Sometimes, you may feel that your marriage life is tough because maintaining this relationship takes you much care, time, and patience. Sometimes when your marriage goes bad, you spare no effort to get the relationship back on track, but it seems that you are still bogged down on various relationship issues; especially when difficult problems arise one after another, probably you have an overwhelming feeling – making the marriage work is just like being entangled in an endless battle; but anyway, divorce should not be the only option for an unhappy marriage.
And the tips below may give you some useful insights into how to survive in an unhappy marriage without divorce:
(1) Practice detachment to ease the tense relationship:
When the marriage doesn’t work normally but you are unwilling to end the relationship, you may consider detaching from each other for a while. Moderate detachment allows you and your spouse to live independently of each other, which helps clear out the spouse’s tendency to control, possess, and nag. When your marriage gets frayed around the edges, this way you two relate could be a lifesaver. Detachment helps create distance from your spouse’s certain behavior that may drive you crazy. To practice detachment in your marriage, you do not have to excessively protect yourself from the consequences of your detachment; instead, give your spouse more room to let him/her be who he/she is.
You might consider detaching from your spouse for a while in many unpleasant cases (e.g., when your spouse is scolding you, when he/she is exhibiting annoying behavior again, when he/she takes an aggressive stance on some issues, and when the two of you dwell on a problem for way too long). More specifically, you may try to treat your spouse kindly as a stranger, stop attempting to fix him/her, stop giving your spouse superficial or unsolicited advice; let go of trifles, stop commenting on his/her controversial behavior, and allow him/her to get one thing done all by himself/herself without your interference. In short, don’t meddle in your spouse’s affairs unless he/she asks for your help;
Why you may consider detaching from each other:
At some point, almost every couple experiences annoyances that cause tension. Detachment opens up more emotional space between you and your spouse. On the other side, detachment is a good way to let you walk away to focus on taking care of yourself instead of dwelling on certain annoying issues.
Furthermore, detachment allows your spouse to be who he/she is. And when you stop attempting to change him/her and let go of your expectation that your spouse should change as you want, he/she feels relieved and pleased to see this change. And after you learn to accept all the pros and cons of your significant other, love will really grow in the relationship.
Many times, if you can detach from each other in the heat of the moment, the two of you may get plenty of time to calm down and become more rational; then when you later come back to talk about bothersome issues, the situation may become less tense than before.
When you excessively focus on your spouse’s behavior, it is quite easy to lose yourself. The act of trying to control your spouse’s behavior is exhausting; remember, anytime when you keep obsessing over things that you can’t completely control, you have already derailed from the path of your own life route. There always exist some things that your spouse does that you are unsatisfied with, and you may hope he/she can change or “show up” for you spontaneously but don’t expect too much of him/her.
In the unhappy marriage, moderate detachment behavior will not cause your spouse to feel ignored by you; on the contrary, it encourages goodwill between you and your spouse. Moreover, one point should be noted particularly: don’t dispense with the pleasantries in daily life; for example, remember to say “please” and “thanks” to your spouse when he/she is doing something nice for you, whether big or small; saying pleasantries helps set a warm tone for both of you, and it is also not bad to be kind, respectful and courteous to your spouse even though when your spouse is hurting you emotionally; by the way, if you have kids, your controlled, well-mannered behavior will set a good example to them.
Detaching means being polite and light; and it is often used to effectively avoid the same old arguments that you or your spouse brings up. Say simply, if you can’t end the conflict for the time being, at least you can choose not to participate in it.
(2) Connect with your spouse in a neutral space or way:
When couples do not get on well, even basic communication between them seems to become hard. If you have a similar experience, you should make a systematic effort to insert more neutral spaces into your relationship. A neutral space acts as a role of a good lubricant in dealing with thorny relationship issues; and while you two are in a neutral circumstance (e.g. kitchen room, and park), you are more willing to face and tackle problems. For example, if you talk with your spouse about his/her lack of sexual desire while you are sleeping in bed, your spouse may easily feel attacked, and may even see the bedroom only from a negative point of view gradually; arguing with your spouse at your relative’s home is another bad example because this action can cause your spouse to feel like you have gained the higher ground in the dispute or argument on relationship issues.
In addition to the creation of neutral spaces, you may connect with your spouse in more neutral ways, such as below:
- Enjoy your children’s events together.
- Have some meals together.
- Watch a movie as an entire family.
- Discuss neutral, safe topics.
- Make daily conversations light-hearted and pleasant.
The tips above may not help you resolve problems instantly to reconcile with your spouse; however, even though your relationship is trapped in a state of unhealthiness, and unhappiness, it is still necessary to try to co-exist with each other in a neutral way.
(3) Deal with only one issue at a time:
There is a wide range of marital issues that you can have trouble in handling, like child-care, family financial management, and many other unexpected family responsibilities. It is better to deal with these issues one by one rather than attempt to approach all of them at one time. Once issues are brought up in massive quantities, they can hardly be properly addressed, and that may even wreck your relationship.
Furthermore, there is another important point to be noted: if you attempt to take on too many marital problems at once, most likely you will overwhelm yourself and feel continuous bitterness between you and your spouse, eventually, you can hardly reach a mutually acceptable solution. Again, it is very unwise to try to attend to big and small matters all at once.
While you plan to tackle marital problems one by one, be aware of which problem is the most urgent and list it in priority. For example, if you are mainly concerned about money now, sit down with him/her to discuss the money issue at hand. Even though this problem takes several weeks or months to resolve, at this critical point, don’t put forward another problem unless the current problem is resolved. Try your best to lead your spouse to focus on working out the current problem together with you; after all, there are many problems waiting to be resolved and it is understandable that you are tempted to address all of them as soon as possible; in a nutshell, keep in mind that you can’t come up with a solution that can solve all problems, problem-resolving should go step by step, from simple to complicated, and from easy to difficult.
(4) Manage your negative feelings:
Negative feelings can be viewed as responses to all kinds of unhappy marital issues, such as miscommunication, marital betrayal, tension, disappointment, and so on; they are normal, but no doubt these negative feelings further foster the sense of misery and failure in marriage.
To tell the truth, no one wants his/her spouse to be always struggling, insecure, angry, and depressed in the presence of him/her; maybe, you are not pleased to accept this fact, but it is realistic. For instance, if a person is overwhelmed by negative feelings, he/she will wear a woebegone look, and his/her partner will either keep distance from him/her or stay together in an awkward atmosphere; but no matter what, the result is not conducive to the development of the relationship. Do you have this experience – when you feel very miserable in the relationship, rows can easily start over petty matters. If you admit you have such an experience in your married life, don’t just feel sorry for yourself, you should learn to effectively deal with your negativity in a more self-empowering way.
To survive in the unhappy marriage, you should give your spouse the best you have anyway. As to your own negative feelings, at this critical stage of your marriage, you should learn to “act within” instead of “acting out”; or if possible, try to discuss with your spouse the issues that cause negative feelings in a more productive way; and actually a lot of unnecessary negative feelings can go away gradually after you change from a negative to a positive mindset.
As the relationship deteriorates, your feelings towards each other tend to be increasingly negative. So when you are thinking about how to survive in an unhappy marriage, it is important not to let your negative feelings continue to affect your marriage. Although you are not able to control your spouse’s feelings, you can try to change yours.
In particular, resentment and anger are dangerous to your marriage, and the posts below may help you better deal with resentment and anger in your relationship:
How to deal with resentment in your marriage – Reduce resentment.
How to manage anger in marriage – Deal with your & your spouse’s anger.
(5) Avoid further damage to your relationship:
When you realize that your marriage is failing, an immediate thing is to stop creating further damage by avoiding common marital mistakes that you may often make, such as below:
- Initiating needless conflict, arguments, and debates.
- Begging, pleading, and victimizing (especially when you are in public).
- Emotional blackmailing for controlling your spouse.
- Blaming and accusing your spouse.
- Bad mouthing your spouse.
Even if sometimes the impulse to engage in harmful behavior is strong, you have to learn to resist it by taking a step back from problems and finding alternative ways to release those bad emotions (e.g. resentment, anger, frustration, and tension).
Especially after you had a heated fight with your spouse, you should be cautious of its further damage and reconcile with your spouse as soon as possible, and the posts below may give you some help:
6 tips on how to make up with your spouse after a fight.
How to deal with marital conflict – Resolve conflict in marriage.
How to reduce arguments in a marriage – Reconnect your spouse.
(6) Turn your struggles into self-growth opportunities:
Probably staying in the unhappy marriage feels like a total nightmare, and you hardly see the positive sides of the rough patch in your marriage, but not seeing the positive in the negative does not mean that the positive sides do not exist; actually as long as you are willing to look at a negative issue from a positive perspective, you can embrace the potential positives in the current bad situation.
To some extent, a marital crisis presents an opportunity to fix your own problems that may have been long-standing or not been properly resolved yet; at this stage, if you are determined to repair all kinds of problems to salvage your marriage, your poor, unhealthy habits and thinking patterns are more likely to be fixed than any other time; so you might allow your spouse to point out the problems that keep you stuck in the unhappy relationship. After they are resolved, the foundation for your marriage will become more solid.
When you view the resolution of many marital issues as a lesson that helps improve yourself, probably you will be motivated to reinvent yourself through improving your awareness and habits, and a positive self-change will make your spouse feel better about you; and hence, that contributes to the harmony of your marriage.
In short, on the way to surviving the unhappy marriage, you should learn to turn marital struggles into opportunities for self-growth.
For more tips, you might go on to read the post below:
4 basic tips on how to get through a rough patch in a marriage.
The final word:
Problematic couples can live in harmony with unresolved differences about ongoing issues, as long as those issues are not marriage deal-breakers. Even for a happy marriage, it is also not always plain sailing.
The majority of marriages inevitably have unhappy moments; except the rare cases where a marriage involves abuse, it is worthy for a couple to strive to survive in an unhappy marriage.
If you need more valuable tips about how to survive in an unhappy marriage, you might go on to watch the video below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience helping couples survive and thrive in unhappy marriages:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
How to stop divorce and save your marriage – 7 marriage saving tips.
How to save a failing marriage alone – Try to save your marriage.
What to do when your marriage is in crisis – Save the marriage
What not to do when your spouse wants out – Save the marriage.
What to do when your spouse wants to leave you – Save your marriage.
How to survive a stressful marriage – Deal with marital stress.
What you should not do when your husband wants to separate.
Pay attention to these signs of an emotionally distant wife.