i can’t save my marriage – Save The Marriage: Even if only YOU want to!

Combatting Crisis Fatigue

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 23, 2022 February 22, 2022

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

February 23, 2022

You’ve been doing your best to work on your marriage… to resolve your marriage crisis. Then, you find yourself exhausted. You can’t find your focus. You wonder if you even care. The negativity creeps in, followed by hopelessness.

Sound familiar?

That would be Crisis Fatigue. It is what happens when a crisis isn’t resolved quickly. When the crisis covers days, weeks, even months (and maybe even years) it can wear on you. And all that effort you were putting into resolution falls to the side. You find yourself not following through on your plan.

Your efforts fail as you fall into exhaustion.

Crisis Fatigue.

But don’t let the Crisis Fatigue keep you stuck! You can deal with it, move beyond it, and continue your efforts. You can do that when you learn how to combat Crisis Fatigue. That is what we cover on this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast.

I discuss what Crisis Fatigue is, why it happens, what happens when it hits, and how to deal with it. Listen below.

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How to NOT Save Your Marriage

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

June 9, 2021

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!

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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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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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Survival Rules for Your Marriage

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

June 3, 2020

Your marriage is in trouble. You know you want to save your relationship, but you aren’t sure how.

Step #1 is surviving.

Confession: I have an abiding interest in survival. I’m the guy who reads all the scuba accident reports, the shark attack reports, and the mountaineering accident reports.

Why do those who survive make it through? What makes a difference for them?

They followed, on purpose or by accident, “rules” of surviving. Those rules can help you, too.

Your first task is to survive. That gives you time to take more action. Those actions are designed to rescue your relationship. In fact, that is one rule I cover… being the rescuer. Check it out in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast.

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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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“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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Pushing Through…

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

November 6, 2019

What do you do when you feel like giving up, like nothing you do is making a difference? Or when your spouse says you are trying to hard, or acting strange? Or when you have dragged your spouse to retreats, therapy, workshops… and at every turn, your spouse throws up a wall?

What do you do to push through?

That assumes that, for right now, giving up is not what you want to do.

You could do that. You could walk away. That is an option at any time.

But what if you don’t want to do that?

In this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, I answer listener questions about how to continue in the face of failed efforts and resistant spouses.

We also look at the effects of depression on the process.

And I give you three pointers to keep moving forward… including why that “love language” may be failing in translation.

Listen below.

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Why People Get Derailed

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

March 6, 2019

When a marriage crisis hits, people kick into gear! They dig in and work on their relationship. Many times, they start to see results. Things are turning for the better. The relationship is warming. Things aren’t quite so hostile.

But then….

They get derailed. Thrown off-course. Lost in the crisis.

Not surprisingly, any gains made are quickly lost. Things become even more tense and fractured.

Why did they get derailed? Four reasons: Distracted, Distanced, Doubtful, and Discouraged.

I go into each of these… as well as how to avoid falling into the trap and getting derailed… in this week’s Save The Marriage Podcast. You can listen below.

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Feeling Like Quitting?

By: Lee H. Baucom, Ph.D.

February 1, 2017

Feeling like quitting is not the same as making a decision to quit. One is an emotional response to the struggle. The other is a rational decision. Unless, of course, you confuse the two.

It is true in all of life. We can feel like quitting a job, quitting an exercise session, quitting a hobbie, quitting parenting. . . well, that might be tough! But you get my meaning. You can feel like quitting. That doesn’t mean you quit.

When you choose to quit, it is just that — a deliberate decision, made for the right reason. In fact, I think one of the reasons we have such a marriage crisis in society is because too many people confuse the feeling of wanting to quit with the need to take action, to quit.

On a long trail race, I think I felt like quitting from mile 10 to mile 25.5. The last mile, I was good. But up until then, that was the running dialogue, “I could quit. I could stop right now. I could just quit. I could walk away.” Granted, I was in the middle of nowhere, and it would have been a long hike just to quit. But I could have. Had I chosen to (versus thinking about it, but taking no action — other than continuing to put one foot in front of the other).

In this week’s podcast, I cover the difference between feeling like quitting and choosing to quit (including some advice on what to do if you choose to quit).

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