Save The Marriage Podcast | How To Save Your Marriage | How To Stop Your Divorce

Why did you fall in love with your spouse?  Why do people fall in love with the person they fall in love? And perhaps even more importantly for our time together, why do those same relationships cause such pain? How can love turn painful and hurtful? Harville Hendrix and Helen Hunt have been on the forefront of helping hurting marriages for decades.  In 1988, their seminal book, Getting The Love You Want, came out to great acclaim.  It was an international best-seller. In that book (now revised), Harville and Helen reveal their Imago Theory of why we fall in love, and why it can either be hurtful or healing.  They also provide exercises for couples to explore their own Imago relating, to help with healing and health. Some time ago, Harville and Helen gave me some of their time to share their thoughts and direction on how to create a loving relationship.  This interview was originally part of a special program.  But I decided to share it with you, because of the powerful information they shared. Listen be

I just googled, “how to save your marriage.”  There were 607,000,000.  Over 1/2 a billion results! How do you sort through them?  How do you find a real approach, from someone who knows what they are doing? It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. And the problem is, some approaches do more harm than good.  And many times, you don’t even know who it is that is giving you the information.  What are their qualifications?  How do they even approach it? I started my website in 1999 (THAT makes me feel old! — so last century!), before Google even existed.  And to be honest, there weren’t many places to look for stuff.  I remember when Google started.  That same search, “how to save your marriage,” might get a couple hundred results.  Still a lot. But far more manageable. With all that info, you are likely to feel overwhelm.  Which means that some people will do absolutely nothing, not sure where to start.  Others will try to do absolutely everything… also not sure where to start, but thinking everything i

Most people don’t come right out and say it, but they have a sneaking suspicion that they are the victim in their marital situation.  They believe they have been done wrong… more wrong than they have done. Problem is, their spouse is believing the same thing. Over and over, I watched as people seemed to make a mad race to be the bigger victim, each on their side of my couch, trying desperately to prove they have done all they can.  But their spouse…. It is quite a game.  Not one that either person is enjoying.  Yet both are playing. In this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, I tell you the rules of the game, why we play the game… and how to end the game… unless you really want to win it.  Then, you can use the information to do that… although I don’t know why you would really want to.  That game ends with 3 losers:  You, your spouse, and your marriage. RELATED RESOURCES NMF Syndrome How NOT to Save Your Marriage Being on the Same Team Save The Marriage System

Can one person save a marriage, even if your spouse doesn’t want it? I do say that my Save The Marriage System can save your marriage, even if only you want it. But what can you really do, if your spouse is checked out and not sure they want to stay married? I answer another listener question in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast. Is it really possible to save a marriage working alone?  This is important because so many people don’t believe there is anything that can be done, once a spouse has checked out.  This is not accurate.  And it means that many people who could save their marriage and rebuild, don’t.  They walk away in defeat. So, what CAN you do?  First, I tackle what you CAN’T do.  Then, we turn our attention to what CAN be done, even if it is only you interested (right now). Listen below. RELATED RESOURCES: Read my Medium article on The Pause Button Marriage Find my book, How To Save Your Marriage In 3 Simple Steps Find my Save The Marriage System Learn more about Connection Learn

Another listener question is the topic of this week’s episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast.  The question focuses on an affair… and leaving it.  What do you do about the strong attraction that can develop with the affair partner? What if your brain is telling you the feelings are real… and if they are there, maybe it was meant to be?  What if you keep wondering if the affair partner is your “soulmate,” and you messed up with marrying your spouse? Or what if these are the questions of your spouse?  That your spouse is trying to break free, but keeps falling back into the thoughts (and arms) of the affair partner? How do you break free? Can you break free? You can.  And your marriage can be filled with the connection you were missing. How? Listen in to this week’s episode below. RELATED RESOURCES Recovering From The Affair Book Affair Recovery Resources The Importance of Connection Save The Marriage System

Marriages start at the same place:  two people in love, ready to face the world together.  And most believe they have already beaten the odds.  Their love is “the real thing,” enduring and lasting.  It won’t fall apart like those other marriages.  They have already won. Except they haven’t. Some marriages keep on moving forward, resolute and solid, loving and supportive.  But many hit an inflection point. They go from happy to hurting. And many times, they can’t find their way back… mostly because they don’t know what the difference was; what made the difference between happy and hurting. Interestingly, most people name differences that don’t make a difference between happy and hurting.  What they assume makes a difference, doesn’t. Instead, there are 4 differences that do matter.  And here is what is important:  they can be changed.  Once you understand the 4 differences between a hurting and happy marriage, you can shift toward happy.  They are learnable skills, once identified. Listen below for the 4

My car is in for service.  Usually, that means I am in their lounge, trying my best to work with daytime TV blaring in the background.  But due to COVID, I decided to leave it there and head for home.  Now, I am just waiting for the call to pick it up. It’s just regular maintenance today (fingers crossed).  But there were other cars there for repairs. Which had me thinking…. What does service mean for a relationship?  How about repair for a marriage? The more I thought about it, the more the metaphor fit.  If I do regular maintenance on my car, it by no means guarantees that it won’t break down.  But it does increase the chances of avoiding a roadside breakdown. Let’s be fair:  even the best-maintained vehicles can still break down, still need a repair.  But let’s also be clear that if you have maintained your relationship, it is far less likely to need a repair, and far less likely that it will be costly (I can attest to this after the demise of my first car). Well-maintained marriages are far less lik

The #1 reason people sought me out for couples counseling:  “We are just not connected.”  The #1 reason why marriages end up failing:  “We are just too disconnected." What happened?  That connection you had at the beginning of your marriage… where did it go? I can tell you the biggest reason why couples become disconnected:  life gets in the way.  Or more correctly, couples let life get in the way.  They hit the “pause button” on the relationship.  Because of kids, the career, schooling, hobbies, friends… lots of reasons. They just didn’t know there is no such thing as a pause button.  Either your relationship is growing or receding.  There is no pause. Still, they hit pause… and their marriage begins to disconnect.  Then, reconnecting seems so hard.  It is pushing against the inertia created.  It starts feeling like one more “have to” that is shuffled off to the back, last in line.  The marriage stays “paused,” and the relationship continues to decline. How DO you deepen your connection? That is the top

Your marriage is in trouble.  You know you want to save your relationship, but you aren’t sure how. Step #1 is surviving. Confession:  I have an abiding interest in survival.  I’m the guy who reads all the scuba accident reports, the shark attack reports, and the mountaineering accident reports. Why do those who survive make it through?  What makes a difference for them? They followed, on purpose or by accident, “rules” of surviving.  Those rules can help you, too. Your first task is to survive.  That gives you time to take more action.  Those actions are designed to rescue your relationship.  In fact, that is one rule I cover… being the rescuer.  Check it out in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast. RELATED RESOURCES Simplify It (series) Anti-Fragile Marriage Surviving Specific Situations (series) Save The Marriage System  

At the beginning of a coaching session, my clients often tell me what they have been focused on in their marriage crisis.  Almost always, they are focusing on the wrong things. And in the process, they are not focusing on the right things. Where we focus is what gets our attention.  Focus on the wrong things, and the wrong things get our attention… our energy… and our investment. That can head you right toward disaster and further discord.  And when you focus on the wrong things, trying harder does even more damage. "Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction." Kenichi Ohmae There are three places people often focus their attention that are not helpful, at best, and can be harmful at worst.  And there are three areas that need your focus, that need your attention. Focus on the right areas to make progress in your marriage crisis. RELATED RESOURCES Why Connection Matters 3 Levels of Connection Dealing with Infidelity Save The Marriage System

“Why is marriage so hard?” That is a question I often hear from struggling couples. What happened?  All of that love, all the connection, seems to disappear, to be replaced with struggle and strife. At the start, it seemed so easy.  You wanted to be together, to spend your life together.  Then… something shifted.  Things got tough. Does that mean that the marriage was wrong, that you married the wrong person? Or is there something else going on? There are several challenges that arise in any marriage.  They are challenges, not insurmountable obstacles.  They prove that “being in love” is not enough to get you through life. You CAN make it through the struggle.  And no, the struggle does NOT mean the marriage is headed for failure or broken.  There IS a place for renewal and connection. Listen below for more on how to get past the struggle. RELATED RESOURCES Connection is the Lifeblood Conflict in Marriage Can You Save Your Marriage? Save The Marriage System

Your spouse thinks it’s hopeless.  You may even be wondering that, too.  But is it?  Is it hopeless? Or is the problem that your spouse is hopeless — not the situation? Let’s be honest:  if you give up hope, it may become a hopeless situation. Sometimes, having hope is not based on seeing the way.  We find the way because we hold onto hope. In my latest book, Beyond the 3 Barriers, I note that one barrier for your spouse is hopelessness.  I also note that one way to move beyond your spouse’s barriers is by having hope.  Holding onto hope.  Maintaining hope while waiting for space to make a shift. Hope has 3 core components… all within your control and choice.  But you do need to know the components in order to choose.  When you do, you choose hope. Remember that hope is not about waiting for a spouse to hope… or even to shift.  It comes from within you, a choice you make.  Hang on to hope! Listen to the podcast episode below. RELATED RESOURCES Beyond The 3 Barriers Book Hope vs. Hopelessness Episode S

“Our marriage is broken,” she told me.  “We don’t have the passion anymore, so I don’t think we should stay married.” Missing passion… is it the end of marriage, or something else? Most relationships are sparked by infatuation.  Call it passion or romance, but the desire to be with that person, that overwhelming attraction, is a building-block for a long-term relationship — including marriage.  It is, though, not the goal. For most, that part of a relationship is a stage.  It naturally cools over time.  This is just the nature of an attraction.  It tempers over time.  Which means that we can get back to the rest of life — the parts of life that get disregarded in the heat of passion. Does that mean you must just let romance and passion fall by the wayside?  Not at all.  You just can’t count on it as the focus. Unfortunately, people often judge a marriage dead because the passion is missing. Also unfortunately, they haven’t nurtured the passion and romance.  The fact that it disappeared is more a reflecti

If a marriage crisis was not enough to deal with… now we have a pandemic.  And if that was not enough, we are self-isolating.  The pandemic isn’t anything we can control.  Self-isolating is best for ourselves and others. What, though, does that mean about your marriage crisis?  How do you deal with that?  In the midst of the pandemic?  And while self-isolating. That breaks down into 4 different groups:  Isolating together but working alone, isolating together and working together, isolating apart and working alone, and isolating apart but working together.  Each has some nuances that need your attention. I cover some recommendations for each group, and explain why it makes a difference. Listen in below. RELATED RESOURCES: Coping with COVID series Understanding Space Levels of Intimacy Save The Marriage System

“I’m just out of energy,” she told me, “I don’t think I can even try to save my marriage.  Besides, what is the point?" Let’s face it:  right now, many people are feeling exhausted and drained.  And working to save a marriage can be tiring when the world is rightside-up.  Much less when everything feels upside down! Many people feel pulled in so many questions… but when something is important… as important as marriage… why does it get shifted down?  Relegated to the “left over energy,” if there is any? There are some underlying reasons why it may feel like there is no more energy… and it isn’t really about not having energy. More importantly, there are some things you can do to do an “energy reset.”  Make a shift… then save your marriage. I cover the underlying issues and the way to solve them in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast.  Listen below. RELATED RESOURCES Self-Care Series Dealing with Fear Having a Plan Simplify your Efforts Save The Marriage System

I can’t count how many times a couple has come to me for “help with our communication skills.”  Funny thing is, they communicate just fine. Then why are they stuck in conflict?  Why are they disconnected?  Why does it seem like they aren’t on the same team? Perceptions.  About each other and about the situation that caused the conflict. And because they have decided to prove their perception to their spouse.  That is very dangerous.  Rarely is it successful, but always is it damaging. There are 2 underlying issues that affect this:  being a WE and being connected.  How strong is your sense of WE, and how connected are you?  When you don’t feel like you are on the same team and/or are feeling disconnected, it is far harder to communicate about the differences in perception.  More than that, you are unlikely to prove your connection to your spouse… especially when disconnected, but almost always. How do you solve it? We discuss what to do in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast. RELATED RESOURCE

Unless you are hiding out in a cave somewhere (I read about a person who had been on a silent retreat — went in with everything normal and came out to the pandemic), your world has been topsy-turvy. We will get through this.  The pandemic will pass.  But this isn’t about, “and then, we will get back to life.”  Life is happening right now.  And we won’t be going “back to normal,” either.  There are some fundamental changes happening in culture.  We didn’t just hit “pause” when people went into isolation.  And we won’t simply “un-pause” when it is safe to un-isolate. Society is in for a shift.  How it shifts, that depends upon us, the members of society.  There is, I believe, great potential for a shift to what really matters.  Not what we have been believing matters.  It won’t be about money, power, or prestige.  It will be about meaning, purpose, connection, and character.  (At least, that is my hope.) Why does that matter?  How does that affect your marriage?  I believe there is an opportunity, in the mid

Are you suddenly finding yourself and your spouse stuck together, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic?  Is it suddenly very close quarters? If your marriage wasn’t struggling before, this may be the stressor that pushes your relationship into crisis. Or it might just be the turning point to a thriving marriage. What can you do during this time, for yourself and your marriage?  On this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, I explore 3 areas on which you can focus.  And in each area, I give 2 suggestions for what you can do to survive the crisis, weather the storm, and help both your marriage and yourself. Listen to the episode below. RELATED RESOURCES Conflict in Marriage Space in Marriage 3 Layers to Connection Save The Marriage System  

The phrase, “Stay the Course,” comes from the commitment in battle to continue moving toward your goal, regardless of obstacles or difficulties.  So first, let’s let go of the battle analogy.  You aren’t in battle.  But you are fighting for your marriage. And in this moment, you are fighting to keep yourself and your family safe. Those are the goals.  And that is the problem.  A single crisis is tough enough.  But a crisis, squared.  It isn’t just double.  The struggle is exponential.  That’s because a crisis on top of a crisis is not cumulative.  It can feel like it multiplies the struggle. So, then, how do you stay the course? I cover these 4 ways in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast: Have a plan. Practice extra patience and grace. Refuse to absorb anxiety. Do the Next Right Thing. Listen below for the details on each. RELATED RESOURCES Why You Need A Plan Emotions and Your Marriage Dealing with Fear Save The Marriage System

First, you were caught in the swirling whirlwind of a marriage crisis.  Now, to add to that, a pandemic is taking over.  Whatever fears you had about your marriage are now layered with your concerns about your health (and the health of loved ones). It is amazing how quickly things are moving.  This crisis has been on the radar since the first of the year.  But as with many things (including a marriage struggle), most people don’t pay much attention until it is cascading into a crisis.  Then, we are playing “catch up.” Trying desperately to get ahead of the situation.  But generally finding ourselves falling further and further behind. A crisis tests us. Both a marriage crisis and a world crisis.  They test us.  To see whether we rise up or give up.  Whether we go with what matters or what is easy.  Do we act in fear or lead with courage? We talk about this in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast.  Listen below. RELATED RESOURCES Being a WE Importance of Connection Dealing with Fear in Marriage D