connection and marriage – Save The Marriage: Even if only YOU want to!

Can a Marriage Turn Around Quickly?

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By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

June 29, 2022

Lots of people have asked me how long it takes for a marriage crisis to turn around… for the marriage to start heading in the RIGHT direction. Does it take days? Weeks?? Years???

I often tell them that marriages in crisis can often turn around amazingly fast.

That doesn’t mean YOUR marriage will. But it often does happen.

Why is it that a marriage can feel like it is on the edge of collapse, and then seemingly come back to life overnight?

It all has to do with a basic human need that we all have. It is the central part of a marriage, and goes so deep that when it is missing, it is painful. When it is restored (the right way), it is immediately healing. Listen below for why marriage turn quickly (and why the don’t).

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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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Is Your Marriage in the Safe Zone?

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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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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Immutable Law: There Is No Pause

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

August 17, 2016

Every day, I hear the story: “I thought we were just ‘on pause.’ After ______, we would get back to the relationship.” That ______ can be: friends, hobbies, education, job, sports, interests, and often — KIDS.

That time comes (if you even get that far), only to discover that the marriage was not on pause. It was dying.

Sometimes, people find this out when there is no pulse, the relationship strangled of life.

What happened?

The Immutable Law Of Marriage is, “there is no pause in marriage.”

Connection is the life-blood of a marriage. When you think you hit “pause,” you actually began strangling off the connection. Once connection begins to fail, the marriage begins to suffocate.

Let’s talk about why you can’t hit “Pause,” and what to do if you already thought you hit “Pause.”

Immutable Laws Of Marriage Series
#1 Marriage Is About Becoming A WE
#2 Marriage Is NOT A Vehicle for Happiness (Or Misery)
#3 We ALL Have Fears

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