How to save your marriage? 10 tips to avoid breaking up

Personal relationships, and especially those of a couple, are usually complex. After the infatuation stage has happened, it is common for problems and situations to arise that are far from the idyllic relationship that we imagined at the beginning.

When these problems are not solved well, they lead to deep problems that can lead to breakup. This puts the relationship at risk, but there are always alternatives on how to save the marriage.

• Recommended article: "The 12 types of boyfriends (according to their personality and attitude)"

Before you think about the breakup, you can save the marriage

As long as there is a disposition of both, it is possible to avoid the break. Will and a lot of communication is required, this will always make it possible to solve misunderstandings and problems in favor of both of you.

If you want to know how to save your marriage, here are ten tips that can help reestablish harmony, improve communication and make love reborn. While each couple and situation is unique, these alternatives can be very helpful to most married couples.

1. Provision

As it was mentioned already, the first step is to know if there is willingness on the part of both. No advice, strategy, or therapy will work if either partner no longer has an interest in saving the marriage. If the decision is made and one of the two (or both) consider that it is better to abandon ship... surely it will be best to let logic rule.

However, it may happen that both members of the couple consider that there is still much to fight for. For this reason, the first thing that should be discussed openly is whether there is a will to do what is necessary to solve the problems and move forward. To talk about this, you have to try to stay calm, leave the claims and focus only on knowing what the position of both parties is.

2. Effective communication

Effective communication is key to any type of personal relationship. It is even more so in marriage and of course in efforts to save and regain love. Effective communication requires correctly expressing what we feel and think and listening with openness.

This means that it is not only about talking, but about connecting at the moment in which you are talking. You have to look into each other's eyes, you have to be open-minded and empathy to hear what the other says and you have to have the ability to clearly express what you feel.

3. Admit responsibility, remove accusations

During a marriage crisis, it is common to become embroiled in mutual accusations. A human reaction is to blame the other for the situation that is being experienced. However, effort is required on both sides to stop this type of reaction.

The healthiest and most mature way to start working on what is necessary to save the marriage is to do a job of honesty with yourself and admit those things in which you have done wrong or omitted, and stop blaming the other.

4. Identify leakage mechanisms

When there is a crisis in the marriage, it is common to find ways to avoid the situation. It is important to identify them, and this requires honest work of introspection. This must be done by each with himself, that is, it is not a good idea for the other to reproach these forms of evasion.

The most serious and obvious evasions are a infidelity or some addiction. This does not require a lot of work to identify it, but you have to admit it openly (in the case of infidelities, the solutions are different) and look for solutions. Other forms of avoidance when a marriage is watery are: excessive work, social networks, busy with other activities more than necessary, etc.

5. Eliminate leaks

Once they have admitted the leaks they use, they must be eliminated. It is important to take the time to attend to the marriage crisis. Therefore, if it has already been identified that there are activities or situations that function as escape or evasion to face the crisis, they must be eliminated.

That is why the willingness on both sides to save the marriage is so important, since it requires an effort to admit their own faults rather than accuse the other. In addition to the desire to eliminate leaks to focus on what is needed, we must take the time and plan how to manage our time and our relationship avoiding these escape mechanisms so harmful.

6. Seek professional support

Whenever possible, you have to go to professionals to save the marriage. Couples therapy by a mental health professional. A psychologist specialized in couples will be able to guide you on the best way to avoid the breakdown in the couple.

However, it is important to come with sufficient openness, disposition, honesty and the ability to take responsibility for the actions committed. Without any of this, therapy will not work, as it requires an absolute commitment on both sides to carry it out.

7. Positive language

When faced with a marital crisis, it is common to get carried away by resentments, but it must be avoided at all costs. It takes an effort to leave claims, blame and arguments. One way to reinforce work in therapy and work to save the marriage is to avoid fighting.

Positive language is helpful. You have to focus on the pleasant and remarkable aspects of the couple and the relationship. So when there is a threat of fighting, it is best to calm down, take some time and think and express something positive to ease the tension. If tempers are very heated, it is best to allow 24 hours and avoid confrontation before returning to the conversation with a more positive frame of mind.

8. Do activities together

Spending time alone doing things that you enjoy helps save the marriage. In the effort to avoid fights and claims too there must be a willingness to resume the activities you enjoy together and do so with a positive attitude.

Whenever possible, you should resume these leisure activities together. No children, if there are any, no friends or family. If you can do things that you liked when you were dating or during the first dates, it will undoubtedly be of great help as it will bring to your memory the moments that made you happy.

9. Regain intimacy

It is common for intimacy to be totally relegated in a marriage crisis. In some cases it happens that you continue to have intimate relationships, but once they end, the quarrels and disputes return.

One of the goals is to regain healthy and loving intimacy. In other words, it is important to speak openly about how you feel in this field, and to work to recover the intimacy as a form of expression of love and not as an attempt to resolve the conflict, especially if it is not running.

10. About infidelities

When the marriage crisis is due to infidelity of one or both, there is also a solution. It is widely believed that an infidelity is the end of the couple's relationship. However, as long as there is a willingness to move on, the marriage can be saved.

In these situations, it is essential to seek professional help. Well, emotional work is required to heal resentments and achieve a sincere forgiveness that allows you to move forward in the relationship, but in a healthy way and without burdens from the past. Otherwise, it is always better to ask yourself if it is really good to move on.

Bibliographic references

• Christensen A., Atkins D.C., Baucom B., Yi J. (2010). Marital status and satisfaction five years following a randomized clinical trial comparing traditional versus integrative behavioral couple therapy. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
• O'Donohue, W. and Ferguson, K.E. (2006): Evidence-Based Practice in Psychology and Behavior Analysis. The Behavior Analyst Today.
• Sternberg, J. (1997). Satisfaction in close relationships. Guilford Press.