Some Common Marriage Mistakes

When a marriage is in real trouble, husbands and wives will often grasp at straws to save the relationship, rather than taking a step back to objectively assess the situation and make wise decisions. During a crisis, the first steps you take can make the difference between starting on the road to recovery, and driving your spouse further away.

Consider the following example:

Kennett did not call Amanda the day she left.
He gave her some time to cool off and talk to her mother about things – to blow off steam, and face the reality of explaining the situation to the children.
When they finally talked, he was honest about his mistakes. He admitted that he had not tried as hard as he should.
"I told Amanda that she was right about my previous attempts, and I apologized for paying so little attention to her needs", he said. "I told her I wasn’t angry about her leaving and that I wanted her to have time to think about things, but I knew that we had to make some changes."
He talked to his two children and told them that he would see them soon and that things were OK.
After four days, Amanda came home with the children and Kennett sat down with her and talked about what they had to do.
They agreed to honestly address the problems in their marriage and together they made a list of the things they wanted to change.
They approached their families and asked for support, explaining the importance of their marriage in their lives and in the lives of their children.
At first, Amanda was not convinced, but she agreed to give it a try, mostly because the children were so upset about the split.
Still, Kennett hoped that there was more to her cooperation than just that.
He hoped that there was still some trust and respect left in the relationship and that he could prove to Amanda that he really meant to change this time.
Time will tell!
What do you think of the way Kennett handled the situation?
All things considered, he did a pretty good job.
* He didn’t yell or place blame.
* Although he certainly knew that Amanda had her own share of problems in the relationship, he didn’t pick this time to assign blame to her, but rather he simply too responsibility for his own shortcomings.
* The give and take would have to wait until he could get her attention and get her to come home.
* He didn’t push her to come back right away or try to turn the children against her.
* He didn’t try to tell Amanda that her feelings were wrong or invalid.
Instead, he gave her the space to express her feelings, knowing that she must have felt very strongly to have left and taken the children.

If you are like Kennett and you really want to reconcile, you may have waited until things were really bad before you started, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make up for lost time.
* Don’t play the blame game
* Don’t try to convince your spouse that they are overreacting
* Don’t turn children or family members against your spouse
* Don’t try to control your spouse or the situation
* Don’t give up on yourself or your spouse
* Don’t declare war on your spouse
* Don’t make threats
* Don’t talk about the personal issues and details of your relationship with others.
If others know there are problems and ask out of concern, simply say that you are working on it together and trying hard to work things out!
* If you need to take a break from the stress of breaking old habits and talking constantly about issues, raise your hand and ask for a ‘time out’.
* Ask your spouse if it would be OK for the two of you to take a day off and just relax.
That doesn’t mean you will fall back on old habits, it just gives you a day or a few hours to take a breather from what can be an intensive discussions.
* Do something fun and different together – or just go to a movie or out to dinner and talk about fun things.

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