Save Your Marriage Podcast – Page 18 – Save The Marriage: Even if only YOU want to!

Is Your Marriage in the Safe Zone?

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 February 12, 2020 February 3, 2020

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

February 12, 2020

She started the conversation by telling how she was confused… her spouse had confused her. He said he didn’t feel safe enough to share his emotions, didn’t feel safe enough to move back into their bedroom, didn’t feel safe enough to talk through their issues. She told me, “I have never hurt him or threatened to hurt him. How can he feel unsafe?”

Safety (and feeling safe) is an interesting thing. There doesn’t actually have to be a real threat in order to feel unsafe. Our brains are always looking for a sense of threat — and it takes very little to trigger the feeling of threat. A look, a tone… a small hint can be perceived as a real threat.

We don’t risk connecting when we feel threatened. Connecting requires vulnerability. And vulnerability requires a sense of safety.

Again, that is not necessarily tied to reality of threat. So, do you (and your spouse) create spaces of safety? Do you internally communicate safety in your relationship?

Learn why this is so important and how to do it in the Save The Marriage Podcast below.

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Hope vs. Hopelessness

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

February 5, 2020

Miranda asked me, “What do I do? My spouse is hopeless that we can save our marriage. I’m losing hope, too.”

A couple of weeks ago, I did a training for members of my VIP Program, noting three barriers in the way of a spouse working on the marriage… along with how to respond. One of those barriers is hopelessness.

But if a spouse is hopeless… how can you hold onto hope?

There is an equation of hope: hope = goal + pathways to goal + action to get there.

If you noticed from the equation, a spouse (you) can choose hope, even when a spouse is hopeless. Especially if you recognize that the hopeless spouse cannot see that goal… cannot see a way forward (a path)… and therefore, can’t see a way to take action.

There are traps at each of those three elements of hope… and if one is not present, it isn’t really hope. So, let’s talk about how to grab each element, keep it in place, and keep moving forward.

Listen to the episode below.

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“I’m Just Not Happy”… The Excuse to Leave?

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

January 29, 2020

What do you do when a spouse declares, “I’m not happy,” as the reason the marriage has to end? Or how about, “You’re not happy,” or “I can’t make you happy”?

I have heard this reason given over and over. It is a common (but false) belief that a marriage needs to end because spouses can’t make each other happy.

The fact is, you cannot make your spouse happy. And your spouse can’t make you happy. But that isn’t even the goal!

(Just to be fair, it is possible to make someone miserable! But make them happy? Nope. Not possible. Ever.)

What does it mean when a spouse wants to end a marriage due to “not being happy”? And what do you do? How do you respond?

That is the topic of our conversation on this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast. You can listen below.

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“Are We Too Opposite?”

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

January 22, 2020

Too many times — in my office, by email, on phone calls — I hear a spouse rationalizing their decision that the marriage cannot possibly succeed because, “We’re just opposites, too different to make it.”

But is it true? Are you “opposites”? (How are humans ever actually “opposite”?) And for the sake of argument, does that doom your relationship?

In this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, I answer a listener question that you may have, too. This listener’s spouse has declared, “We are opposites,” and has given up on even trying to save their marriage. This listener is wondering, “Is that true? Are we opposites? Does that doom our marriage?”

Since this question comes up so often, I wanted to discuss the reality of this. I cover my issues with “opposites,” discuss my theory of “Complimentarity,” and trample all over the belief in “compatibility,” an idea that has been espoused by dating sites and apps — and yet has failed in creating strong relationships.

Listen below for my response to “We’re Just Opposites.”

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Why It All Came Tumbling Down

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

January 15, 2020

“It suddenly fell apart,” Jenny told me. As far as she could tell, everything had been great until… one day… her husband said, “our marriage is over.” Before that, Jenny said, there had been no trouble.

Why did it all come tumbling down?

Rob told me that, sure, there had been some issues along the way. But he didn’t know his wife was ready to leave… until “out of the blue, she moved out and said we were done!”

Why did it all come tumbling down?

George told me, “I just want us to get back to where we were… before the crisis.”

My response to George was, “Where you were got you to where you are. You can’t just go back to there. You need to build a new relationship!”

I told both Jenny and Rob that I very seriously doubted that the crisis was quite so “out of the blue.” They just didn’t see it coming.

But brick by brick, piece by piece, their relationship was being pulled apart long before it all came tumbling down. And it is very likely that both they and their spouses bore responsibility.

In this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, we explore the roots of trouble, so you can begin to consider why your marriage didn’t just start to crumble.

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Did Your Apology Fail?

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

January 8, 2020

You apologized to your spouse… maybe on your own, or maybe because I suggested it.

And…

…

Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch.

No change, no difference.

Does that mean that your efforts are over? That your attempts to save your marriage are a failure?

Just to reassure you, an apology letter with no response does not necessarily mean it was a failure. And it sure doesn’t mean that your efforts are over.

This week, I am answering Chris’s questions about an apology letter “fail.” If you have a question, you can submit it at [email protected] for consideration.

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“Why Can’t I Get Started?”

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

January 1, 2020

Audrey wrote me to ask, “I just can’t get started on my marriage. What’s wrong with me?”

She wrote in as a listener of my podcast. (And if you have a question for the podcast, send it to me here: [email protected])

IF she WANTS to save her marriage, then WHY CAN’T SHE GET STARTED?

There are some reasons why people get stuck and can’t get started. And there are some issues beneath these reasons that must be addressed, one way or the other.

I cover the problems and issues in this week’s Save The Marriage Podcast.

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Special Holiday Edition: Ghosts of Relationship Past

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

December 24, 2019

Do you settle down with a good book you have read over and over this time of year? I read my kids the exact same Christmas book every single year. And many years, I re-read a classic for myself… like A Christmas Carol. This year, I want to offer a redux of a prior podcast episode… about the Ghosts of Your Relationship Past. Yep. Christmas, with new opportunities. Here it is:

Christmas Eve. Chris and Holly have settled into bed. Neither can sleep. It is not, however, sugarplums dancing in their heads.

Both are replaying the arguments and hurts of the past. Neither feels connected, although both are desperate for that warm embrace each used to treasure.

What happened? Where did their relationship fall into trouble?

Can they find their way back?

First, they will have to make it through a night of haunts, as the Ghosts of Relationship Past visit them this night.

Are they the same ghosts that haunt your relationship? Is there a path through the pain?

Listen in as Chris and Holly face the hauntings of their relationship.

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All The Wrong Reasons: Should You Stay Together?

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

December 18, 2019

We continue with listeners’ questions on the Save The Marriage Podcast. And in this episode, I pull together a central question about “Should we stay together because of this Insert Bad Reason Here?”

Several people told me they were still married, just for the sake of the kids. Several told me that their spouse was still there because they could not afford to separate, much less to divorce. And some told me they stayed married just to avoid having to hit the dating scene. And then, there is that anxiety of “what will people think?” So, they stay together.

But is that enough, they ask? Should they only stay together for these “wrong reasons?”

You can make a perspective shift and use those “wrong reasons” to get you to the right place in your relationship.

I cover 4 ways to get there in this episode of the podcast.

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Fighting for… Connection

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

December 11, 2019

“Should I even keep fighting for my marriage?”, asks “G.”

Oof, that word… “fighting.” I hear it often. But so many times, when someone says they are “fighting for” their marriage, they end up “fighting against” their spouse. The spouse who doesn’t see how to move forward.

Which is rarely helpful for the process. But I watch person after person “suit up” to do battle, not even sure on what they are fighting.

So, let me clarify that with the question from “E.” She asked why I always talk about connection… not romance, playing “hard to get,” doing “No Contact,” or reverse psychology.

Those two fit together… the “fighting” part and the “connecting” part. You are fighting for connection! For some very specific (and deeply rooted) reasons.

I discuss both in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast.

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