Separation is indeed a painful experience for married couples; now you and your separated spouse are both considering whether the marriage should continue or whether the marriage should be ended. After much consideration, if you think it is worth trying to save your marriage, please read on.
Here are 3 basic tips on how to avoid divorce after separation:
(1) Stop the blame game:
The first thing in avoiding divorce with your separated spouse should be reflecting deeply upon yourself, instead of continuing to argue with your spouse; probably, the two of you still set to quarreling as soon as you two meet; actually, you know well that the blame game is unnecessary and does nothing to resolve relationship issues; if you can’t stop the blame game, it will only widen the emotional rift. No doubt, the blame game means both sides have problems. And now that you have been separated from your spouse, you should take advantage of this time to reflect deeply upon your own problems
(1-1) Reflect upon yourself and realize your mistakes/flaws:
Separation should be viewed as a time of personal growth and deep reflection; without deep reflection, you can hardly see some of your serious mistakes as well as your character flaws.
To help you practice self-reflection, the following are some specific questions you might ask yourself when you are calm and collected:
- “Did I speak to him/her in a manner that could be perceived as belittling or dishonoring?”
- “Did I give him/her full attention when he/she was talking to me?”, “Was I easily distracted during interactions with him/her, so he/she might feel unimportant in the relationship?”
- “When I was angry, did I lose my temper and explosively lash out at him/her, so he/she felt assaulted?”
- “Did I treat outsiders better than I treated him/her?”
- “Did I joke too far at him/her? Did he/she feel humiliated by it?”
- “When I was with him/her, was I hypersensitive, or did I act irritable?”
- “Did he/she complain that I always act as if I do better than him/her?”
- “Did I continually bring up the unpleasant past, although he/she had already asked for your forgiveness previously?”
- “Have I become a serious person who seldom laughs and infuses fun times into married life?”
- “Did I reveal some private things about him/her that he/she could perceive as disgusting and hurtful?”
- “Did I honor his/her communication style?”
- “Am I a negative/boring person to live with?”
- “Did he/she feel dismissed or discredited because I did not often validate his/her opinion during conversations?”
- “Was I gracious when he/she messed things up?”
- “Did I give enough support and encouragement to him/her when he/she was in trouble?”
…
Certainly, your spouse must also have some mistakes/flaws that you feel angry or resentful about. But when your spouse points out your problems, if you still choose to trivialize the seriousness of your problems and retaliate against him/her by accusing him/her of his/her problems, you can not stop the blame game. Furthermore, you can not force your spouse to mend his/her problems dramatically, what you can do is to reflect upon yourself, realize your mistakes/flaws, and take responsibility for them.
(1-2) Next, let’s talk about how to take responsibility for your actions:
Taking responsibility for your actions is not only a way to heal the broken relationship but also a significant step towards making yourself more mature. And it is not too late to develop this habit. To help you do it, here are two pieces of advice:
- Eliminate your excuses:
Excuse-making is an unhealthy form of avoidance behavior. The more you make excuses for yourself, the more unwilling you are to take your responsibility seriously. Therefore, regardless of the situation, you should acknowledge what really happened and what you did.
- Overcome the victim mentality:
When you feel like a victim in this relationship, you are inclined to think that you do not have to take responsibility for yourself precisely because you are a victim. In your married life, if you see yourself as a pawn of fate, you will feel powerless, ineffective, and overwhelmed. And those feelings are reinforced by those passive, self-destructive thoughts (e.g., “Why is my marriage so unhappy?”, and “I treat him/her so well, why does he/she treat me so badly?”).
To avoid divorce after separation, you should shift your mentality to that of the victim to survivor.
If you have no idea how to break free from the victim mentality, here are some simple tips:
- Consider setting clear boundaries: probably you had difficulty saying no to your spouse when your spouse wants to do something that you don’t like. But the more you resign yourself to doing things that your spouse wants but you don’t want, the more you feel like a victim in the relationship.
- Figure out what you really want in this relationship, and don’t waste time complaining about those unnecessary needs that are not met.
- Realize that blaming, unhappiness, and complaining does not solve problems; instead, focus on what you can do to change the situation.
- Be kinder to yourself and your spouse.
- Try to release the pain of your past experiences; to move forward the broken marriage, you need to learn to forgive. Forgiveness means letting go of painful feelings and thoughts; it is a purely internal act. Furthermore, don’t ignore that you also hurt your spouse emotionally at some point.
- Recall wonderful things that your spouse did for you in your married life; or think about his/her traits that you always appreciate. Don’t just dwell on his/her shortcomings/flaws/mistakes.
- Don’t indulge in feelings of unhappiness; instead, you need to think more about the great happiness the marriage ever brought you.
(2) Take the initiative to reconnect with your spouse:
Reconnecting means increasing his/her desire to stay with you and communicate with you. Surely, this does not mean you should convince your spouse to be with you; probably, such a vain attempt will result in his/her rejection – the more you convince, the further he/she pulls away. It would be like attempting to convince someone else who is not in love with you to marry you.
To help you be empowered to reconnect with your spouse, here are 2 practical tips:
(2-1) Pay particular attention to the way you communicate:
The good news is that as long as your spouse still allows a little communication with you, you can still gain the initiative to reconnect with him/her. And at this critical stage where your spouse is very sensitive about what you say to him/her, you should pay particular attention to the way you communicate with him/her because this may trigger repulsion or attraction at the subconscious level. Even sometimes, a nice message can backfire just because some words make him/her feel that you are needy.
Surely, you have no control over your spouse; you only have control over how you approach him/her. Therefore, when you have minimal contact with your spouse, in addition to your words, don’t ignore that your tone and body language are both available ways to communicate with him/her.
For more tips, you might go on to read the posts below:
How to have effective communication in marriage.
4 annoying habits that cause communication barriers in marriage.
(2-2) Listen without getting defensive:
If you are overly defensive when you are listening to your spouse’s controversial opinion, you can hardly maintain a stable emotional connection with him/her, especially when the marriage is failing. At this stage, being defensive not only means you have difficulties in accepting differences/conflict between you and your spouse but also means a high level of dissatisfaction in this relationship. And if you go on to approach your relationship by having a win/lose or right/wrong dialectic, your spouse is inclined to think that you have no intention of repairing the emotional connection. Once you become defensive and tell your spouse that you can’t go on to communicate with him/her, he/she will feel more resentful and distant. If the situation carries on, the emotional connection will decrease further; and a serious lack of emotional connection can spell the end of the relationship.
When you are listening to your spouse during a tough conversation, the tips below might help you stop being defensive and argumentative:
- Be mindful of your respect for your spouse all the time.
- Slow down and breathe.
- Give your spouse the benefit of the doubt: ask yourself whether you are misinterpreting what your spouse is saying and taking it personally; think about the hidden emotional needs behind your spouse’s judgment/complaint/criticism.
- Ask for a reframe: tell your spouse that you are feeling uncomfortable with what he/she is saying, ask him/her to say it again in a more clear and civilized manner.
- Push the pause button: when you feel that you are having trouble focusing on what he/she is saying, ask him/her to take a break; otherwise, you will easily get defensive once you listen to something unpleasant/controversial that he/she says.
(3) Deal with unresolved issues:
Probably, after months or years of separation, intense conflict is still occurring, it is still difficult for you two to agree on some issues, and something important is still missing in the relationship. It is true that a marriage can survive and even thrive with unresolved issues as long as they are not deal-breakers. But if you two always can not make significant progress in tackling some crucial issues that have caused seemingly irreconcilable conflict, the relationship will be headed closely to divorce.
To be honest, certain conditions are needed to resolve some seemingly irreconcilable conflict. In other words, faced with some stubborn issues, you can not jump straight to a solution, but you can try your best to defuse the intense conflict between you two; and if a couple compels each other to brainstorm a permanent solution to a high-conflict issue or a long-standing unresolved issue during separation, most likely, they will fail; eventually, they will consider divorce as the only option; therefore, defusing conflict is a feasible way to avoid divorce after separation.
In short, there is no way to avoid conflict in your marriage; the only question is how to deal with it; for more tips, you might go on to read the posts below:
How to defuse conflict in marriage – Calm down a heated argument.
How to deal with marital conflict – Resolve conflict in marriage.
Reminder:
During the process of trying to reconcile with your spouse, don’t move too fast; in particular, don’t hurry to solve problems before you have restored the emotional connection with your separated spouse; if you work on any marital issues while the emotional bridge between you two is still fragile, the bridge will become more fragile; that makes it more difficult to repair the relationship successfully. On the other hand, after you and your spouse are in love with each other again, it will become much easier to solve various problems. Even sometimes, when love is restored, some initial issues that annoyed you two are no longer relevant.
The final word:
Since you have separated from your spouse, you should learn to look at the present situation from an objective perspective – separation not only can be the beginning of the end but also can be a new beginning for the marriage. Probably there are still a lot of things you can do to steer your marriage to a healthy place, even though your spouse is not interested in working together with you. So don’t be frustrated now.
For more tips on how to get your spouse back after separation and make it thrive again, 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:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
8 tips on marriage reconciliation after separation – survive the separation.
How to get your wife back after separation – Save the marriage.
How to get your separated husband back – Prevent divorce.
What to do when your spouse wants to leave you – Save your marriage.
How to fix a marriage after a fight – Reconcile after a big fight.
What you should not do when your husband wants to separate.
What to do when your marriage is struggling – Save the marriage.
Common factors leading to divorce – Marital flaws and problems.