can I save my marriage – Page 2 – Save The Marriage: Even if only YOU want to!

Slow Slide, Then All At Once

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 June 16, 2021 June 14, 2021

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

June 16, 2021

I’ve seen it so many times. A marriage is slowly, slowly, slowly moving apart. Then, suddenly, it is ending! Slowly, then all at once.

A recent survey from a divorce attorney group showed the central dynamic of marriages ending: they slowly drifted apart.

You may not need a survey to tell you about this threat. I sure didn’t. I’ve seen it over and over. Nothing drastic or sudden. Just slowly disconnecting. Slowly drifting apart. And slowly failing.

Maybe you hit the Pause Button… and didn’t know how dangerous that can be!

Maybe it was easier to just ignore the little issues… the ones that are much larger in the face of disconnection.

But either way, the ending of a marriage just starts slowly, imperceptibly… until one person finally “can’t do it anymore.” And then, the crisis is deep. Deeper than you knew.

How does it work? I cover it in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast. Listen below.

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Save The Marriage ARC

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

June 2, 2021

Since my book, Thrive Principles, came out, people have asked me why I shifted my focus from saving marriages to thriving. In reality, there is no shift. My System on saving a marriage is the same path to having a thriving marriage. In fact, my focus from the beginning was on how to have a thriving life in all areas of living — including in marriage.

Which means that there are many cross-over points between how we thrive and how we save a marriage.

In this week’s Save The Marriage Podcast, I discuss three anchors of Thrive Principles that can help you address the issues in your marriage.

These three principles can help you save your marriage. Just remember the acronym, ARC.

Acceptance
Responsibility
Control

Use these three principles as you work to save your marriage.

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“But What If I CAN’T Save It?”

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

April 28, 2021

Two phone calls the same day. Both with the same question: “What if I CAN’T save my marriage?” One had been working at it for awhile. The other hadn’t started (and was trying to decide whether to even start).

It’s a common question that gets asked at 3 different times in the process. Each has a different meaning. All share a fear.

That fear can keep you from taking action, talk you into giving up, or serve to inform you.

This week, I want to take on the question, “What if I can’t save it?”, because not every marriage can be saved. (But NONE are saved without action.)

Don’t let the question trip you up. Understand what’s behind it. And listen to my answer to the question.

Listen below.

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“Can You Fall In Love Again?” – Listener Question

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

April 21, 2021

As often as possible, I like to answer listener submitted questions (you can submit YOUR question by CLICKING HERE). The reason is because if you have a question, it is very likely that someone else has the same (or very similar) question.

In this episode, I answer Patrick. His question is a concern that when a spouse says they fell out of love, and only feel “friends”-type care, that maybe nothing can be done. Maybe, Patrick wonders, it isn’t possible to get back to love, to return to prior feelings.

Can feelings change? Of course. They already did. Which is why you are in a crisis. At one time, you felt the love. That has shifted, and it can shift again. Our feelings and levels of connection are always fluctuating and shifting.

So, yes feelings of love CAN come back. But why did they leave? And what can you do to help them return?

I cover those questions… homing in on Patrick’s enquiry for this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast.

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Out of Nowhere?

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

February 24, 2021

Many times, people tell me that their marriage was doing just fine (well, at least OK), and then it was in trouble, “All at once,” that they “didn’t see it coming,” and that others thought they “were the ‘perfect couple’ — then this.” In fact, many people tell me about love notes and loving cards last year, last month, even last week.

What happened? How could the marriage fall about, seemingly out of nowhere?

The simple answer is, it didn’t.

Marriage crises do not come out of nowhere, and are far less sudden than you might think.

As one divorce attorney put it, marriages “fall apart little by little, then all at once.”

The hurts, pains, disconnections, lost opportunities, and slights build up over time. And suddenly, they hit a threshold. I call it the Threshold Problem. You didn’t see the threshold coming, until it hits. Until the marriage runs out of gas. Then, you have a hard time seeing how you got to the threshold. So it looks like it was out of the blue, out of nowhere.

But it wasn’t. It didn’t happen overnight. And saving it won’t happen overnight. That is possible, slowly at first, as long as you move with intention in that direction.

Learn more about why a marriage crisis is not “out of nowhere” in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast. Listen below.

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Knocked Down, Back Up

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

February 3, 2021

You started working on saving your marriage. Good for you!

And then, you hit a bump. You get knocked down. Maybe you discovered an affair, physical or emotional. Maybe your spouse is irritable and upset. Maybe it is anger and resentment, yours or your spouse’s.

And it knocks you down.

Enough that you think it is over. That you are at the end.

But are you? Or do you need to get back up?

In most things in life, we think the process is (or should be) smooth. I fall for that myth all the time. I think a project is going to be easy and straightforward. Only to find a complication and difficulty at every turn.

And guess what? The same is true in your efforts to save your marriage.

We talk about how you might get knocked down… and how to get up again, in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast.

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From Apology to Reconciling

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

January 13, 2021

You have already journeyed to here. Maybe your relationship is hurting and in pain. Maybe your connection has gone cold. But however you got here, whatever the path, you want to get somewhere different.

Somewhere better.

It may seem cliche, but it is a journey. And this last part of the journey, it has some stops along the way.

Many times, people think (and want) it to be a linear path, stopping along the way, but arriving at the end, reconciled and in love.

Those four big stops?

Apology
Forgiving
Trusting
Reconciling

Many assume that one follows the other, just points along the road. But it is more like a subway system that might arrive at one station, having never paused at another. You may pass one or more, or even arrive at each one, seemingly out of order.

In reality, each of those four stops are distinct and separate. They can happen separate from, or even without, the other stops.

Let’s talk about these four stops in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast. Listen below.

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What’s Your Plan?

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

December 30, 2020

We are about to turn the page on the calendar. For me, that means a look forward. What will the new year hold? What will I bring into the new year? Either it happens to you or you make it happen.

So what will we make happen?

I just finished doing some research with people who have used my System, been clients, or in my programs. They divided into two groups: those who succeeded in saving their marriage, and those who failed.

My task was to determine what made the difference. They all had the basic information from me on what went wrong and what needs to happen to make it right. So, what made the difference above the basic information? What, beyond my System, made a difference?

As it turned out, there were 5 key factors. I shared the full research with my VIP members last week. But one piece reigned supreme. In fact, it made the other 4 work.

The key factor??

A plan.

I discuss what that is all about in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast. You can listen below to understand more about the plan, and how to have a SMART plan.

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“I Saved My Marriage!”

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

December 9, 2020

Many times, in the midst of trying to save a marriage, the anxiety and fears can lock you up, overwhelmed with what to do next.

When that happens, the outcome is often a lack of change, motivation, or action.

And things continue in the downward spiral.

So today, I want to invite you to use your imagination — a little Jedi mind trick. Imagine that you DID save your marriage. You HAVE created a loving, supportive, respectful marriage. You look forward to spending time together. Your issues resolve themselves peacefully and effectively.

Now, you are looking back to see what you did, in order to save your marriage. You notice how you approached the situation, how you dealt with the issues, and how you moved forward — even in the face of frustration and difficulties.

In today’s podcast, we reflect on “what you did” to save your marriage — and by doing that, we create a path for you to do just that: Save Your Marriage.

Listen below.

(and if you are ready to take action, CLICK HERE FOR MY SYSTEM)

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DWYADAYGWYAG

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

October 14, 2020

No, a toddler didn’t take to pounding on my keyboard. And no, my new puppy didn’t paw my keyboard… well, at least on for the title.

Yep, I meant it: DWYADAYGWYAG.

But to back up, have you ever noticed how we get stuck in repeating patterns? Many simply serve to keep us stuck in life. Not moving ahead. Stuck.

But alive!

And that is what the brain registers. Sure, maybe what happened yesterday was not exciting. Maybe what you and I did yesterday, to make it through the day, was not exciting. But we survived.

Lesson learned. What we did yesterday kept us alive. Plan for today: do it some more.

Same in relationships.

Staying alive is not the same as thriving… and is actually not a guarantee of future success. But it worked yesterday, so our brain assumes it will work for today.

DWYADAYGWYAG

I’ll tell you more about what that means, and how to get beyond it, in this week’s episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast. Listen below.

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