How to Save a Broken Marriage and When to Call it Quits
A broken marriage can often feel like an impossible situation. You may wonder if your marriage can be saved or if it’s time to call it quits.
In this blog article, we will cover how to repair a broken marriage through improved communication, professional counseling, and rekindling intimacy. It also discusses signs that indicate when a marriage is truly unsalvageable.
Improving Communication in a Broken Marriage
Poor communication is often at the root of a broken marriage. To mend issues, both partners need to make communication a priority again. Here are some tips:
1. Schedule regular check-ins: Designate a set time each day, such as during dinner or before bed, for both partners to sit down together undistracted.
During this protected time, check in with how each person feels and what is on their mind. It could be as simple as sharing the ups and downs of each person’s day. The goal is to restore regular communication without accusations.
2. Actively listen: Give your full attention to your spouse when they are speaking instead of mentally preparing a response. Maintain eye contact, refrain from interruptions, and reflect back on what you heard to confirm understanding.
Reflecting shows you are truly listening without judgment. It allows the speaker to clarify or expand on any points to avoid later misunderstandings.
3. Discuss problems respectfully: When a disagreement or unresolved issue inevitably arises, avoid blaming, name-calling or bringing up past mistakes. Stick to using “I feel” statements like “I feel hurt when you don’t help with housework” rather than “You never help around here!”.
Remain calm and solutions-focused. Take turns letting each person share their perspective fully without interruption before discussing a compromise.
Seek Professional Marriage Counseling
Marriage counseling helps facilitate healthy communication by providing a neutral environment for couples to discuss problems constructively under the guidance of a licensed therapist. Here’s how counseling can help save a marriage:
1. Uncover hidden issues: A marriage counselor is specially trained to actively listen for underlying themes and ask thoughtful follow-up questions to determine the root causes of conflicts.
Through targeted discussion, long-standing hidden issues often come to light that the spouses were not fully conscious of previously or unable to articulate on their own. This provides needed insight and awareness into the real issues straining the relationship.
2. Recommend solutions: During counseling sessions, therapists introduce research-backed communication exercises, role-playing scenarios and strategies shown to improve intimacy, trust-building, empathy, emotional regulation, healthy compromise, and overall relationship dynamics.
Partners gain concrete skills and techniques to test applying at home between sessions to help gradually shift negative interaction patterns.
3. Improve self-awareness: With guidance from the counselor, both individuals start to better recognize how their own thoughts, assumptions, words and habitual actions negatively impact or trigger their spouse.
This enhanced self-awareness is pivotal in taking ownership over personal relationship behaviors that need adjusting. It also fosters understanding of the partner’s perspective which is critical to making constructive changes stick long-term.
When looking for a marriage counselor, search for someone who specializes in marriage or couples therapy. Attend initial sessions together to establish rapport with the counselor. Be prepared to commit to weekly appointments for at least 3-6 months.
Reigniting Intimacy and Affection
Losing intimacy is both a symptom and cause of a broken marriage. To repair your emotional and physical connection:
1. Schedule regular date nights: Designate time weekly for undistracted one-on-one connection. Have in-depth conversations over a home-cooked meal, go for walks together, try a cooking class – activities where you can both relax and enjoy each other’s company without distractions boosting oxytocin.
2. Initiate non-sexual physical touch: Cuddling on the couch while watching TV, holding hands casually during grocery trips, quick kisses – acts of platonic affection and reassurance trigger feel-good hormones, reducing stress and anxiety, which strains intimacy. Make a conscious effort for casual displays of caring.
3. Take a relationship quiz: Browse online for intimacy questionnaires together and thoughtfully discuss your responses. Speaking candidly about needs, desires, and how you each prefer receiving and expressing love promotes understanding critical for rekindling physical intimacy.
4. Discuss emotional needs: Use insights from the quiz to understand what truly makes each other feel cherished, validated, and secure. Look for balanced ways to periodically meet these crucial emotional needs through both words and actions.
Put in consistent effort, even when you don’t feel like it. Emotional and physical intimacy reinforce each other and can slowly rebuild lost trust and affection.
Signs It’s Time to End a Broken Marriage
Despite your best efforts, some fractured marriages reach a point where reconciliation becomes impossible. Consider separation or divorce if any of the following apply:
1. Physical, emotional, or substance abuse: No one deserves to feel unsafe or live in fear of their partner. Any form of abuse is completely unacceptable. Threats or actual harm should never be tolerated under any circumstances. Seek help immediately from domestic violence resources and protective organizations.
2. Repeated infidelity with no signs of stopping: Constant unfaithfulness with little remorse or effort to change behavior indicates the cheating spouse is unlikely to remain faithful moving forward, even after trust is rebuilt.
3. One partner repeatedly threatens divorce: Frequently using threats of divorce as a tactic to manipulate or gain control any time conflicts arise builds resentment and erodes the relationship foundation.
4. Extended counseling with no progress: You’ve made a significant long-term effort in therapy for over a year but your problems remain unresolved and counseling seems to be bringing no solutions. At some point, more counseling may not salvage the dynamic.
5. Severe mental health impacts: The constant arguing, toxicity and unhappiness in a severely broken marriage may be severely damaging mental well-being over time. Prolonging trying situations could worsen underlying depression or anxiety disorders.
While these scenarios indicate your marriage is likely too far gone, only you can decide if it’s truly time to let go. Seek advice from close friends, family or a therapist when making this difficult choice.
In some cases, a physical separation for a set period of time will confirm if you should reconcile or proceed to permanent separation. This cooling-off time allows both individuals to process their feelings and determine if there’s anything left to salvage.
Conclusion:
Saving a broken marriage requires effort from both partners through better communication, professional support, and rekindling of lost intimacy.
But once patterns of deception, disrespect or abuse emerge, it becomes impossible for the marriage to be a healthy, loving partnership. By staying attuned to these signs, you can discern when it’s time to call it quits instead of prolonging the pain.
