Tuesday, August 24, 2010

How To Save Your Marriage On Your Own

By Kerry McIntosh

Are you dealing with a bad marriage with a husband who will not take counseling? If you are, then it may very well feel as if you are trying to save the marriage by yourself. While it is true that couples counseling is often seen as the last line of defense when a marriage is on the rocks, please rest assured that your marriage can be saved whether you go to counseling or not!

Traditional marriage counseling is utilized by plenty of couples as a way to strengthen a marriage that is already great. For most however, it isn't something they even consider until the marriage is in trouble. You might be surprised to learn that marriage counseling as it is normally practiced has a success rate of only about 20% in saving troubled marriages. Often times marriage counseling can actually weaken the marriage even further!

There are plenty of reasons for this kind of failure of traditional counseling, but in most cases it is because this type of counseling works from a faulty model. It treats the couple as individuals rather than treating the marriage itself. The vast majority of marriage counselors are trained primarily in individual therapy and actually have very little idea how to strengthen and save a troubled marriage. What typically happens is that the individuals learn personal coping skills and better communication, but this doesn't do a lot to help the marriage relationship or solve the complications they experience.

For this reason, do not worry too much if your husband does not want to attend marriage counseling. With only a 20% success rate, you have other options available to you. Here are some very important steps you will need to take:

1. Regardless of how you may be feeling right now, it's important that you get out of your emotional state (hurt, jealousy, fear, anger etc) and put yourself in a calmer, more resourceful state.

2. Make a firm resolve that you will give 100% of yourself to saving your marriage, regardless of what your husband's effort is right now. After all, if you don't take the lead, then who is going to?

3. There are extremely specific things you must do and say and extremely specific ways you must behave that will change the outcome of your relationship, even if your husband isn't changing anything at all. Remember, with every action, there is a reaction! You just need to take the right action.

Your marriage can still be rescued regardless of whether you and your mate go to counseling or not. Time however, is not on your side! The longer you wait to take action, the worse the situation will become and the less chance you have of saving your marriage.

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