Self Help for Marriage

A wise man once said: ‘for things in my life to change, I must change’. In other words, if you want your life to improve (including your marriage), then you yourself must be willing to change.

The good news is that ‘self help’ applies to your marriage as well: by changing a number of things about yourself, you can change your marriage. The following are three key behaviours and attitudes that can have a big impact on your marriage.

1) Be committed

The first step is to decide to commit to your spouse. Remember the promises you made to each other on your wedding day? The only way your marriage is going to last long term is if you commit to keeping those promises.

Click here for a Definitive Guide on How to Save Your Marriage

Just remember: every marriage has ‘hard times’: the key is to make it through those hard times to the other side. If you keep your commitment to your spouse, then you’ll be more likely to work through the issues together, rather than walking out the door during your next argument.

2) Love your spouse with actions

Thanks to Hollywood, we now have a very distorted view of what true love is. The movies would like to tell us that love is really just a feeling that you have toward your spouse, and if that feeling disappears, then you’re no longer ‘in love’ (and should therefore leave your marriage).

The truth is that feelings come and go. Some days you’ll really feel ‘in love’, but other days, you won’t.

The key self help principle for marriage is to remember that true love is not a feeling, but an action. If you love someone, then you’ll do things for them: in particular, you will sacrifice for them (this is a key  self help principle for your marriage). For example, you may decide to go to a movie that they like, even though you won’t like that movie. Or you’ll decide to babysit the kids so that they can go out and have a good time with their friends, instead of going out yourself.

Have a look at this article on emotional bank accounts for more information on how to practically love your spouse.

If you love your spouse with actions – whether or not you feel like it – then your marriage will more than likely improve.

3) Control your tongue

Another important self help principle for marriage is to control what you say, because  the things we say to our spouse can have enormous consequences – for good or ill.

In particular, the way you  discuss difficult issues has a big impact on your marriage. So the self help principle here is this  don’t do harsh startups as you begin to discuss issues together.

Now, what do I mean by a harsh startup? According to bestselling author and marriage researcher John Gottman, a ‘harsh startup’ is when a discussion begins with criticism and/or sarcasm. So for example, if David raises the subject of housework, and Leanne immediately jumps in with the comment such as: ‘or lack thereof’,   then Leanne has begun the discussion with a ‘harsh startup’. According to Gottman’s research, if you begin the conversation with a harsh startup, then the conversation is more than likely doomed to failure, even if there are a lot of attempt to ‘repair’ the damage during the conversation.

So if you begin a discussion with a harsh startup, then you might as well pull the plug, and take some time out, before starting over again. More importantly, it is vital that you keep yourself from beginning any conversation with accusation and/or criticism: this will simply doom your communication to failure, and damage your marriage.

Conclusion

The above self help principles for your marriage will have a big impact, if you consistently practice them. Remember the key principle: ‘for things to change, I must change’. If you change yourself for the better, then you will almost definitely improve your marriage.

Click here for a Definitive Guide on How to Save Your Marriage