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June 2013

Save Your Marriage: End Limiting Beliefs
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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“What can I do?,” cried Sharon, “I can’t do anything!  I don’t even know where to start!  I want to save my marriage, but he refuses to even think about it.”  And with that, Sharon launched into a discussion that lasted at least 25 minutes, telling me why nothing could be done, why her marriage was a lost cause, and how she was useless.

After several attempts to slow down the avalanche of hopelessness, I finally got Sharon’s attention:  “Okay, so there is nothing you can do.  This is helpless.  And your marriage is over.  Is that correct?,” I asked.  Sharon, looking out through tearful eyes, blurted “Yes!  It is useless!”

“Then why are you here?,” I implored.  “You know I work to help people save their marriages.  So my guess is you have some hope.”

“Hope, no.  Maybe wishful thinking,” Sharon replied.

“Well,” I noted, “your first problem IS your thinking, but it is not particularly wishful.  You already have placed limits on yourself.  You have very limiting beliefs.  And that is your first problem.”

Sharon had no idea what a limiting belief was, and had less understanding on what it mattered.  So I explained.

save your marriageWhat are Limiting Beliefs?

Below our conscious thinking, we have a built in group of beliefs that actually form and create our thoughts.  They are filters that allow us to see the world in certain ways and blind us to seeing the world in other ways.  Our built-in beliefs flavor our daily life, our thoughts, and our actions in ways that we are only slightly aware.

These beliefs can be aspirational or fearful.  They can be freeing or restraining.  Some beliefs show possibilities and some show limitations.  Most are only partially correct or entirely false.  Your beliefs about how to save your marriage are usually limiting.

Our fearful beliefs are powerful, and dangerous, for one important reason:  they operate invisibly — at least until we identify and name them.  These same beliefs lose their power when daylight is cast upon them.  When they can be examined, they evaporate.

Aspirational beliefs, on the other hand, grow stronger by being seen in the light of day.  They begin to move us in stronger and more powerful ways when they are understood and embraced.

So bringing fearful beliefs into the open destroys them and bringing aspirational beliefs into the open strengthens them.

Which raises the question of why we don’t bring them into the open more often?  First, many people fail to notice these beliefs in operation.  Second, we have to poke around a bit in areas that make us fearful.

But if you want to save your marriage, you need to examine those fearful beliefs and let them go.  They do not serve you!

Think of the limiting beliefs as chains that keep you stuck to the ground, bound to one place.  Think of your aspirational beliefs as freeing — cutting the chains to allow you to fly!  They allow you to shift to new places and new possibilities.

Where Do Limiting Beliefs Originate?

Our limiting beliefs are built over a lifetime.  It is a result of what we witnessed with our caretakers, how we were loved and cared for, how our siblings and friends related to us and us to them, and how other relationships in our lives have progressed.

Here is the interesting thing, and very important to know:  Our Aspirational Beliefs and our Limiting Beliefs (fear-based) are mirror images of each other!

What you most hope for, and what you most fear — mirror images.  You may, for example, hope for a loving and caring, well-connected marriage.  What you fear, then, is a marriage that is unloving, uncaring and disconnected.

This next point is equally important:  when that Limiting Belief is made conscious and examined, the Aspirational Belief grows and the Limiting Belief dims.  It is like the negative side of the mirror steams over and cannot be seen anymore.

Why Limiting Beliefs Can Stop Your Attempts To Save Your Marriage

If you want to save your marriage, you need to be much more clear about your limiting beliefs.  For example, if your limiting belief is that someone cannot truly love you, you will unconsciously rebuff the attempts of somebody trying to love you.  Over time, the other person will tire of trying to prove his/her love.  This makes it even harder to save your marriage, as your spouse has become frustrated with the process.

Or what if you say you want to save your marriage, but you do not believe your marriage can be saved.  Your actions to save your marriage will be short-lived.  You will take some action to save your marriage, become frustrated, reinforce your belief, and give up on your efforts to save your marriage.

In other words, your limiting beliefs will sabotage both attaining the marriage you want, then work against your efforts to save your marriage.

The next posts will point to some common limiting beliefs.

But now it is your turn.  What do YOU see as YOUR limiting beliefs?

The Last Time. . .
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
By:

Well, the school year has ended.  My son has completed his Sophomore year of high school.  Next week, he will cross another growth threshold.  He will get his drivers license.

I realized that it was too late.  I missed the last time.  Do you know that feeling?  That realization that you just passed a threshold, and did something for the last time?

What I have realized, time and again, is I pass those points and don’t even realize it until the moment has already passed.  It seems I didn’t even have a chance to savor it.  It passed, and I didn’t see it coming.

The threshold I am talking about, the last time, is not a big one.  Life seems to be made up of lots of little last times (and first times, too).  For many, it would mean little.  But I will miss it.

For the majority of my children’s school careers, I have had the pleasure of taking them to school.  I got to spend a few minutes in the car on the way to school, and got to see them off to the start of their day.

This past year, my daughter left for college.  So after a year of being off the school drop-off duty, I was back on this year.  Just my son and me, and since we live close to school, not even a long trip.

My daughter returned from college, and for the last few days of the school year, I took him to school, then delivered her to her summer job.

That’s when I realized:  my last time to take him to school, just him and me, had passed.  No celebration, no fanfare — he probably didn’t even notice it.  But I did.  Yet another point that I realize that life is shifting and changing.  Next year, he will drive himself.  One more place where a parent moves into obsolescence.

This is not to say that the change is a bad thing.  My son is growing up.  He is branching into the world.  But that is still a loss for me.

So what, you might wonder, does this have to do with someone working to save your marriage?

Sometimes, life races by.  We get desperate to do something out there, in the future.  And in the desperation to get somewhere, we miss where we are.  We lose the daily moments that make life wonderful.

Work on saving your marriage, but remember to savor the moment.  Focus on where you are and what you are doing.  We never know when we are doing something for the last time.  So we can either savor the moment or regret the moments we missed.

A single focus can be a very dangerous thing.  And nothing is more representative of that than trying to save a marriage.  It can feel so overwhelming and can occupy all of your thoughts, if you let it.

But there is more to life than any single element.  Even your marriage.

One of my clients for years was abandoned and left by her husband almost 30 years ago.  She spent the next few years in a depressed and alcohol-numbed trance.  Her three children grew up during those days.  And she missed many of those last times (and first times, and lots of other time) tied to a crisis that had passed, but kept her captive.

In the end, she gave up the majority of her life for the grief of a single event.  She spent years trying to find a way to win him back, then spent years regretting what she should have done to keep him, then spent years loathing the person she became.

That process robbed her of a life.  More accurately, she robbed herself of a life.  She tied herself to a single event, and reduced herself to that one point in her life.  The promise of more for herself and her children was destroyed by actions of which she had no control, then choices that were hers to control.

Realizing it or not, she made choices to stay connected to an event, a hurt.  She could never let it go.

Strangely, we humans go in two different directions.  Sometimes, we act as if this is all just a dress rehearsal.  We act as if we are preparing to get started, and in the meantime, we lose out on living.  Others act as if some single event makes or breaks our life.  We get so focused on that one event, we lose out on living.

Life is made up of savoring the moments, whatever they are, as they come.  We never know when they will be the last.

Save Your Marriage In 3 Simple Steps
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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“So, how DO you save your marriage?” asked the frustrated voice on the other end of the call.  “Eric” had been working to save his marriage for some time.  And it seemed that no matter where he looked, all he saw was conflicting advice:  “fix your communication,” “make her jealous,” “use reverse psychology,” and lots of other “gems” out there.  But it left Eric no closer to saving his marriage than when he started.  “Why is it so hard?,” wondered Eric.  I had to agree.  Since I created SaveTheMarriage.com, see all the information out there.  It is almost too much.  Pretty quickly, you get overwhelmed and feel like giving up.

But just for a moment, imagine that it is not a difficult process.  In fact, imagine for a moment that the process is actually quite simple.  Like many things, we tend to complicate things.  Often, unnecessarily.  In fact, almost always unnecessarily.

In my Save The Marriage System, I spend a good bit of time helping people to create a plan.  Once they have a plan, I suggest they use the “3 C’s” to stay on-target.

The 3 C’s of Working Your Plan To Save Your Marriage

C-alm

Staying calm is critical.  Fear is the enemy of effective efforts.  In fact, when acting from a point of fear, the process is almost doomed from the start.  But moving from a calm place changes everything.

But staying calm can be a challenge.  So I suggest you carefully follow a plan of self-care.  Eat well, exercise, and find a trusted person to share your pain.  Resist responding from hurt, fear, and anger. (I cover this in the Save The Marriage System.)

C-onstant

Equally important is to remain constant in your efforts.  This means that you are continuing your efforts on a regular basis.  In other words, reaching out to connect on a frequent (but not too frequent) basis.  Too frequent is a symptom of anxiety.  It is usually caused when someone is reaching out to connect out of fear — desperate to hear back and get reassurance from a spouse that is unwilling to respond or reassure.

(I teach how to reach out without the feel of desperation in the Save The Marriage System.)

C-onsistent

Finally, as you are calmly and constantly reaching out to connect, you want to make sure you are consistent.

Remember all of that conflicting advice?  Here is where it is truly dangerous.  If you keep shifting your approach, you will only end up confusing your spouse, all while trying to save your marriage.  Yep, in the effort to save your relationship, you create more confusion.

How?  By shifting from one approach to another.  One moment, you are working to connect.  The next, you are working to make your spouse jealous.  Or one moment, you are sending one way texts (a technique I teach in my Save Your Marriage System.)  Then you shift to attempting to get a response.  Or you write a “marriage path” letter, taking your share of the responsibility, and then start blaming your spouse (the letter is another part of the System.)

Those 3 C’s are about how you go about your plan — how to carry out your plan to save your marriage.

But what, exactly, are you doing?  Well, that is what is much more simple than people make it out to be.

So here are the 3 steps.

3 Steps To Save Your Marriage3 C’s Of Saving Your Marriage

C-onnect

The simple truth is that marriages become stressed and troubled by a lack of connection.  We humans are designed for connection.  And when we do not get the connection we need, we feel like we are starving for attention.

And the longer the disconnection goes on, the more a relationship suffers.  A feeling of distance becomes a feeling of disdain.  All from disconnection.

But the path back is simply rebuilding the connection.  In fact, the heart of reviving the relationship is just that:  reconnection.

Problem is, you are likely out of practice, perhaps a bit angry, and feeling hurt, yourself.  None of that leaves you wanting to reconnect.  Yet this is the way out of the mess.  Connection revives the marriage.  Continued disconnection starves and strangles the marriage.

It is about this point in my conversations when people say “what about me?  Why doesn’t my spouse have to reconnect with me?”

The answer I give is far more pragmatic than fair:  “You are the one that is with me, and who is working on saving the marriage.  So for right now, focus on reconnecting.  When you reconnect, your spouse will eventually follow.”

If you are working to save your marriage, at least for the time-being, you have to set aside your own wishes and hopes for connection coming your way.  Focus on providing connection.  Practically speaking, someone has to take action.  Take that on as your task.

C-hange Yourself

Just like Eric, on the other end of the line, you are somebody I do not know.  So whatever I say, please do not take it personally.  Instead, it is based on nearly 1/4 of a century of helping couples.  I know from experience what needs to happen, even if I don’t know you.

So, step 2 in saving your marriage is change yourself.  Grow and develop into a higher caliber person. . . regardless of where you are now.

Let’s be honest:  we all have places where we can improve and grow.  We all have places where we are not maximizing our potential, where we are not “showing up.”

Something happens to all of us when we “settle down.”  We stop growing and developing.  And as we do this, we begin to lose ground.  Eventually, if someone is not careful, the attractiveness that our spouse once saw, begins to wane.  We slowly move toward a state of stagnation.

It is at about this time that people start screaming, “but why should I have to keep trying to attract my spouse?  Why can’t my spouse just love me?”  Again, a good philosophical question.  But I am a practical man.  Practically speaking, if you are trying to save your marriage, you want to become more and more attractive to your spouse — not less.  Simple pragmatism.

Unfortunately, our philosophical side can kick and scream and demand that “it’s not fair.”  But then, for a moment, notice that the philosophical side is really just that child’s voice crying out about unfairness.  And as my parents used to tell me, “life’s not fair.”

So, back to the task.  In the process to save your marriage, you will want to change yourself.  Grow.  Develop.  Become more of what you know you need to become.  In the end, you will be more satisfied with life.  And the more satisfied you are, the better your chances of saving the marriage.  You become, in the process, more attractive to your spouse and to yourself.

Step 2 in saving your marriage is Change Yourself.

C-reate A New Path

Marriages fail because couples disconnected.  Marriages fail because individuals stop growing.  And finally, marriages fail because the individuals that make up the couple never knew where they were headed.

So the final step is to create a new path.  Imagine where your marriage could head, and what your marriage could be.  Don’t just ponder it for a moment, but really consider it.

I deeply believe we do a great disservice to couples when they marry.  We spend lots of money, time, effort, and energy into celebrating a short service — then we send the couple out into the world, congratulating them and wishing them the best. . . but without telling anyone of what they are trying to do.

At the point of marriage, two people are trying to form a team, a unit — a WE, as I describe it.  But if a couple does not know this is the goal, how are they ever going to get there?

“You and Me” is the start of a relationship.  But if a couple does not understand, and does not get to “WE,” then they will eventually drift into “You versus Me.”  Destruction of the relationship follows, for the simple reason that nobody knew better.

One of my central attempts in my material on how to save your marriage is how to build the relationship and how to become a WE.  It is a roadmap to becoming a team

Save your marriage by following these 3 steps.

That’s it.  That’s all you need to focus upon as you work to save your marriage.  Follow those 3 steps, and you can save your marriage, even if you are the only one that wants to work on it!

Save Your Marriage By Being A Fan(atic)
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
By:

Sports teams, rock stars, actors, and even authors have fans.  And I mean raving fans!  Remember, “fan” is short for a “fanatic.”  Do you know people who fall into that category will root for that team or person, regardless of the current situation?  Team on a losing streak?  A true fan sticks by, not just hoping for a winning streak, but as supporters of the team.  The star makes very public mistakes?  True fans look for reasons and understanding.  They know that there is a good and decent person in there, somewhere.
Fans are committed, regardless of what it looks like.  Good days, bad days, and “meh” days, true fans are just that:  true to their team or star, loyal to the team or person.

My mother-in-law had a remarkable trait:  she was incredibly loyal.  If she was on your side, she was ON YOUR SIDE, no matter what.  If good news surfaced, she reveled in it.  If bad news surfaced, she looked past it to see something good in the person.  And she was unwavering.  There was no talking her out of her loyalty.  If she was in your corner, she stayed in your corner.  And she was protective.  You had better not say a bad word about someone that had her loyalty.  She would quickly correct you, and remind you of the greatness of that person.

What a lost trait!  Too quickly, when bad days come, we turn aside.  A team starts losing, fans stop coming to the game.  This, despite the fact that 50% of the participants in any game will go home the loser.  A star stumbles, people look for deeper character flaws.  This, despite the fact that stars are really just people trying to get by, just like the rest of us.

So what, you may ask, does being a fan have to do with your marriage?  If you are trying to save your marriage, perhaps everything.

When relationships are stressed and people are hurting, we often pull back from simple approaches that can help soothe the hurt and ease the stress.

One of the joys of my work over the years has been to work with couples who are preparing for marriage.  It is a far different work than dealing with marriages on the verge of falling apart.  Pre-marital couples are full of optimism and hope.  They cannot see that anything will ever go wrong.  The only foresee “smooth sailing.”  It is not my job to deflate their sails.  My task is to prepare them as best I can for navigating more difficult waters that I know will be coming.

Because of this, I have several “rules of navigation” I try to share.  My hope is not that they will remember what I said, but that they remember someone gave them a bit of advice that helps them heed the warnings and avoid the problems.

save your marriage as #1 fanOne of those rules I try to impart is “Be each other’s #1 Fan!”  If a spouse has a fan club, I suggest that they fight hard to be the president.  Do whatever it takes to be THE #1 fan of that spouse.  My hope is that each will become the #1 fan of the other.  My hope is that no matter how tough or how good things are, each continues to pull and pull for the other person, always rooting them on and supporting.

Fans come in different stripes.  Some are loud and are always cheering.  Others are more quiet, but always there to push them onward.  I am less concerned about how someone is the #1 fan of their spouse, and more concerned that they are — and that their spouse knows it.

Which raises the question:  what does it look like to be the #1 fan?

According to the arbiter of all information on the internet, Google, the word “fanatic” is defined as “A person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal.”  I am not so much worried about excess here.  More about consistency.  Consistently pulling for your spouse and your marriage, with zeal and excitement — that is what I mean as a fan.

Do you only speak well of your spouse and ask others to do the same?  Do you represent your spouse to the world in positive ways?  Do you look for the best in his or her actions?

Here are some traits of fans:

Loyalty.  There are “fair weather fans” that appear when the team is headed for the championships, but disappear when the loses are mounting up.  The same is true with marriages.  There are those that are “in” when things are easy and pleasant, but disappear when things get tough.  Which do you do?  Being your spouse’s #1 fan requires loyalty.

Commitment.  Let’s face it, there is no more committed relationship than marriage.  If you followed the typical Western vows, you promised each other to be there in “good days and bad, rich days and poor, in sickness and health.”  I would say that pretty much covers the potential of the days.  That is a pretty high commitment.  True fans are committed to the team and the efforts of the team.  Are you committed to the team, the WE of a marriage, and the efforts of the team?

Through Thick and Thin.  Whether sports teams or stars, there are going to be rough days.  Fans stick it out, cheering and rooting for their team/star.  When the team makes a bad choice or the star takes a bad direction, a true fan sticks it out, still cheering.  A fan may express disappointment, but always with a hope of better days.

Speak Highly, Even When Feeling Lowly.  Even fans, and maybe especially fans, feel the pain when things are not going well.  But a true fan still speaks highly of their team/star/spouse.  It doesn’t seem to matter if the championship was lost by a mistake, the tabloids show the irrefutable pictures of the star, or a spouse has really made a mistake.  The fan sticks by the side and continues cheering.  Sometimes, it seems that by sheer will of the fans, the team/star/spouse decides to keep on trying.  And that is the thing about a fan:  knowing they are on their side, a team/star/spouse can keep on trying, improving, and winning.

Look Toward Better Days.  Ever sit around and listen to a group of fans of the down-on-their luck team?  They talk about the next season.  They discuss the strategy the team should try.  They look toward greater possibilities than the ones happening right now.

Remember Better Days.  And when they cannot think about what might be, they recall what has been.  Fans recall that glory game, great concert, wonderful role, and other better times from the past.  This reminds the fans that things haven’t always been this rough.  And it reminds them of why they are fans in the first place.

Your turn!  What do you do to be your spouse’s #1 Raving Fan?  Leave me a comment and let me know!