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Posts Tagged :

can i save my marriage alone

The Spouse Predicament
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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What do you do when a spouse is resistant to working on and saving your marriage? Can you just keep dealing with them? Can you just give them information? The spouse predicament.It’s a predicament, isn’t it?  It would be so much easier to save your marriage… if it weren’t for that pesky spouse.  (I jest, but you might actually feel this way.)

You make an effort, your spouse resists.  You take a step forward, your spouse takes a step backward… and tries to drag you back, too!

What DO you do?  When your spouse is so convinced that nothing can change.

Or maybe when your spouse starts to see some possibility… and you don’t know what to do, what to share, how to help.

Quite the predicament, isn’t it?

It certainly is for Lauren and Kristine.  They both emailed me questions for the podcast.  Seemingly from different places in the process.  But both were stuck on the Spouse Predicament.

Lauren has a spouse who cannot see a way forward, and resists every effort.  Is he being selfish? Should Lauren feel shame that she keeps trying… in spite of his resistance?

And Kristine is still stuck in the predicament.  But her spouse is seeing a possibility, a glimmer of hope.  How does Kristine avoid putting out the spark?  How much info to share?

The Spouse Predicament.  More closely aligned than it might seem.

We work to resolve the predicament on the podcast.  Listen below.

RELATED RESOURCES:
The Husband Bootcamp
Beyond the 3 Barriers Book
The Hope Formula
Hope and Marriage
The Save The Marriage System

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How to NOT Save Your Marriage
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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Are there things that you do that might KEEP you from saving your marriage?

Yes.

These are pretty common actions people take, not knowing that they are doing MORE damage, and making it even MORE difficult to save their marriage.

I wanted to cover these 10 ways you can mess up on saving your marriage, not to point out any mistakes,  but to help you avoid and prevent those mistakes.

And if you have already made those mistakes, then start where you are.  Just be sure not to fall back into the same traps and mistakes that likely got you here.

Take a listen below and let me know if you have something to add to the list!

RELATED RESOURCES
3 C’s to Save Your Marriage
Why Connection is So Important
How to Show Up to Your Marriage
Grab the Save The Marriage System

 

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Surviving Mistakes and Backslides
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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How to survive mistakes and backslides in your efforts to save your marriage.It happens.  You are trying to save your marriage and. . . you make a mistake.  You violate your own plan.

And things take a slide backwards.

Maybe you aren’t even sure if it is possible to get back on-track.

Most of the time, the answer is “absolutely.”

This week, I cover how to recover from a mistake, how to stop the backsliding, and how to start moving forward again.

If you violated one of my 5 Things To Avoid Doing, maybe even before you knew about them (and even after you learned about them), you can still recover and start moving forward.

If you decided to eat better. . . then you hit the dessert buffet, what do you do?  Toss in your plan? Or get going on your plan?  Same here.

But let’s talk about how to not just survive the mistakes, but get going again.  Listen below.

Survive Series:
Surviving Separation
Surviving Conflict
Surviving the Golden Hour

RELATED RESOURCES:
You Need A Plan
Reverse Psychology
No Contact
Save The Marriage System

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“I Won’t If My Spouse Won’t” — And You Are Stuck
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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"I won't if my spouse won't" and other ways to be stuck.A few days ago, that was what he said on the phone, “I won’t work on my marriage if my spouse won’t.” Now note:  he had contacted me — I help people save their marriage.

“Huh?” I uttered.

“Look,” he said, “if you think I am going to start working on my marriage by myself, that ain’t gonna happen.  Why don’t you convince my spouse to work on the marriage?”

“First,” I replied, “I am not in the market of trying to get someone to do something, neither you nor your wife.  Second, if you are always waiting for your spouse to do something before you do, you are probably very stuck.  Could I suggest something?”

“Probably not, but go ahead and try,” he said.

“Okay,” I pushed on, “what if you were to start working on things?  What if you were to just start moving in the direction of your marriage, seeing if you could improve the connection?  Is it possible that you could START the process, and your spouse could JOIN the process?”

“Maybe….”

Good enough for me.

You see, this is one of those stuck points of marriage.  If one spouse is refusing to do something until the other does something — and the spouse is doing the same thing — the marriage is frozen in place.  Stuck.

Someone has to shift.  Someone has to blink.  Someone has to be willing to change something in order for something to change.

Let’s talk about this stuck point — and how to get beyond it — in this week’s podcast (below).

(I mention a resource in the podcast.  FIND IT RIGHT HERE.)

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Time To “Go Pro”. . .
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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Get focused and go pro.No.  I don’t mean you need to call in the professionals.

Have you ever noticed the difference between an amateur/hobbyist and a pro?  An amateur does something when they feel inspired.  Pros do it because its what needs to be done.

I was chatting with someone who is “writing” a book.  The person wants a better view, better resources, more research, and “inspiration.”  That book will never get written.

My friends who are multiple book authors go about it differently.  They do the writing, day in and day out, not waiting for inspiration.  They manufacture the inspiration.  They do what needs to be done — daily.

Or let’s say you think you should probably do something.  Days pass.  It remains undone.  But if it were your job and your boss said, “do it by 3,” I bet it would get done.  Because that’s part of being pro.

Are you taking on saving your marriage like a pro or an amateur?  Do you keep doing what needs to be done?  Or do you wait to be inspired?

Guess which way works.

Listen for more in today’s podcast.

Then, let’s get you the training so you are ready to Go Pro.  CLICK HERE.

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Shift from “What Happened?” to “What Now?”
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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WhatHappenedToWhatNowWhen a crisis strikes, we all have a tendency to get stuck in the “What Happened” loop.

We keep going over and over the details, looking for what we missed along the way, looking for the places things could be different.

Many times, we are trying to re-write history, to make it have happened differently, or not at all.  We are, in essence, looking for a way to re-write history.

Unfortunately, we can’t rewrite history.  And the process only serves to anchor us to the problems and pain.

A shift to “What Now” breaks the loop, and creates possibility and potential.  This is where change happens.  This is where reconnection happens.  This is where healing happens.

Are YOU stuck in the “What Happened?” loop?  Time to break it and shift to “What Now?”  Listen to this week’s podcast training for how to make the shift.

RELATED RESOURCES
3 C’s of Change
No Pause In Marriage
Show Up
Forgiveness
Being a WE
Grab the System

 

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Is It “Too Little, Too Late”?
 150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.
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Is it "too little, too late"? Maybe. Maybe not.You start working to save your marriage.  You are working on rebuilding the connection.  You have been trying to change and improve yourself.  You’ve been focused.  You’ve been putting in the effort.

And then, your spouse says, “Too little, too late.”

The bubble is burst, the sail’s deflated.  Another kick in the gut.

And you feel like giving up.  If it is hopeless, why even try?

Because I don’t think it is hopeless.  I have seen MANY situations where a spouse says this, and the marriage is saved.  (And yes, I have seen times when a spouse says this, and it turns out to be accurate.)  There is one problem:  you can’t know on this side of the crisis.

Sometimes, it is not “too little,” and it is not “too late.”  It just isn’t over yet.  The work is only underway, not completed.

I give 5 steps to moving beyond “too little, too late” in this podcast training.  Listen below.

RELATED RESOURCES:
Apologize
Heal The Connection
Your Spouse Is NOT The Enemy
You Need A Plan
(if you have my System) VIP Program

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