Posts Tagged :

how to get my spouse to love me

What About Love?
150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

What about love?  Where does love fit into the process of saving your marriage?  How do you get back to love?A podcast listener (accurately) noted that I don’t talk too much about love.  The listener wanted to just get back to the love they had shared at one time, and wanted to know how to fall back in love.

I responded with, “What do you mean by ‘love’?”  The response started with “I don’t know,” and continued with “but how do we fall back in love?”

And there is the root of the problem.  We have been struggling to define and describe what love even is for centuries, if not millennia.  And we are still trying.

More than that, the loving feeling is not what you really are trying to return to.  It is certainly a side-effect, but not what you want to try for.

And more than that, love is not even a clear indicator of marital success — maybe because it is so hard to define and describe.

In this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, I talk the question, “What About Love?”  Where does it fit into your efforts to save your marriage?  Where does it fit into any marriage?

Listen in below.

RELATED RESOURCES
Love as Action
Self-Expansion and Marriage Success
The Importance of Connection
Changing Yourself
3 C Approach
Book:  How To Save Your Marriage In 3 Simple Steps
Book:  Recovering From The Affair
Program:  Save The Marriage System

The Problem with Changing… and Proving It!
150 150 Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

Things hit a bad spot in your marriage… and your spouse isn’t sure about staying or leaving the marriage.  Sure, it may have been a relationship issue, but you may be feeling blamed.

It’s pretty common to go looking for the “bad guy” in any situation.  And even if both of you are in pain and frustrated, you may be wanting to stay.  While you may be able to point to things your spouse needs to change, you can probably see that approach is unlikely to get you very far.

And noting the relationship problems?  That might “fall on deaf ears,” too.

Which means you may just be catching the blame.

The problem with changing… and your attempts to change.And maybe you even agree with the critiques aimed your way.  Maybe you even agree that there are some changes you need to make.

Now what?

Yes, you absolutely want to make the changes.

Maybe to prove you can.  Maybe because you know you would be a better person for having changed.

Here is the problem:  Change is hard, and rarely straightforward.  When we make any significant changes in life, we are highly unlikely to hit 100% success.  Every now and then, you are likely to fall short.  You are likely to drift back into old habits, old actions, old responses.

That doesn’t mean you have failed.  Only that change is often a journey.

But those slips?  They will absolutely be seen as failures by a suspicious spouse who is not trusting the changes (or even your capacity to change).

And that is the problem with change.

In this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, I cover some questions about this that were submitted by listeners.  Take a listen below!

RELATED RESOURCES:
We Change When We Change
When Your Spouse Doesn’t Believe
“I’ve Changed” and Other Things Not To Say
Why Your Spouse Doesn’t See The Change
Responsibility Formula
Save The Marriage System