Marriage is a long and committed process that comes with bumps and obstacles over time. No one has a perfect relationship, and the most challenging thing about marriage is finding out that your spouse wants out. You want to fix your broken marriage, but you have no clue where to start or how to communicate your feelings.
So what is the first step in trying to fix a broken marriage? Is it awareness, reflection, or understanding? In this article, we will dive into all of these factors. We talk about why your spouse wants out, self-reflection in your relationship, the process of falling out of love, managing expectations, and how to fix your marriage for a better outcome.
The First Step to Fixing a Broken Marriage
If you believe you are in a broken marriage or falling apart, there are ways to solve this. The first step is understanding how you got here. When two people drift apart or stop seeing eye-to-eye, realize this is not an overnight thing. No one wakes up and wants to stop being married one day. Falling out of love is a process, just like falling in love. As life changes, so do we as people. Over time, those small life changes significantly impact our lives that can negatively affect a marriage. Some reasons for growing apart include:
- A demanding career
- Poor time management
- Paying more attention to children and events
- Sick Parent
- Loss of connection
- Neglecting your spouse
- Past pain or trauma
These are a few things that can lead to an emotional drift in your marriage and often towards something more serious, like an affair. The first step to fixing a broken marriage is understanding that it will take time to reconcile and re-connect with each other. The amount of time it takes to fix a broken marriage is unknown. If both people are committed to bettering the issues, then the timeline is unimportant.
3 Reasons Why We Fall Out of Love
People do not fall out of love overnight. Sometimes an affair, divorce, or emotional disconnect is the symptom of a much bigger problem. An essential thing to remember is people typically leave a relationship because of three common reasons: They don’t feel loved, liked, or respected. Different things can contribute to a lack of feeling loved, liked, or respected by your spouse:
Lack of Emotional Connection
Losing connection with your spouse because you both work demanding jobs. This makes it hard to spend time together and maintain an emotional bond.
Pain or Trauma From Our Past
Childhood trauma or pain from experience can contribute to emotional distancing. When we experience pain, we tend to take it out on our spouse. We can be critical, rude, or mean to our spouse as a way to cope with our hurt and insecurities.
Paying More Attention to Our Personal Lives
People become comfortable in their relationships. Comfort makes it easy to forget about your spouse’s needs or little things to make them feel loved. Generally, separation or wanting to leave comes from something “missing” in the relationship.
Second Step: Figure Out What You Added to Your Broken Marriage
The second step to fixing a broken marriage is looking at yourself. The truth is, it takes two when a marriage falls apart. No one is entirely innocent or perfect. Dive deep to figure out what you contributed to the breakdown in your marriage. When a spouse has an affair or goes behind your back, it is easy to blame them. Yes, what they did was wrong, and their mistakes are not your fault, but remember, everyone has flaws. Your spouse is not evil.
Try seeing them as a good person that did a bad thing. One of the biggest reasons for the disconnect is assuming. We often believe our spouse wants out of the marriage because of another person or a lifestyle. Instead of asking our spouse why? We assume. When it really has to do with the interaction between you and your spouse. Looking at your flaws will give you insight into ways to improve yourself and your relationship.
How To Improve Your Flaws For A Better Relationship
At Marriage Helper, we base our teachings on PIES: Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual. Working on your PIES means becoming your best self; physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually to set yourself up for success. Learn more about PIES here. We guarantee a healthier relationship and a more attractive version of yourself by working on these four traits.
Third Step: Accepting Your Spouse and Managing Expectations
A third step to fixing your broken marriage is offering acceptance and communicating with your spouse in a non-judgmental way. Gain insight into how they feel, how they act, what they think, and what they do. Understanding these aspects will allow them to feel accepted by you for their actions. Acceptance initiates change. Your spouse feels like you know them and begin to change and improve. You will also change and work on things to improve your flaws.
Managing Expectations
As you change and see improvements in the relationship, your spouse may not follow your lead so quickly. They feel broken or hurt, and just because you are changing quickly doesn’t mean they will act the same. Over time, your influence may positively affect them to start healing. Offer acceptance, work on yourself, and manage your expectations until then. Remember, love is a marathon, not a sprint.
Final Step: Final Step: Get Help if Your Spouse Wants to Fix the Broken Marriage
If your spouse wants to fix the marriage and love again, seek professional help. People often believe reconciliation will fall into place, and often it doesn’t work out that way. In a broken marriage, couples tend to hide their true feelings or emotions from each other. There will be setbacks, and there will be struggles. We have a team of specialists at Marriage Helper that believe in helping marriages last a lifetime. We offer resources like our Free Mini-Course to identify issues in your relationships and help you both fall back in love. If you want to talk with someone at Marriage Helper about your situation and what would be the best next steps for your marriage, click here.
