Even the best marriages hiccup from time to time leaving couples feeling separate. And if your marriage has been struggling for years, both partners are unhappy.
So what do you do? If you try to talk to your partner about what they aren’t doing, will things get better? When you tell your partner how you’re feeling about what they aren’t doing, does your relationship improve?
The reason this doesn’t work very well is because no one wants to be told what to do. It immediately raises defenses. And when defenses are high, things have a tendency to escalate into disagreements and more unhappiness. Sometimes things get even worse, leading to finger pointing and blame, followed by significant emotions upsets.
Here’s what keeps people stuck in unhappy marriages:
* They are not willing to learn what will work.
* They are not willing to do what they know will work.
For many people, this can be a hard truth to swallow.
Have you ever been there? I have.
If you’ve done traditional couples counseling like me, you can often feel more separate when leaving their office than when you went in. It’s not unusual to feel more bitter and resentful after going through both partners’ version of events, issue by issue.
There are roughly 3.2 divorces per 1,000 total population annually in the U.S., according to the CDC, despite having 150,000+ mental health counselors and marriage and family therapists, I figure there has to be an alternative way of problem solving, so I came up with one.
Here’s how you start to resolve your marriage conflicts:
Spend your energy and effort only on improving the feelings of connection between you and your partner. It’s worked for me, and the hundreds of couples I’ve helped.
For this to happen, you have to be willing to do two things:
* You must know what to do, and also what not to do. The only focus should be to increase the feelings of connection between you and your spouse.
* Be willing to do only what works and let go of everything else. Even if you don’t trust your partner, or you’re bitter and angry. And yes, even if you think all the conflicts are their fault.
Imagine trying to talk to, and solve problems, with someone you have no connection to. That’s not likely to be very productive is it? But, when people do feel deeply connected, it’s much easier and faster to improve things between you. That’s why the connection is the most important thing to restore. Everything else can wait.
Jeff Forte
Jeff Forte CSIC, CME author of "The 90-Minute Marriage Miracle" and founder of PEAK Results Coaching is an Executive and Peak Performance Coach specializing in team and relationship dynamics. His clients include Fortune 500 Executives, Business Professionals, Attorneys, Surgeons, Professional Athletes, Teams and Couples. For more information visit 90MinuteMarriageMiracle.com.
