My Child’s Marriage in Trouble: What Can I Do?

My Child’s Marriage Is Falling Apart

When our kids hurt, we hurt.

If you’re watching this video, it’s likely that your child’s marriage is in trouble, and as a parent, you want to help them get through this hard time. You don’t want to do the WRONG thing, but still feel like you need to do SOMETHING.

We’re here to help. We will explain three things you should NOT do, and three things you SHOULD do if your child’s marriage is in trouble.

First, do NOT control the situation. An example of this is telling your child/in law, “You should do this… You should not do this… etc.” Rather, your child needs to feel accepted by you. To this point…

Second, if your child is doing something against your beliefs and values, you should accept them but NOT endorse their actions. Still love them, be there for them, but don’t endorse behaviors inconsistent with your beliefs & values. Be consistent.

Third, if your child is doing something against your beliefs and values, do not believe everything your child tells you. Their perspective may have changed during this time. (We tend to justify ourselves to account for our actions.)

Now that we’ve focused on three things you should NOT do, here are three things you SHOULD do.

First, consider your advice- be CAREFUL about the advice you give your child- your advice can be biased and lead to destruction. What we’ve seen is that emotion clouds judgement- the closer you are emotionally, the harder it is to see clearly. (And, what worked for you, may not work for your child/son-in-law/daughter-in-law.)

Second, share your heart but do not make decisions for them: listen, don’t vilify, and don’t give bad advice if you’re upset.

Third, encourage your child to seek the right help. Here at Marriage Helper, we believe that we can ABSOLUTELY help your child, as we have helped hundreds of thousands of people in all types of marriage situations. So how can you get the right help? Here are some things to know:

Make sure the source of help isn’t someone you know- this could cause situation bias
Ensure that the source is PRO-Marriage
Do what it takes to help your child SAVE the marriage

And, remember this- it is your child’s choice.

We would love to help, so please contact us here! We can get you in touch with a Client Representative about what we can offer for your child’s marriage.

Call us at 866-903-0990 to get in touch about what we can do for your child’s marriage.

WE WANT TO HELP

At Marriage Helper, we’ve walked alongside thousands of couples and spent decades researching what really works to strengthen marriages. Our goal is to provide you with practical, research-backed guidance—like the free information you’ve found on this page—because we genuinely care about helping marriages thrive. If you’re ready to go deeper, our workshops, membership, and one-on-one coaching offer even more tools, insights, and personalized support to help you navigate your unique journey and create lasting change in your relationship.

Our intensive Marriage Helper Workshop has a remarkable 70% success rate in saving marriages, even if your spouse is reluctant or unwilling to participate. And here’s what’s even more encouraging: 99% of participants recommend our program to others, regardless of their ultimate outcome.

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