December 2021 – Save The Marriage: Even if only YOU want to!

A Marriage Crisis and Holiday Season

https://savethemarriage.com/stmblog/wp-content/themes/corpus/images/empty/thumbnail.jpg 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D. Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D. https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/669b7e375d93f77521ddaba08adb8063?s=96&d=blank&r=pg December 15, 2021 December 13, 2021

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

December 15, 2021

When life is hard, Holidays can feel heavy. When there is a marriage crisis, it can be tough to muster the energy to even move forward — especially when all the commercials and movies push the “merry and bright” of a mythic holiday.

And here we are, on the cusp of the Holiday season! It cuts across nations and beliefs. The season is here.

A client recently told me, “I just want to crawl into bed and get up on January 2nd.”

What a loss! No chance to find the deeper meaning of the Holidays. No chance at connection, re-connection, and healing.

Her real desire was to avoid pain. But her solution did more than avoiding pain. It avoided life, and all it offered.

My suggestion: deal with the heavy Holidays in a way that brings depth, connection, and healing, by engaging in the holiday.

I have 5 suggestions on dealing with Holidays in the midst of a marriage crisis. Listen below.

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Is Self-Growth a Threat to Marriage?

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

December 8, 2021

“I just outgrew you,” he said to her in my office. But as we talked, I was not convinced that he had actually “outgrown” her. But it was clear that neither felt supported in their own personal growth. He said, “You stifle me,” and she answered, “You never care about my interests.”

And both were right.

But both missed the opportunity — self-expansion as a part of the relationship. They could both grow, both explore, and still stay married.

Recent research has shown that one of the leading contributors to unhappiness in marriage (and risk for infidelity) is a lack of opportunity for self-expansion in the relationship.

Great term, “self-expansion.” In a world of “self-growth” and “self-development,” the idea is a bit broader. Self-growth/development focuses on psychological or spiritual change. But what about just exploring the world and widening your horizons? Well, self-expansion encompasses both self-development and trying new things out.

Does your relationship support both of your opportunities for self-expansion (within the boundaries of the relationship)? Is there room for growing? Support for growing? Sharing new experiences together? Sharing your passions for individual interests? Those are the elements of self-expansion within marriage.

Learn more in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast.

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Are You Trying To Earn Love Back?

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

December 1, 2021

Sometimes, people tell me that as they are trying to save their marriage, they actually feel like they are trying to earn back the love of a spouse. They want to know if that is what it really is — earning back the love (and even trust).

The short answer is NO, that is not the goal.

A slightly longer answer is that if you are working to earn back love, you are also working on building a unsustainable and not-very-healthy relationship.

That is my topic for this week’s Save The Marriage Podcast: why you are NOT trying to earn back your spouse’s love, why that approach is problematic, AND what to do instead.

Your marriage can be saved. But not by trying to earn back your spouse’s love.

Can the love return to your marriage? Absolutely.

But that doesn’t mean it is the goal of the process.

(Love isn’t earned. It is given.)

Listen to the podcast episode below for more on this important topic

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Connection and Marriage
Building A WE
Forgiveness and Marriage
Save The Marriage System

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