Every marital relationship has its ups and downs; sometimes couples may feel like their marriages have no hope; surely, numerous problematic couples eventually chose to end their struggling relationships when they got deeply frustrated. But for the majority of couples who desire to maintain a happy long-term marriage, they are bound to learn to go through a lot of processes from a seemingly hopeless marriage to a hope-filled marriage.
If you are also experiencing a rough patch in your marriage now and yet you are determined to stay in the relationship, you might go on reading.
The following talks about how to get through a rough patch in a marriage from 4 aspects:
1 Stay out of blame:
When a marriage becomes suffering, one spouse may consciously or unconsciously treat the other one as a villain, and then the couple may engage in repetitive behavior of the blame game. But that will do nothing to fix a failing relationship; on the contrary, blaming will further sabotage the relationship.
Both spouses will lose in the blame game in the long run – it damages personal growth in the relationship because it shifts a spouse’s focus on an issue to the person; in other words, a spouse may take things personally. And what is worse, a spouse tends to put himself/herself in a victim position when he/she is unable to stop his/her partner from blaming him/her. Due to a loss of control over a painful situation, each other’s emotions will be persistently distorted or vastly heightened, and both sides will stay stuck in destructive patterns of communication. As a result, the blame game builds resentment and other negative sentiments that hinder the recovery of the relationship.
If you wonder how to get out of the blame game, here is some advice:
- Focus on yourself first:
When you get angry with your spouse and feel the urge to blame him/her, or when you fail to stop him from blaming you continuously, first you should try to calm down yourself and figure out how and where to set limits at that point; for example, you might ask yourself questions like “Why do I want to blame him/her?”, “Am I also wrong in some ways?” or “What am I allowing?” More often than not, your spouse easily loses his mind when trapped in the blame game. Even though you tell him/her that things will be put on hold if he continues to behave in this aggressive way, he/she may remain unmoved. Under that situation, it is a pressing matter to set limits to control your own emotions. Remember, anytime, there is only one person that you can have any control over – yourself.
In a love relationship, blaming is usually an act of throwing the responsibilities on someone else. And when you get in the habit of looking at yourself first before criticizing your spouse, you have learned to be more responsible and modest, and you have grown in this relationship.
- Don’t attempt to win:
If you make a point to defeat your spouse in an argument, probably, maybe you will unconsciously use blaming as a weapon against him/her during the process. But it has been mentioned before that both spouses will lose ultimately in a blame game. In this case, you have to correct a misconception – conflict should be viewed as a chance for making positive changes; your interim win in the blame game just proves to your spouse how unreasonable you are.
- Be objective and specific rather than personal:
Don’t build up a strong case against your spouse. When your spouse disagrees with you on something and the argument becomes intense, don’t be caught up in who is right and who is wrong. Many times, it is hard to clarify who is right when it comes to a variety of relationship issues. Especially when you two get into a fierce argument, it is unwise to bring up his/her faulty or unpleasant past to prove that he/she is wrong again.
When conflict occurs, try to just stay on track with the current problem, and accordingly respond to what is being discussed. And once you throw the words “I did … but you did …” the blame game starts.
2 Express concerns constructively:
Constantly sacrificing your needs can be also a factor contributing to a marital crisis. For the sake of being considerate of your spouse’s feelings, maybe you choose to keep your opinions to yourself and try to avoid expressing your innermost feelings. However, if you have never clearly and directly voiced certain serious concerns to him/her, probably the underlying problems will get worse and worse; and in a long run, this will do you more harm than good. Therefore, don’t be afraid of hurting your spouse’s feelings, especially when you think it is time to spell out exactly things that you think cause relationship problems. Of course, constantly complaining is not a solution either. The correct approach is to learn to express your concerns in a constructive way.
And here are some simple tricks as to how to voice your concerns:
- Assert your needs without blaming him/her:
To help you better understand this point, take an example to illustrate it: if you feel lonely because of your spouse’s nightly visits to his/her friends, you might say something like: “Darling, when you have to go out every night lately, I get a little bit worried and lonely because I feel that you no longer care about me so much. I understand that it is important for you to go out with your friends, but is it possible to meet each other halfway?”
- Use safe sentence-starters for sensitive conversations:
A simple way to start a sensitive conversation is to use safe sentence-starters. When you have to bring up a topic that may be prickly, or when you have to make a comment that may be controversial or sensitive, you may stick with a series of safe sentence-starter options for talking, and here are some useful examples that you can apply to your conversations with your spouse:
Starter #1: I feel/felt (followed by a simple one-word feeling such as sad, anxious, disappointed, etc) …
Starter #2: My concern is…
Starter #3: I would like to … [note, don’t say “I want you to …” because telling him/her what to do may engender resentment instead of cooperation.]
Starter #4: What/how do you feel/think about …
Starter #5: I agree that …
3 Work together more cooperatively:
Collaboration is always essential in the resolution of relationship problems, especially when it comes to how to get through a rough patch in a marriage. It is not always easy to maintain smooth communication with your spouse. And applying a collaborative decision-making approach can make a positive difference in helping couples tackling a tough issue and getting out of conflict. No doubt, a collaborative negotiation followed by a win-win outcome is the most ideal for both parties. It should be about the continuous exploration of each other’s position for seeking a mutually acceptable outcome that can give each other as much of what each other wants as possible. Anyway, as long as a decision can make you both satisfied with what each other can gain from it, it should be viewed as a win-win.
On some issues, sometimes you two may take an opposite standpoint initially, or you may have a different goal from the one which your spouse expects. In this situation, you are supposed to be more flexible in your thinking; and collaborative negotiation appears to be particularly important when your relationship is suffering from a marital crisis.
Furthermore, a collaborative negotiation aims to make a fair and reasonable decision instead of a reluctant compromise. Here explains what you should know about a collaborative negotiation:
- It requires teamwork:
Maybe, you have gotten used to making unilateral decisions before your marriage. But things have significantly changed now. More often than not, you should put the marriage before your personal preferences. Rather than dwell on the drawback of making decisions together, it is better to think more about its advantage – a joint decision can lead to a more credible and feasible solution; and even though the join decision turns out to be wrong, you two can bear the responsibility together.
- It requires an open mind:
There is no need to agree with everything that your spouse says. However, you should be honestly open to thinking about your spouse’s position. If you find yourself shaking your head or folding your arms across your chest when he/she is expressing his/her opinion, you will certainly feel very uncomfortable making concessions on it, and hence you also do not have to echo his/her opinion because compromising like that won’t get anywhere.
- It requires a certain level of self-sacrifice:
No one would like to stay with a partner who sticks to the lifeless belief – “my way or no way.” It is far better to see each other have a self-sacrificing disposition when a negotiation reaches an impasse. In a happy marriage, there are times when a husband yields to his wife to make her happy, and sometimes the wife does the same for him. Since marriage is about giving and taking, many times you do not have to be afraid of giving up something that is not so important to you.
4 Learn to forgive:
In your married life, there must be some actions of your spouse that have ever left you scared. Those faulty actions may be past infidelity, failure of financial management, or any kind of poor behavior that created your resentment and bitterness.
But as long as you want your marriage to survive and thrive, forgiveness is needed – you need to make peace with his/her past and present him/her with the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start all over again. Certainly, it doesn’t mean that you do not have to draw on experience from the unpleasant past to prevent the recurrence. What it exactly means is that you should learn to lay down your right to put him on the spot, such as being angry with him/her about his past errors, and hanging onto the past and worrying too much about the future.
Without forgiveness, it is hard for you two to work together to repair the broken relationship. If you want to get some advice about how to let go and forgive your spouse, it is necessary to master the key points below:
- Forgiveness should be a serious decision:
Sometimes you are reluctant to forgive your spouse, and yet you just choose to pretend that you have forgiven your spouse; under such a situation, you still harbor feelings of hurt, hate, sadness, resentment, anger … and you still have the urge to let him/her pay the price for his/her mistakes and faults. If so, it is not real forgiveness, and that kind of forgiveness just leads to further damage to the relationship. Only after you decide to grant forgiveness without having any thought of taking revenge against your spouse, you can work through those negative feelings.
- Share your hurt feelings:
After your spouse has already apologized and asked for forgiveness, don’t rush to move on, and don’t skip talking with him/her about the issue seriously again. Of course, anytime, it is uncomfortable to mention unpleasant or awkward things. However, sharing how hurt you felt is conducive to promoting mutual communication. As we all know, after an intense fight or argument, the communication between spouses is apt to become poor; and on the other hand, a damaged relationship is in desperate need of such a heartfelt communication trigger at that stage. But make sure to express your feelings peacefully, for example, don’t point your finger at your spouse when you are trying to let him/her understand the depth of your hurt. In short, it is not advisable to move on unless you feel fully heard by your spouse.
- Commit to self-improvement:
To keep your relationship on a healthy track in normal times, you and your spouse should both commit to self-improvement. In doing so, your relationship is less likely to be stuck in a gray zone that can lead to conflict.
In summary, after you decide to forgive, it still takes time to heal the pain. Therefore, it is natural to feel kind of disappointed and uncomfortable afterward; but as long as you want your marriage to go on working, don’t regret that you chose to forgive him/her.
For more tips about how to forgive your spouse, you might go on to read the post below:
How to forgive betrayal and move on in your marriage.
The final word on a rough patch in a marriage:
It is unavoidable to experience rough times in married life; and yet as long as you strongly believe that it is still worth staying in the marriage and that you are willing to work through the existing problems, ultimately there will be some way of getting through those rough times; even if you are the only one who is willing to go on to work on the relationship, it is still possible to save your marriage from divorce. For a long-term relationship to grow, you should also grow as an individual – after experiencing all kinds of marital problems, sooner or later you will fully and calmly accept a solid fact about marriage – it can be a blessing many times, but sometimes it can also break a person’s heart. And no doubt, as you ride out rough patches in your marriage one by one, you will have a better and better shot at marital happiness.
If you want to learn more about how to get through a rough patch in a 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:
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How to keep your marriage alive – Maintain a happy long term marriage.
How to have a long lasting happy marriage – Marriage-saving tips.
Top common challenges in marriage – How to overcome them.
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