One of the most common questions people ask when confronting a marriage crisis is: “How can I save my marriage if my partner doesn’t want to help find a solution? How do I succeed when I’m trying to save my marriage on my own?”
It’s a typical enough story – one partner leaves, the other stays. One remains “in love” and the other is uncertain.
Whatever it is that’s caused a couple to be apart, the one person who remains bears the prospect, fear, doubt, desire and hope of saving the marriage ALONE.
Considering there are two people contributing to the overall health and well-being of a marriage, shouldn’t both spouses be present to actually try and save it? Or worse, when it’s the other person’s “fault”, shouldn’t they be the one to make amends?
The first thing you must know if you want to save your marriage (and you find yourself alone in this desire) is that waiting for your partner to make the first move is the beginning of the end.
If you’re looking for someone to blame – or someone else to put the emotional and physical work into saving the marriage – it’s going to fail.
The belief that the responsibility lies with the other person is a self-defeating attitude. It propagates the belief that there’s absolutely NOTHING you can do to save your marriage.
The truth is, even in your loneliness and solitude, saving your marriage IS possible. Let’s begin by examining what it means to be on your own…
As human beings, we generally don’t like being alone. It’s part of our genetic make up to be social creatures and develop connections with others, whether through friendships or romantic interests.
The way we connect with others and the nature of how we interact with people is a fundamental aspect of our personal and emotional development.
The paradox is that as we grow older in the love, trust, companionship and support of our significant others, we develop an internal strength of self that makes us whole, happy human beings.
Ideally, a mature person has developed a strong sense of self-awareness, confidence and self-esteem as he or she reaches adulthood.
These become the “filters” through which we view the world, and they make up part of our personal shelter amidst challenges and difficulties. This is called SELF-ACTUALIZATION.
However, many of us enter into adult life without the awareness of this beautiful, human truth.
We may have experienced abandonment in our childhood or been disappointed in our romantic relationships.
Whatever it is, it’s caused us to shift from proper mature development to fears of abandonment and the inability to see that we can stand on our own two feet.
Thus, many of us enter relationships and marriages with the hope, plan and dream that we’ll never be alone.
We invest so much in our partners and loved ones, focusing our entire beings on them and relying on them to make us feel happy and secure.
Unfortunately, this perspective carries with it its own poison. Subconsciously, when we project the responsibility of our happiness onto another person, we sidestep taking responsibility for our OWN happiness and destiny (often without even realizing it).
In order to save your marriage when you’re the only one doing it, the key then is a paradigm shift – meaning, the key lies in changing your attitude and focus.
Click here to read Part 2 of this post, where I explain how to do this.
This article is brought to you by Save My Marriage Today, a proven course that has helped save thousands of marriages and is GUARANTEED to deliver results.
