Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

Has your spouse lost hope in your marriage’s future?

You want a warm and loving relationship, but it has had a rough patch.  You see a way forward, but your spouse can’t see it.  If that is the case, then you need a way forward.  The first stop is dealing with the hopelessness.

How important is it?

Incredibly important!  Humans do not do well with feeling hopeless.  Any bit of hope helps us to move forward.  But when we lose all hope, we lose our way.  We give up.  We wander around.  And we deepen the crisis.

What do you do about the hopelessness?  How do you avoid falling into it?

On this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, I cover what to do when a spouse loses hope.  We discuss what hope is, how to recover hope, and how to stay hopeful yourself.

(This is the audio version of a video you can see RIGHT HERE.)

RELATED RESOURCES
Hope vs. Hopelessness
Crisis Clarity
Book:  Beyond the 3 Barriers
Save The Marriage System

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It is not about “communication,” no matter what you hear (from friends or a therapist).  Most people communicate just fine.  They have another issue:  perception.  How they perceive each other, that is the bigger issue.

And then the trap is laid.

Perception and connection.  They create a downward spiral (unless you escape it) that traps you into a fall into disconnection.

I call it the Perception/Connection Trap.  You have perceptions of each other (that are always at least partly fictional), and you have some level of connection.  When your perceptions of each other are poor (negative), your connection begins to falter.  When you are feeling disconnection, your perceptions grow more negative.  Which leads to further disconnection.  Which leads to further negative perceptions.

The spiral downward.

The bad news is this pattern traps many couples into a painful marriage crisis.

The good news is that you can escape the Perception/Connection Trap.  And the great news is that you can use the reverse of the cycle to re-grow the connection and the relationship.

Learn how in this week’s podcast trying (and if you find it helpful, please use the SHARE buttons below).

RELATED RESOURCES
Connection Tools & Resources
Happy Couples Do Differently:  Connection
7 Stages of Disconnection
5 Communication Errors You May Be Making
Why We Don’t Change (And How To)
Save The Marriage System

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We all have hurts from close relationships — and especially in marriages.  It is impossible to be in such an intimate relationship and not bump into each other (in hurtful ways) over and over.  The problem is when the hurts don’t heal.

Bumps, they happen.  Continued pain and hurt from the bumps, that doesn’t have to happen.

Yet, many times, I watch couples dragging the hurts around for way to long.  Weeks, months, even years.  Not noticing the damage that is happening to the relationship along the way.

There are two parts to the process of healing:  apology and forgiving.  But, and this is important, they are not dependent upon each other.  They are separate.  Sometimes, people lump them together.  And while they are related, one does not link to the other.

You may apologize and the other person, for example, may not forgive you.  Likewise, the other person may not apologize, and yet you still choose to forgive.

Let’s talk about each of these processes and why they are not related… and why that is important.  Listen below.

RELATED RESOURCES
Hurt and Blame
How Hurt Keeps You Stuck
Book: The Forgive Process
Anatomy Of An Apology
Why To Forgive
Save The Marriage System
VIP Virtual Coaching

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Do you ever feel like you are dancing with your spouse… and not a fun dance??

Most of the time, couples get into habits.  They both know the steps, and they just keep going through them, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3….

No, the dances aren’t particularly helpful.  And yes, we keep dancing them, anyway!

One dance that many couples fall into is the Anger-Blame-Shame 3-step.  And that particular dance?  It keeps on repeating.  Except that the anger grows.  So does the blaming.

And so does the feeling of shame!  “Why can’t I/we figure this out?”, they wonder.

And then, they dance it again.

How can you stop the dance?  How can you find better steps?  Better ways of moving through life?

That is the topic of this podcast episode (listen below).  I tell you about those dance steps and why we do them… along with how to make a shift.

RELATED RESOURCES
Show Up
Anger and Resentment (Yours)
Anger and Resentment (Your Spouse’s)
Stepping Up
The Save The Marriage System

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When a marriage crisis hits, people kick into gear!  They dig in and work on their relationship. Many times, they start to see results.  Things are turning for the better.  The relationship is warming.  Things aren’t quite so hostile.

But then….

They get derailed.  Thrown off-course.  Lost in the crisis.

Not surprisingly, any gains made are quickly lost.  Things become even more tense and fractured.

Why did they get derailed?  Four reasons:  Distracted, Distanced, Doubtful, and Discouraged.

I go into each of these… as well as how to avoid falling into the trap and getting derailed… in this week’s Save The Marriage Podcast.  You can listen below.

RELATED RESOURCES
You Need A Plan
Can Your Marriage Be Saved?
When Is It Too Late?
Your Fail Points
Book:  The Marriage Fail Point
Save The Marriage System

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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.

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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

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Things hit a bad spot in your marriage… and your spouse isn’t sure about staying or leaving the marriage.  Sure, it may have been a relationship issue, but you may be feeling blamed.

It’s pretty common to go looking for the “bad guy” in any situation.  And even if both of you are in pain and frustrated, you may be wanting to stay.  While you may be able to point to things your spouse needs to change, you can probably see that approach is unlikely to get you very far.

And noting the relationship problems?  That might “fall on deaf ears,” too.

Which means you may just be catching the blame.

And maybe you even agree with the critiques aimed your way.  Maybe you even agree that there are some changes you need to make.

Now what?

Yes, you absolutely want to make the changes.

Maybe to prove you can.  Maybe because you know you would be a better person for having changed.

Here is the problem:  Change is hard, and rarely straightforward.  When we make any significant changes in life, we are highly unlikely to hit 100% success.  Every now and then, you are likely to fall short.  You are likely to drift back into old habits, old actions, old responses.

That doesn’t mean you have failed.  Only that change is often a journey.

But those slips?  They will absolutely be seen as failures by a suspicious spouse who is not trusting the changes (or even your capacity to change).

And that is the problem with change.

In this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, I cover some questions about this that were submitted by listeners.  Take a listen below!

RELATED RESOURCES:
We Change When We Change
When Your Spouse Doesn’t Believe
“I’ve Changed” and Other Things Not To Say
Why Your Spouse Doesn’t See The Change
Responsibility Formula
Save The Marriage System

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“I’m just out of energy,” she told me, “I don’t think I can even try to save my marriage.  Besides, what is the point?”

Let’s face it:  right now, many people are feeling exhausted and drained.  And working to save a marriage can be tiring when the world is rightside-up.  Much less when everything feels upside down!

Many people feel pulled in so many questions… but when something is important… as important as marriage… why does it get shifted down?  Relegated to the “left over energy,” if there is any?

There are some underlying reasons why it may feel like there is no more energy… and it isn’t really about not having energy.

More importantly, there are some things you can do to do an “energy reset.”  Make a shift… then save your marriage.

I cover the underlying issues and the way to solve them in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast.  Listen below.

RELATED RESOURCES
Self-Care Series
Dealing with Fear
Having a Plan
Simplify your Efforts
Save The Marriage System

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Roles.  We all have them.  We all play them.

Some are “identity roles.”  They identify us in the role.  For example, I am “son,” “father,” “brother,” “husband.”

Some are “function roles.”  They identify what we do.  For example, I am “coach,” “therapist,” “author,” “speaker,”  and “podcaster” (among others).  They tell you what I do, what role I play in life.

Then there are “attribution roles.”  They try to describe why we do something.

And it is in the arena of attribution roles that I want to focus some attention.  Because those attributions, both on ourselves and others, can serve to keep us stuck.  And keep others stuck in the roles we attribute to them.

Two very toxic roles are the roles of Enemy and Victim.

To be clear, there is a difference between being a victim of some circumstance and playing the role of Victim.

And to be crystal clear, no matter what has happened in your marriage to this point, you are NOT Enemies.  That is a role that you may assign.  But it will keep you stuck.

Listen in to this podcast episode for more on avoiding these roles… and what to do, instead.

RELATED RESOURCES:
Being On The Same Team
How To Be A WE
Dealing With Anger
Showing Up
Save The Marriage System

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