by Jeff Anderson | ONDA Family Law
If a marriage has driven off into the ditch, can it still be saved? It depends on the spouses and their willingness to go through the work, and sometimes the pain, of rebuilding the relationship. Many troubled marriages can be saved and some can even be made better than before.
Opposites attract. But, many times finding a partner who is one’s opposite leads to an exciting and short-term relationship. The strongest marriages find common ground in common values.
At the beginning of marriage, most people have that commonality of values, but as we grow and evolve, our interests and, yes, even our values can change. If a marriage is experiencing a crisis, it might be because the spouses have changed in different directions.
COMMUNICATION IS KEY
Re-building a happy marriage is much like maintaining a happy marriage, but with more work and more compromise. The solution lies in the communication skills of the husband and wife.
We hear so often that marriage takes work. The work is the communication, except that it doesn’t have to be work. Those who maintain happy marriages throughout their lives are more likely to have developed a habit of communicating openly and often with their spouses. Talking without distractions, talking every day, and talking about meaningful and trivial things is the communication. At first it might seem like work, but as it is practiced, it becomes part of the marriage and it can become one of the most comforting parts of marriage.
For those who have gotten off track in their marriage, practicing communication every day can make the difference between the marriage ending or improving. Talking will let you explore where each of your value systems are now. Saving the marriage means communicating those values to one another and evaluating whether they are still compatible or whether they can be brought into compatibility with attention, love and compromise.
PAY ATTENTION TO THE DETAILS
The attention, the consideration, the kindness and the priority that each spouse gives to the other is a matter of degree in every relationship. The more attention a husband gives his wife, the more a wife pays attention to her husband, so that each of them knows the mood of the other without saying a word, the closer they are likely to become and the more deep and meaningful the communication will ultimately be.
Spouses who do not want a divorce and who are willing to put in the work can turn their marriage around.
