How To Save Your Marriage
Determination: What You Need to Save Your Marriage
“So how do you save your marriage?” asked a thirty two-year old woman who has been married for 7 years. She and her spouse have two young children. She lived in comfort—a house that’s big enough to cater to a few homeless people on the streets, a flourishing restaurant chain, and children who constantly perform well academically—but her married life is like a hidden cellar, physically, it’s there but it’s all dark and empty. Worse, no one knows that she’s suffering.
“There are many ways to save your marriage, if that’s what you want to know,” I said. “But I have one question for you.” One simple question which you should be able to answer right, I thought.
How much are you willing to lay down for your marriage to work? I have had more than thirty people coming to me, asking the same question, and ending up leaving through that door where you just came in shaking their heads in disappointment. Not that I wasn’t able to recommend anything but because they didn’t want to do the things that I suggest they do. Things that could hurt their pride.
To tell you the truth, no one can save a marriage without being open to total and honest rebuke. Though it’s normal for you to feel that it’s not entirely your fault, it does not mean you won’t need to do anything at all. Sometimes, it takes genuine determination to get the thing you most want. And in the case of an ailing relationship, determination is what you need to get your relationship back on track.
Some marriages can be more readily fixed than others. There are lots of factors to consider. And usually, it all depends on the willingness of at least one of the participating parties to affect change or improvement in the whole relationship. If you feel you can be that person, then waste no time, think no other thoughts and do what you must. You are doing your children, yourself, and your future a big favor by not giving up on a treasure that’s so hard to find today—a beautiful marriage.
Let’s take a look at the woman who approached me with the loaded question she has long carried in mind. A year after our counseling sessions, her husband joined in. Five years after our sessions have ended, their relationship became strong and until today, they are really doing good as a couple. She described her husband as being tenderer and her husband says she’d been more understanding. What ever happened to the emptiness and darkness that hovered over their marriage?
There is no secret potion, no special technique that brought them together again. But there is one word that opened the doors to a host of opportunities for the two to rediscover each other and a thousand reasons why they married in the first place: determination. And that’s what we worked on for a considerable amount of time until finally, they could both stand on their own feet and be assured of the love they have for each other.
Finding the determination and inspiration to get back together after long years of bruising each other emotionally is not easy. It’s not like taking a bath after wading through the mud, it’s more like learning how to write using your left hand given you’re right-handed. She started from scratch, gathered all the resources she could about happy marriages, applied what she learned, patiently waited for positive results to manifest until she was able to break down the walls between the two of them. There were a lot of worries, skepticism, and rejections at first but then she kept reminding herself that to save a marriage she has to keep the determination alive. She came out a victor and both of them satisfied. Wouldn’t you want that for your marriage, too?
