Contributor

A lot of times when there is trouble in your marriage, it seems that everything would be easier if your spouse would change and do things differently, then you can change your response towards them. But what if your spouse doesn’t think anything is wrong? What if your spouse feels the same way? If YOU made the changes everything would be just fine. This is frustrating and results in a cycle of arguments.

I am going to discuss with you how you can change your marriage drastically without any help from your spouse. I will reveal to you three things you can start doing today that will change the dynamics of your relationship so much your spouse will start to make changes on their own.

One of these things is not like the other

If your marriage has been suffering for a long time, it may be difficult to think of happier times. But I am going to ask you to do just that. All relationships are not horrible all the time. If that were the case you would not have made the commitment to get married.

This might be challenging, but I want you to think about some times when you had a happy marriage or a happy relationship. How did YOU act? Were you nicer to your spouse? Were you more supportive? Were you more understanding?

It can be helpful to respond to your spouse in the way you had previously when your marriage was going well. Sometimes, just a change of response to your spouse gets them to change their behavior towards you. Your understanding, loving, caring behavior towards them may make a huge difference in their behavior towards you.

What happens when you keep on doing the same things?

You get the same results. So why is it that people think if they yell louder at their spouse or continue to express their feelings in the same way that something magical will happen and their spouse will finally get it? If you have been trying things to improve your relationship but they have not been working, I want you to write them down.

You will want to keep a journal of what actions or techniques you are using that are getting you the desired results you want and which ones are just yielding more of the same behavior from your spouse. The strategies that are working, keep doing them. If there are strategies that you have been using for a period of time and they are just causing things to become worse, stop doing them.

Releasing control

Sometimes the easiest thing to do when there are problems in the marriage is to blame the other person. “If only he would listen to men things would be better.” “If only she would help out around the house things would be better.” “If only they would stop drinking things would be better.” – One thing is for certain, it is easier to change yourself then trying to change anyone else.

You might feel that you are the “good” spouse and you are doing all the right things in your marriage. But your spouse might feel differently. Being committed to change will be helpful in saving your marriage since oftentimes both spouses don’t see the problem or one spouse just might not be willing to work on the marriage.

Your commitment to change will be vitally important because one of you will have to do things differently to make things better in the marriage and since you can’t MAKE your partner do what you want, you will need to find out what behavior you have to exhibit to get your partner act in the way that you want.

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You are not alone. Many women experience a point in marriage where their husband pulls away or a separation happens. It hurts, especially when marriage is supposed to be forever. Whether your husband has slightly pulled away from the marriage, your marriage is close to divorce or your husband has become uninterested in you, there are 4 things you can do to get your husband back.

Are You Getting Predictable Responses From Your Husband?

Here’s why.

You may be getting frustrated because you feel that you have tried everything to get your husband back. You might get angry with him and tell him all the reasons he is making a mistake or you may be the complete opposite, doing everything for him in order to convince him that he should stay. How is that working for you?

If your husband is not responding positively to your behavior, you will need to change your behavior. You may believe that your husband is predictable and every time you do something to help with the marriage whether it is suggesting counseling or giving him advice on how the marriage could get better, he acts in a predictable way.

But what you may fail to realize is that he may believe that you are predictable when you come to him trying to improve your marriage. If you want different results you have to try new things.

Keeping a journal of what is working and what is not working when trying different techniques to improve your marriage is going to be vitally important. Your goal is to do more of the things that work and eliminate those things that aren’t giving you the positive responses you want.

Are You Happy?

Although this might seem unimportant when you are trying to get your husband back, it is an essential part of the process.

You may believe once your marriage is better, you will be happy or that your happiness has nothing to do with the failed marriage.

Sometimes when you are not happy, your attitude changes and that sours the marriage. When you do the things necessary to keep yourself happy, you will have less time to focus on what your husband is not doing right. Your husband will have to spend less time arguing with you and more time looking at his personal issues.

The Power Of The Pen

Writing handwritten letters can be effective in communication if you and your spouse have had difficulty communicating verbally.

When you write your letter it is not your time to vent and tell him everything that is wrong with him. You will want to write a loving letter, telling him how much you appreciate him but also letting him know about how you are feeling. Feelings are key here, because he won’t be able to deny how you feel about certain things but he can flat out deny accusations you may make in your letter.

Is Your Point The One That “Always” Makes Sense?

Most of the time when we are engaging in an argument with someone or there is stress with the relationship we can only see one side of the equation. It will be helpful to try to understand and empathize with your husband regarding his issues as well.

A great way to do this is to repeat what he is saying back to him. Sometimes huge arguments are just misunderstandings. You may repeat something back to him that he has said and he may explain to you that it is not what he meant.

Usually marriage problems boil down to communication problems. Give him a chance to talk without interrupting and repeat what you hear him saying back to him “So, what you are saying is….”

You may be at the end of your rope. You may have tried everything to save your marriage and create a loving relationship but nothing seems to work. Reviving a marriage is not easy. But there are some simple things you can do to dramatically improve your relationship with your spouse. I will be discussing three things that are absolutely necessary in order to save your marriage.

The good thing about working to create a better marriage or to revive a dying one is that you don’t need your spouse’s approval to start working on your marriage. You can work on changing the dynamics of your relationship on your own.

The importance of testing

This is a marriage, what do you mean test? Up until now you have probably been doing the same things to get your spouse to change their behavior. For example if your spouse fails to come home on time at night, your response may be to yell at them or sometimes to even ignore the behavior all together. Whatever you are doing to help with your marriage, you will need to start writing it down and take note of your spouses’ reaction.

Why?

Have you ever been in a situation where you can predict what a certain person will do to annoy you? Maybe it is at your job or at a particular organization you volunteer your time or maybe you are experiencing this with your spouse right now. You may wonder why they keep on doing the same things over and over again when they can visibly see that you are absolutely annoyed.

Well… Why are you continuing to do the same things with your spouse when it is obviously not yielding positive results? This is why it will be so vitally important to write down what you are doing to help your marriage AND the reaction your spouse is having. If one particular technique works, then keep doing it. If another strategy doesn’t work then avoid using this as a technique to help your marriage.

Being Flexible: You will find that sometimes you are using a technique that is working fairly well and your spouse might all of a sudden have a different reaction to it, this is ok because people change. Having a loving marriage is a continuous effort so don’t be so rigid in your findings that you are unwilling to make changes.

A simple way to change your thought pattern

If your spouse is 2 hours late for a dinner date, what is your reaction? What if you knew they were late because of a huge accident on the way home? What if they were late because they suddenly got ill and had to drive themselves to the hospital? What if they were late because they decided to catch up with some old friends instead of coming straight home? – Each of these situations would elicit different responses. But oftentimes it is easier to assume that your spouse is being inconsiderate and choosing the response that best fits that situation.

It will be helpful to take some time and understand, things might always be as they appear. Take time to talk to your spouse and find out what is actually going on before you choose a response.

Do you really need goals when trying to improve your marriage?

How will you ever know that you have achieved success unless you know what the end result is? Many times couples will point to wanting a better marriage, a loving spouse, someone who respects their work, less fighting and arguing, but what do these things really mean? Your goals need to be specific.

Imagine if your boss told you that she wanted you to do better work. What does that really mean? Unless you felt that you were doing horrible work to begin with, it would be difficult to track the results. What does better work mean for your boss? Does it means that you come into work on time all the time? Does it mean that you turn in assignments early? Does it mean increasing your sales? And if so by how much?

Do you see how frustrating this could be? In this situation you don’t know exactly what your boss wants. If you want a more loving marriage, how will you know you have achieved it? Does it mean that your spouse asks you out two times a week? Does it mean that your spouse says I love you more often? What is more often? I think you see what I am getting at. Knowing specifics about what you want will help you understand whether you are getting what you want.

Your marriage does not have to be difficult. You are not in a situation that can’t be turned around. Just as businesses have to tweak their goals and responses to customers to increase sales and keep growing, partners in a marriage have to make changes to continue a loving relationship. You are capable of changing your marriage, even if you are the only one trying.

When you are married and circumstances present a long distance relationship, it can be difficult.

When people think of marriage it is usually a husband and wife living in the same house. Many people don’t understand how a long distance marriage can work but it happens more often than people realize. I want to share with you 3 imperative strategies to make your long distance marriage survive the distance and also two things that will only serve to ruin your relationship if you engage in them…and it’s not what you think.

One of the biggest reasons, people have a tough time in long distance relationships is because of ineffective communication. This more than the distance is what ruins a long distance relationship. With a long distance marriage there may be more commitment, but communication issues if not addressed can really put unneeded stress on your marriage.

If your partner has just accepted a job offer that is too good to pass up or has moved searching for better job opportunities in a different state or sometimes a different country, it can really be difficult to come to terms with, even if you both agreed on the move. It can be lonely and can cause a lot of anger on both sides due to the separation.

There will be 3 things that are necessary to do to keep the love alive.

Communication

This is most important. You actually have to have communication about communication. If you want to be successful in your long distance marriage you have to have some ground rules set before a conflict arises. You will need to determine how often you will communicate, when you will communicate, and how you will communicate. All expectations should be laid out on the table so you and your spouse can agree. It is imperative to also put a clause in your discussions saying that if one party doesn’t feel that the communication techniques are working then you can come back to the drawing board and create new communication techniques that you both can agree to.

Finances

This is vitally important also. A lot of marriages end in divorce because of mishandling of money or arguments about money. You will need to decide how money will be handled when you are away. This needs to be done preferably before one person moves out. If your spouse has already moved, a specific time should be set up to discuss how money will be handled regarding bills, including extra bills that will come up because of distance. These include phone bills, traveling costs, and amounts that should be spent on gifts.

Time Spent Together

This might be one that you may not think of until an argument comes about regarding it. When you do meet up, how will your time be split? If your spouse moves and comes to visit you, how much time should they spend with family/friends vs. spending time with you. If you are the one who moved, how will you split up your time between family/friends and your spouse? When you are spending time together, how much space do you give the other person? How are the chores split up around the house? This might not be as big of an issue if your visits are for a few days only. But if you stay a couple of weeks, you want to make sure that duties are shared or that there is some agreement as to who will do what.

Two frequent mistakes that married couples make when in a long distance relationship that hurt and destroy the strength of their marriage is not planning adequately for a long distance relationship and miscommunication through various communication channels.

Mistake 1

Most conflicts can be avoided by planning properly for the long distance relationship. If you have already moved and have not done so already, it will be important that you set up a time with your spouse to discuss the “rules” of your relationship. Be sure to also discuss how much time can be spent with the opposite sex alone, if any. In a marriage this will be an important topic because spending time with the opposite sex alone can lead to infidelity since there may be feelings of loneliness and slight depression resulting from the move.

Mistake 2

Another source of conflict is hiding how you feel from your spouse in order NOT to have a conflict. This will only serve to worsen things. In a relationship and especially in a long distance relationship, feelings have to be discussed frequently so your spouse knows what type of mood you are in. A lot of misunderstandings happen because a spouse has not interpreted their partner’s mood correctly and might by cynical or sarcastic when the person is just not in the mood. When you are with someone face to face you can kind of gauge their feelings, but in a long distance relationship, this is difficult. So you have to be honest with your spouse about how you are feeling and encourage them to do the same.