Problems in Marriage - Trying To Make Marriage Stronger

Can marriage be compared to life experiences like parenting or living on our own for the first time? Something we have no clue about until we actually "live" it? Or could most of today's problems in marriages have been avoided if we had been formally educated about relationships before we tied the knot? After all, we are required to learn the rules of the road before we get a driver's license.   What if we had all been required to take and pass "Relationships 101" before we were granted a marriage license? Would we be better prepared to handle problems in marriage as they arise? Would we all have a stronger marriage?

Most of us enter into marriage knowing little about relationships.  It's fair to assume that we all acquire most of our knowledge about the opposite sex after we are married.  But, if you had been given the knowledge before you married, do you think you could have avoided a lot of unnecessary pain?   What about divorce?  Should couples be required to work on their marriage before they are granted a divorce decree?  It's an interesting thought.  Do you ever wonder how many divorces could be prevented if couples have the right tools to fix their relationships?  I believe that it's never too late to become knowledgeable and at least attempt to work on problems in a marriage.  The article below discusses 5 ways to make your marriage stronger.

Whether you have been married for six months or 60 years, you can always learn ways to become a better husband or wife. In fact, the happiest couples I know are the ones who make a deliberate effort to learn how to make their marriage stronger. Many people are required to take continued education courses to become better employees. Imagine how much lower the divorce rate would be if we were required to take continued education courses to become better spouses!

5 Ways to Make Your Marriage Stronger | hitched

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Can You Fix A Broken Marriage? How Do You Know If A Relationship Can Be Healed?

Are you more inclined to believe every problem in a marriage has a solution?  Or, do you feel helpless to fix what is broken in your relationship?  In every troubled marriage, there is an undeniable moment of truth when the reality that something needs to change is no longer avoidable.  It is this moment when you must decide if you are going to make a plan to save your marriage or if divorce is the path you are destined to take.

Taking a deep look into the problems in your relationship is the first place to start.  Sometimes viewing a marriage analytically offers a clearer picture and allows you to disentangle yourself from the web of emotional confusion so that you can form a plan of action.

Repairing the Relationship 

In her new book, "Deal Breakers," psychoanalyst Bethany Marshall outlines how men and women should decide when to continue working on a relationship and when to call it quits.   If you're unhappy with the other person, you have to define the problem, set a time limit and allow the other person to reach for solutions.  She has to step back to see if he does reach for it, instead of nagging. 

The assignment for both of you becomes: Find out what it is that makes you happy and decide how you can bring that home.  For every problem there is a solution. You can't just live for the promise of a future where things magically get better.

'Deal Breakers': How to Heal a Relationship - ABC News

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Healing A Broken Marriage During A Separation

Can Time Spent Apart Be A Good Thing For A Bad Marriage?


More often than not, a separation in a troubled marriage is thought of as a precursor to divorce.  Yet, when looked at through a different lens the opposite can be true.  Taking a break from the intensity of a struggling marriage can be a healing experience for you, your spouse, and your marriage if you part ways with the intent of using the time advantageously.
 
The article below examines some of the ways to approach healing a marriage after a separation.

Take The Time To Heal Yourself

Utilize the time apart to heal your wounds and revitalize yourself. When the time comes for you to reconnect you want to bring the very best of yourself back to your marriage. You will feel confident and your spouse will find you much more appealing.

Help Me Heal My Broken Marriage - I Don't Want A Divorce!

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Relationship Breakdown - The Real Cost of Separation and Divorce

The differences between the sexes  is no more apparent that in our relationships.  Interestingly enough though, regardless of the differences, when it comes separation and divorce, everyone still ends up losing.

An extensive, study looking at the immediate and long-term financial and social impacts of a break-up, has shown that women end up relatively worse off in terms of income four years after separation, while men are financial stable but experience an increase in loneliness.

“Separation has an enormous impact on both men and women,” said Professor David de Vaus, Executive Dean of UQ's Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences and co-author of the study.  “Although women suffer persisting financial loss after separation, their mental health recovers much better than men's,” he said. 

The study - Relationship breakdown and social exclusion: A longitudinal analysis - looks at a sample of around 14,000 people and their situation two years before a separation and up to four years after.  Co-authored by researchers from The University of Queensland, the Australian Institute of Family Studies and the Australian National University, this study identified that 57% of separated women experienced a loss in income the year immediately following separation. 

“Divorce has a short-term and medium-term effect and, financially, women take a long-term hit,” said Professor de Vaus.  Although women experience damage financially the study found that there was a noticeable increase in their social support network, where as men suffered emotionally, with a sharp drop in life satisfaction.  In the year following separation, 48% of men who were still single continued to feel very lonely compared to 39% of women who remained single.

Relationship breakdown - the real cost

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How to Save My Marriage - Use This Proven "Trick" To Rescue Your Broken Marriage!

“I don’t know how to save my marriage.” If this is your dilemma, you may get the feeling that you are on your own. Especially if your partner is not working on the relationship as hard as you are. Let me tell you straight away though, that you are not alone. Did you know there are more than 2 million divorces happening every year? In this article, you will learn of an easy solution to the most common dilemma for individuals struggling with a marriage in crisis. I am going to show you how to renew your broken marriage!

How You Can Get Your Spouse Back Into Your Arms? In a nutshell, there are techniques that you can use to "trick" your partner into falling back in love with you. Furthermore, these techniques work even better for people who have been in love with each other before! That would be you! You can learn to manipulate the conditions in your relationship so that your partner will fall completely in love with you! Head over heels in love! What does this mean for you? It means that no matter how bad your relationship is right now, it is possible for you to say to yourself “I know that I can save my marriage!”


The biology of love and what it can do for your marriage. Let's learn a little bit about what love does to our brains. Basically, love is a special kind of chemistry. When we fall in love our brains are flooded with four chemicals. We feel a high that no other human emotion can create. Did you know that the effects of this high can last up to three years? You can get a lot of mileage out of that! More importantly, love is addictive. Powerfully addictive! The chemicals that we create when we fall in
love have addictive qualities equal to drugs like cocaine. So that means, once you "trick" your partner into falling back in love with you, they won't be able to get enough of you. This is powerful. You will have all kinds of opportunities to strengthen your marriage so that it will never break again.


You're thinking "Sign me up! How do I get started? How do I get my partner to fall in love with me again?"

First: It comes down to having been in love with each other before. This past experience gives you a huge advantage. Huge, I tell you! When you were first falling in love with your partner, your bodies used a combination of your five senses along with the chemicals produced by your brain to basically put each other through a series of tests. Without going into too much detail, these pop quizzes determined that you were a good match for one another. Your advantage is that you have already passed the test, you have been preapproved! You have good chemistry.

Second: Another advantage for you is that you have been in a long term relationship (marriage!) so you and your partner have developed a bond. It might not feel like it right now while things are rocky, but it is true. Studies have shown that the shared history of a long-term relationship in combination with "good chemistry" create the perfect conditions to fall in love again.

Third: There are simple techniques you can use to drive up the level of dopamine in your spouses brain to trigger feelings of romantic love! This is where the fun begins!

Quick Recap: Okay, so now you know that love really comes down to a chemical addiction between two people. You know that because of your marriage, you and your spouse have developed a bond over time. This chemistry between the two of you along with the bond that you have established provide the perfect conditions for you to fall in love again. Now, you bring it all home by engaging in activities together that drive up the level of dopamine in the brain and thus will trigger feelings of romantic love. Simple.

Remember, your spouse chose to marry you for a very good reason, you were a good match and you still are! So, be yourself and let your partner remember why they fell in love with you in the first place. Utilizing the information above will help you to rekindle old feelings of attraction and draw your spouse back to you.

How to Save My Marriage - The Single Best Solution For Any Marital Problem!

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Save Your Broken Marriage – Restore Your Marriage After Separation

Can my broken marriage be saved after a separation? Whatever the catalyst behind the separation, there are many reasons to be hopeful when trying restore your marriage after an estrangement. A separation can very well be advantageous for a troubled relationship in many ways. It can serve as an opportunity to make your marriage healthier and stronger than it was before. The time apart can be utilized as a time to think, to reflect, to analyze, to cool off and calm down, and to take a break from each other. It also provides time and space for each spouse to make unhurried, thoughtful decisions instead of waiting for things to blow up and then impulsively ending the marriage. Used in this way, a separation can actually help to save a marriage.

What can I do to reconcile with my spouse? Now that you and your partner have had time to regroup, hopefully the intensity of the emotions surrounding your marital problems have had a chance to subside. Now you can attempt to give your marriage a second chance with a clean slate. Saving your broken marriage will be a very straight forward two-step process. You will need to:

Reconnect emotionally. This may seem like a huge hurdle to you but in reality you have the advantage when it comes to love. Studies have shown that couples with a shared history have the ability to rekindle romantic love much easier than even a young couple attracted for the very first time. The bond that has developed throughout the course of your relationship is what gives married couples the ability to reignite the flames of passion quite easily. Often all it takes to nudge you along the road to reconciliation are some intimate conversations involving a lot of deeply felt eye contact or engaging in some novel activities together to encourage the release of dopamine in the brain and trigger those feelings of romantic love.

Learn Conflict Resolution. You will need to eliminate the bad patterns that you've established in your marriage and learn new ways of problem solving. Follow these guidelines when beginning to establish your new and improved method of communication.

• back down when emotions flare up
• make sure that your expectations are realistic
• approach problem solving with a "team" attitude
• let go of a need to win
• start small and expect occasional set-backs
• identify and solve the problems, don't obsess over the symptoms

These tips are invaluable and they really do work! Learning to save a broken marriage is challenging, at best. For more easy-to-follow yet effective tools, here for relationship solutions.

Can a Marital Separation Ever Save a Marriage?

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How to Repair A Broken Marriage - 20 Bonding Activities To Spark Romance

Not sure how to repair a broken marriage? Are you drifting away from the one you love most and it's eating away at you day after day? Repair your broken marriage by trying to breathe some life back into your relationship. You need to remember the dopamine effect. Engage in activities together with your spouse that will drive up the level of dopamine in the brain and thus will trigger feelings of romantic love. Introducing any activity that may present itself as novel will tantalize the brain receptors and produce your desired effect - feelings of excitement that will evolve into desire, attraction, and connection.

• Play Tourist For A Day in Your Own City
• Cook Together and For Each Other – Each of You Cook Your Own Dish
• Comedy Show, Jazz Clubs, Interactive Dinner Plays,
• Host a Party Together – Poker Night, Board Games, Themed Party
• Sports: Skiing, Golf, Tennis, Bowling League, Martial Arts, Learn A New Sport together.
• Take Turns Exchange 1 Day Per Month Having A “Spoil-Me” Day
• Hot Air Balloon Ride or Small Plane Ride
• Amusement Park or Water Park
• Public Event – Concert, Sporting Event, Play
• Rent a Boat for Half a Day
• Casino Night
• Miniature Golf
• Day Spa
• Dancing
• Run a 5k Together
• Dinner cruise
• Wine tasting
• Extreme sport
• Rollerskating
• Billiards

All marriages are individual and unique. The above list of suggestions is designed to serve as a catalyst to spark your own creativity when trying to determine the itinerary for you and your spouse. Reintroducing the romance back into a marriage is the first step when trying to repair what is broken. The feeling of connectedness enables a couple to approach the bigger issues of a broken marriage with strength and hope.

How to Repair A Broken Marriage eHow.com

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