Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

Today, in the US, it is Election Day. By tomorrow morning, we will have a new president elected.

We talk a good bit about the responsibility and the right to vote, to let our voices be heard. Sometimes, especially when you are on the losing end of that decision, it can seem like a lesson in futility. So many voices shouting to be heard. So many voices not heard. But that is the nature of a democratic process. It is not the individual voices, but the combined individual voices that make a difference.

You may be wondering: what does this have to do with marriage? You see, I am not here to convince you to vote for a specific candidate, or even to vote in today’s elections (however, if you choose not to vote, you do give up your right to complain later).

My interest in this context is your marriage. You see, we vote in lots of ways every day. When we decide, for example, to work on our marriage, we have voted for the marriage. In fact, I have often used that analogy with couples struggling to decide on whether to stay married or not. Often, one will want to stay in the relationship, and the other is undecided. That feels like pressure on the one that is undecided, so I will note that the reality is this: one has voted, and we are waiting for the other to cast the deciding vote. In order to stay married, it requires an unanimous decision. One vote for and one against or two against end the marriage. One for and one undecided means we still have to wait for the final vote. Two votes for, and the marriage will survive.

As I see it, every day requires at least a tacit vote to be married. Sometimes, when we make that more conscious, we get better results. If, every day, we say, “I choose to be married. My vote is to stay married,” we are much better off.

May I invite you to cast your vote of “be married?” We will have to wait for your spouse’s vote.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

There are two laws of physics that seem to me to be important for a marriage: inertia and momentum. Don’t worry, I am no physicist. I can tell you what little I know, and why it matters to your marriage.

First is inertia. An object at rest remains at rest (unless a force acts upon it, but more on that later). And second is momentum. An object in motion remains in motion (unless a force acts upon it, and ditto about later). Oh, and momentum builds, when gravity is pulling.

But let me place this into the context of marriage. Really, there are two types of marriages: those caught by inertia and those catching momentum. Either marriages are moving forward or are stuck and falling apart.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard “I knew things weren’t that great, but I thought that at some point, we would get it back together.” Instead, the spouse announced that he or she was unhappy and was leaving. That marriage had been caught by inertia, stuck in one place.

Then there are marriages that seem to get better and better. They have found what works, and they are moving forward with it. Those marriages gain momentum.

Here’s the thing: moving from inertia to momentum is tough! Now we are onto that “force” issue. The laws of physics always use that phrase “unless a force acts upon it.” That is true in marriage. The relationship is caught by inertia. . . unless someone applies some force to it. A marriage that is moving ahead continues to move ahead. . . unless a force acts upon it.

If you have ever rowed a boat, you have experienced the movement from inertia to momentum. A boat that is still is at inertia. The first couple of pushes of the paddle are tough! The boat only slowly moves forward. But keep rowing, and the boat begins to move easier through the water. Rowing becomes easier, and the boat moves quicker. The boat has shifted from inertia to momentum.

So, let’s say that your marriage is at a point of inertia — stuck! You may take some action. You may do something to improve the situation. But it feels awkward, strange. It is met with resistance. Your spouse looks at you strangely, or asks what you are up to. Or simply says “too little, too late.”

Then, you say to yourself, “well, this isn’t going to work!” The laws of physics are in play. If you quit then, you didn’t do enough to overcome inertia. Keep acting. Keep trying. Keep looking for opportunities to connect.

Over time, the momentum begins to build. Then, one day, you notice you have just the marriage you have always wanted! All because of a little physics!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins writes about how companies make the leap from being good (really mediocre) to great. He states that while he is writing about companies, he believes these principles apply across the spectrum: our personal lives, relationships, organizations, and work.

I was struck with the importance of one of his concepts: the Stockdale Paradox. He bases the principle on a conversation with former Prisoner of War, Jim Stockdale. In a conversation between the two, Stockdale notes that those who survived the concentration camps were those that truly believed that, in the end, they would prevail.

So, Collins asked about those who did not survive. In a surprising twist, Stockdale said “Oh, that’s easy! The optimists.” Collins asked, after some silence, for an explanation. Stockdale noted that optimists were looking for freedom by Christmas, then Easter, then the next Christmas, etc. In other words, their optimism was based on their being free by a certain point in time.

Stockdale said that those who believed that they would ultimately prevail, in this case be free, yet could take a brutally honest assessment of their current situation were the ones that survived.

To repeat, the survivors had two traits. First, they could be brutally honest with themselves about their current situation. At the same time, they truly believed that they would ultimately succeed.

As I read the section of the book, I was struck that this applied so directly to everyone’s life, not just a POW. I remember when I was very ill some years back. I did my research on my condition, knew the risks, but truly believed that I would ultimately be OK. When persons around me tried to get me to see that I would be incapacitated (looking at the same information I was), I would respond with “We’ll have to wait and see.”

Obviously, I did survive (and did recover). The point is not that my thought process saved my life. The point is that I could either give up, or move forward. Sometimes, that is IN SPITE of the current situation. I knew exactly what COULD happen, but I also believed I would be OK, regardless of what happened.

Now, can we apply this to a marriage crisis? Absolutely!

First, the brutal honesty about the current situation certainly applies. Many people are completely blind to the current crisis in their marriage. They are blissfully ignoring the fact that their marriage is in very real trouble, and seem completely caught off-guard when their spouse says that he or she is unhappy (and perhaps has been for years).

Or those who have a spouse that is in an affair for years, ignoring the mounting evidence.
Or those that have a spouse saying there is a problem, but burying their head, hoping that NOT dealing with it will somehow resolve the issue.

That is NOT being honest with the current situation. So, one application of the Stockdale Paradox is becoming clear about the truth of the current situation. Discussing the issues, asking if there is a problem, acknowledging things are not going well, all are applications of this.

Problem is many of us would rather live in denial. Not just in relationships, but in life. There is a myth that knowing is the danger. Not knowing is the danger. I met a person that literally had a tumor distending his stomach! It was visibly pushing out. I asked if he had seen a doctor. He told me that he didn’t want to, because he didn’t want to know what was wrong; he was scared to know!

I noted that whether he found out or not, something was happening in there. Having the information would not speed up whatever it was. I don’t know whether he will see the doctor, but I do know that dying blissfully ignorant is not better than living because something could be done.

Back to marriage: I don’t know how many times I think, as I am talking to a couple, “I wish you had come in a month/year/decade ago.” Sometimes, denial allows the potential for help erode away until the only solution is the death of the relationship.

The second aspect is equally important. Having a belief that you will ultimately prevail is crucial. You see, if you fall into the optimist’s trap of saying that everything will be OK by (fill in the blank), you will become discouraged when that does not come to pass. Marriages do not get into trouble overnight. They are not fixed overnight. Are you willing to see this as a long-term issue? Is this something you are willing to fix your eyes upon, and move relentlessly forward?

Those that maintain this approach are the ones who are successful in saving their marriage. The reason is very simple: when they could become discouraged by a seeming lack of progress, they still keep moving forward. When they get negative messages from a spouse, they do what the politicians do, they “stay on message.”

How are you doing on this paradox? If you are reading this, you may be fully aware of the current situation. It may be new to you, or you may have known for some time. Either way, knowing the facts (not the same as emotional conjecture) puts you one step toward resolution.

The second step is a daily discipline: staying positive and believing that you will be ultimately OK. This is a two-step process. One is believing that you will be ultimately successful in saving the marriage. Two is knowing that your spouse can decide differently, and you may not be able to stop the dissolution of the marriage, but in spite of that, you can still be OK.

Make the Stockdale Paradox YOUR paradox in marriage and in your daily life, and you will have a much more fruitful, even a “great” life!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

You may be thinking: “what is this guy doing? He is all about staying married, and suddenly he is all about how to save money!” Well, bear with me for a minute. And remember what Ben Franklin said, “a penny saved is a penny earned.” So, if you follow this advice, you can basically write yourself a check for $20K. If that doesn’t grab your attention, I don’t know what would!

OK, to be honest, you may actually save less, but you MAY save WAY MORE! Are you interested? If I could tell you how to save $20K, therefore adding $20K to your worth, would you do it? I would!

Are you ready for the secret? Because I am giving it away for free.

Two sentences will reveal the secret: Stay married. Don’t get divorced.

The average cost of a divorce in the U.S. is now $20,000. That is the average legal expense and related costs, court fees, and loss of assets. It does not include the lost future earnings potentials, does not take into account the added expense of two households, does not get near the emotional costs to the spouses, children, or families. It does not address any of the collateral losses.

So, if you stay married, you have just saved at least $20,000.

I don’t really expect that too many people will opt to stay married purely on financial reasons. But this is one factor that tends to be completely overlooked. And no wonder! Attorneys would rather you not know this! An attorney’s job is based on that cost.

Now before you label me another person digging at attorneys, I do know many attorneys that try to get the couple to reconcile. But I also hear the stories where the client says “can we stop the process?” and the attorney pushes the client to keep going. I recognize that, just as I (a marriage therapist and preservationist) have a vested interest in helping to keep marriages together, attorneys have a vested interest in helping to take them apart.

So if your marriage is in trouble, write yourself a check for $20K, then figure out if your marriage can be saved. Ask yourself: “Have I done everything I can to get us back together? Have I done what I can to improve the relationship? Have I really worked to get back together?”

You see, I think our culture just takes divorce too lightly. We pretend that it solves problems. In reality, it creates many more problems than it solves. It increases human impact on the environment, impacts the children of divorce for a lifetime, creates painful emotional conflicts for the couple, destroys finances, divides the social circle of a family, and happens to almost 1 in 2 marriages.

I always reflect on the beginning of a marriage, the marriage vows. Usually, they amount to love, honoring, and respecting someone in good times or bad, sickness and health, poverty and wealth. There isn’t much left over after that! We have full control over the love, honoring and respecting as ways of relating when the things we can’t control (good, bad, sick, healthy, poor, wealthy) come our way.

By building a healthy marriage, you have just improved your finances by $20,000 or more. That may be enough rationale to give it a try!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

Now we have the million-dollar question. If I could answer that, I would be wealthy. I’m not.

The reason this question is so important is because you really don’t care if marriages in general can be saved. You want to know about yours!

In fact, this is an incredibly complicated question. Plenty of marriage advice is out there, some helpful and some hurtful. But in the end, your marriage is where “the rubber hits the road.”

First, let me say that there are marriages that I believe should NOT be saved. Marriages that involve abuse are those marriages. When there is physical abuse, I cannot support working on the marriage. It is time for the abuser to get help on his or her own.

Unfortunately, abuse rarely ends, and almost always escalates, placing the abused at risk of injury and death. So, I draw a strong line there: abusive relationships are not ready for intervention.

Many people expect me to then place marriages where an affair occurs in the same category. I don’t. In fact, the majority of marriages that suffer an affair do survive. Since barely a majority of all marriages survive, most people are surprised by that. However, in a marriage where an affair occured, often, the marriage becomes stronger after the affair.

So, my belief is that the vast majority of marriages CAN be saved. That is not the same as WILL be saved. Unfortunately, people are stubborn creatures, often unwilling to make changes, forgive, or move forward. We end up “cutting off our noses to spite our faces,” as my mother used to say.

So, let’s ask this instead: should you try and save your marriage?

That is a much more manageable question, because it is actually in your control. You cannot MAKE your marriage stay together. As I often say, it takes two to make a marriage, but only one to take it apart.

While you can’t control what ultimately happens to the marriage, you can make a choice to work on the marriage. And I have never met someone, failed marriage or not, that is sorry he or she tried to save their marriage. When they have tried and failed, they can at least look in the mirror and be proud that they put forth the attempt.

It is easy and tempting to just give up and quit. But to make an effort, to work on the relationship, that is the challenge. As you work on your relationship, you are guaranteed to learn more about yourself and your strengths. As you read advice, you learn about relationships.

Your marriage MAY be saved. Your choice is only to do your part, to make the effort, so that wherever the relationship ends, you can feel good about where you are and who you are.

So change the question (“can it be saved” to “what can I do”) and you will come out much better.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

That is the question I have been bombarded with! “What’s up with The Secret of Marriage?”

Let me tell you a little bit about what’s going on. First,some background:

Over the past 20 years, I have spent my career helping to save and improve marriages. I have spoken to numerous groups, written numerous articles, and have offered a best selling ebook(which you may already know about).

What you don’t know is that there has always been a burning question in my mind: What makes the difference between a failed marriage and a successful marriage?

Over the past few years, that question has burned even brighter. Slowly, I have begun to pull out some secrets to what makes the difference. These are secrets in the sense that when people in successful marriages stumble upon them, they haven’t
even realized it.

I realized one day (standing in the shower, if that is not too much information for you) that I needed to take that information and get it out.

You see, I was convinced that these secrets didn’t really want to be secrets. Some days, I wonder.

I worked on the project for some time. Then, one day, bad news: my hard drive crashed! Good news: I had a backup! Bad news: the files for this project were corrupted on my backup! Good news: they were able to salvage the data on my laptop. Bad news: that took several months! Good news: I had the info in my idea notebook that I always carry with me to jot observations and thoughts. Really bad news: one
day, in a torrential downpour, it fell out of my computer case. It stayed in the rain OVERNIGHT! (And ink really does become an unreadable mess!)

For a little bit, I thought the secret would remain just that. Then I was reading about Viktor Frankl, the holocaust survivor who wrote Man’s Search For Meaning. His life work, his manuscript, was taken from him and destroyed when he was sent
to a Concentration Camp.

Well, I resolved to get those secrets out. And they are almost ready to be out there.

On May 1, I will be releasing videos and audios that will reveal the secret(s) to marriage. You see, there is one major secret and 3 other secrets (all reinforcing each other) that will literally transform your relationship, and well,
your life!

Go take a look at The Secret Of Marriage.

If you haven’t already grabbed the free report about the Rules of Fair Fighting, you can do that while you are there. The link is in a post there.

The reason I haven’t already released the secrets? Simple. The videos are not yet ready. I finally decided to set a deadline and make it happen. May 1st seemed manageable!

Now, with LOTS of hours behind me, I’m not so sure how manageable it really was, but I WILL make it happen!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.