our relationship.

Is that ever true for you?

Do you find yourself more committed to defending your beliefs than to defending your relationship.

Do you find yourself more committed to pointing out the “needed areas of improvement” in your spouse than you are to being in a loving relationship?

Do you find yourself more committed to scoring points and keeping score than to connecting and building connection?

Let me invite you to have a stronger commitment to your relationship than your commitment to your complaints.

I am in the process of trying to provide more resources to help people who want to know how to save a marriage.  So, I turned to the experts in that area:  you!  I sent out a request to some people by email, asking them to take a very short survey.

First, I was shocked in how many people jumped in to give me some ideas!  I offered nothing, other than a promise that I would work on developing more help.  And still, many people responded.

But second, in the process, my heart ached.  I asked for some ideas on what I might have missed and one reply really made me sad:  “You make us feel bad that we can’t save our marriage.”  Wow!  That one got me.  Every day, I work to help people to save their marriage, but I NEVER want someone to feel bad when that does not happen.

Marriage is one spot where you only partially have control.  The other person still holds a trump card.  As I have told many couples, staying married is like a vote — but one that requires unanimous support.  One vote to stay and one to end it will often end it.

In every state in the United States, it is possible to divorce, even if one person does not want it.  In fact, the “no fault” movement of a couple of decades ago made it easy to leave, even if one person still wants to fight for it.  Sure, it did allow many people to leave marriages of abuse or infidelity.  (Which, by the way, is not a “no fault.”)

But it also made it possible for one person to take action, and over the protests and efforts of the other, get divorced.

My intention, over the course of my professional life, has been to save as many unnecessary divorces as possible.  But more than that, it has been to build incredible marriages, strong enough to thrive in a fairly heartless world.

To that end, I have always tried to provide assistance and sources that will do just that:  save marriages and rebuild them.

I have never been so optimistic as to believe that EVERY marriage can be saved.  Only that MANY could be saved.

And many times, I receive an email asking “will MY marriage be saved?”  Because that really is the root of the question, isn’t it?  It doesn’t matter if many marriages can be saved.  The “rubber hits the road” with YOUR marriage.  And unfortunately, here is the truth:  I cannot predict, from this distance, whether your particular relationship is retrievable.  I do know that many use my principles and are successful in reestablishing a relationship, rebuilding a crumbling marriage.

So my question is this:  “do you want to try?”

There are few guarantees in life.  But you do have a choice in your attitude.  Will you be hopeful or hopeless?  Will you see your life plan as meaningful or meaningless?

For myself, I always tend to be hopeful that a relationship can be saved, and I find it meaningful for people to work on improving a relationship.  How about you?

I also recognize there are limits.  The limits are around what we can and cannot control.

You cannot control:Your spouse’s reaction.  Your spouse is going to react however he/she reacts, and there is no way we can control that.
The influence of family and friends.  Your spouse may find poor counsel with family and friends.  Those people may push your spouse to continue the process of disconnection.  You have no control over that.
Your spouse acting out or committing infidelity.  Sometimes, we all take responsibility for actions of another.  While I am clear with people that infidelity happens in disconnected relationships, that is not the same as being responsible for or causing the action.  A person, at some point, chooses to act out or commit adultery.  It is not in the control of the spouse.
Your spouse having an addiction.  I could go on for quite a while about this, but let me be clear:  the person who is acting out the addiction is 100% responsible for the addiction — and for ending the addiction.  The spouse is NOT responsible, nor do they cause the addiction.  But it can certainly derail the attempts to reconnect a relationship.
Your spouse’s mental health.  If you have a spouse with depression or anxiety, or a spouse who suffers from some other mental illness, it is not you causing it.  And you cannot make the other person get treatment (at least until there is a risk to life).  This is a statement of practicality, not philosophy.  People have to find their way to treatment when they are ready.  But again, it can make reconnecting very difficult.
Your spouse’s willingness to forgive.  This is a big one.  A marriage has to be partially built on a willingness to forgive, given the intimate nature of marriage.  People are just going to hurt each other when they live that close.  No way around it.  But sometimes, people misunderstand the nature of forgiveness and refuse to forgive (sadly, since that means they must continue to drag the pain around).

All of those pieces, you cannot control.  Your spouse has to find his/her own way through those issues.  They can certainly keep you from connecting, but you can do little but watch.

That said, there are some things you CAN control:Your own reaction.  This is not an absolute.  Sometimes, a reaction sneaks through that we cannot stop. (Thank goodness for apologies!)  But for the most part, we have control over how we react.  Have you ever noticed that there are some people that you will react in ways that you would NEVER react with some other person?  For instance, you might yell at a friend for something that would keep you silent with a police officer or a boss.  In other words, there are times when we pretend that we reacted because there was no option.  But there often is.
Your Boundaries and your Standards.  Boundaries are what you WILL NOT let someone else do to you.  For example, you may have a boundary that someone cannot yell at you, curse at you, hit you, push you, etc.  Standards are what you expect of yourself.  You may say you will be honest with other people, that you will treat people with respect, that you will forgive and move on, etc.  The danger is trying to put your standard on someone else or forgetting to hold your boundaries.  Nonetheless, you do have control over both.
Your own addictions and health.  Again, not an absolute.  Sometimes, our health is not in our control.  But whether we get help or not, and whether we address our issues or not, that is always in our control.
Taking care of yourself.  Yep, pretty much in your control.  If you eat poorly, rest too little, exercise too little, and forget to attend to your own needs, that is your issue, and in your control.  And you may notice that when people do not take care of and respect themselves, few others do.  So even in the midst of a marriage crisis, make it a priority to take care of yourself.
Focusing on a fuller life.  When we are in a crisis, we often become uni-dimensional — focused only on that one aspect.  Our life begins to become a one-track emphasis on a piece of life.  But life is about fullness and meaning.  It is about growing and developing.  So even if your marriage is in trouble, be sure you are multidimensional in your approach to life.

You are NOT your marriage crisis!

Your marriage is in crisis.  It may be a surprise or it may just be you have finally hit bottom after watching a slow and chronic decline.  But either way, you find yourself fighting for your marriage.

When “Anne” called, she was in the same spot.  Her husband dropped the news on her over the weekend.  She knew things weren’t great, but thought they were just in a slump.  She told me that on Friday, he seemed irritated and distant, but she just chalked it up to a bad day at work.

But by Saturday afternoon, it was clear something else was going on.  After some prodding and poking, he finally erupted with “I’m not happy!”  From there, the conversation quickly devolved into an argument.  And with that, her husband announced, “This is why I am done!  We always end up here!”

Where did the discussion go wrong?

Mistake #1 — Anne begged, cajoled, and argued, in an attempt to change her husband’s mind.  She was sure that if she could just get him to “see the light,” he would decide to hang in there and work on it.

Instead, Anne proved his point.  She turned into her worst side.  Her controlling tendencies emerged.  And in the process, she tried to use words to “convince,” but they ended up feeling more like attacks and “crazy talk.”

Mistake #2 — Anne threatened.  She threatened to take the children, take the house, take the money, and tell everyone about her husband’s “true side.”

That was another leap further into crisis.  Now, not only was her husband unhappy, he was also feeling threatened.  Whenever anyone feels threatened, we tend to defend ourselves.  And when we defend ourselves, we armor ourselves.  Any warm emotions have to be hidden and put away.  What emerges instead, is anger and counter-threat.

To add insult to injury, since divorce is a legal process, the many threats Anne leveled, she could not even fulfill.  But in her blind fear, she lashed out.

Mistake #3 — Anne manipulated.  Somewhere on the internet, on a site about how to save your marriage, Anne read about using “reverse psychology.”  So, Anne tried that.  For a second, her husband was speechless — just long enough for Anne to think she had made some leeway.  Then, she discovered that his speechlessness was his confusion and frustration that Anne was not really in the conversation.  She was still working to control the situation — and therefore, him.

That was, as we say in the South, “gas on the fire.”  In a matter of 24 hours, Anne had managed to watch her husband go from being unhappy to living in an apartment across town.  In fact, in that same period, he had also made it very clear that any conversation with Anne was off-limits until she “stopped acting that way.”

Does any of this sound familiar?  Perhaps you have made the same mistakes.  Perhaps you find yourself still stuck.

Here is the overarching mistake that Anne made:  she was reacting out of fear.  Whenever we move from fear, we are in deep trouble.  Almost always, our reaction makes things worse.  In a panic, our insecure and threatened brain takes over, and off we run into deeper trouble.

Fear is never the best lead for our reaction.  But we have to have an alternative.  You want to make a plan on how you are going to rebuild your marriage.  You do NOT want to be running on emotion.  It will end up just like Anne.  Now, Anne and I are working on her plan, trying to rebuild the relationship 1 step at a time.  While Anne made mistakes and raised the barrier to saving her marriage, I think we can work through it — IF she can stop giving into her fear.  Notice, I did not say she needed to stop being afraid.

It is normal to have the emotions.  It is simply not helpful to react from that emotional spot.  As my wife tells her clients, “Consult your plan, not your emotions.”

Ready to make a plan?  Click here to get the resources you need to know how to save your marriage.