Can you save an unhappy marriage?
You can skip a lot of reading with this simple one Yes.
Need to save an unhappy marriage?
Flip a coin and you’ll find arguments (and value) on both sides.
How do you save an unhappy marriage?
This is where your reading begins.
I have written about this topic, of course. And the heart of my message beats the same.
But today we will focus on ability – even the chance — of saving an unhappy marriage.
It’s a nuance, of course, but an important one.
Why; Because when you’re the one fighting, you want help that meets you in the trenches. You don’t want to stick a poster of your top 10 to-do lists on your bathroom mirror.
Somehow, when you feel validated at the core of your emotional experience, you can much more easily let your guard down and work toward a solution.
It’s as if the need to defend all that makes your situation uniquely unlivable softens because you’ve been heard and understood.
So let’s start there.
I see you. I hear you. I feel you. And I know that saving your unhappy marriage will require a strength and determination from you that you may not think you have.
And when I answer “Yes” to your question Can you save an unhappy marriage? My yes acknowledges the challenges involved.
It also recognizes the remarkable vigor you bring to the table. You wouldn’t even be asking about the possibility of healing your marriage if you weren’t clinging to hope and a willingness to work.
And this, my reader, is the magical, irreplaceable element of the work that follows. Without it, an unhappy marriage cannot be saved.
There would be no reason to.
The unfortunate reality for most couples stuck in chronic resentment is that they can’t see a way out.
There may be the tried and true, constant relationship battles which are never resolved.
There can also be a steady backsliding in attention to the marriage—a slow simmer that no one notices because it “just happens.”
Life gets in the way. Children use up all the energy they can get. And parents are often content to sneak away from their marital needs by focusing on other legitimate responsibilities like children and work.
The relationship that was once consecrated as indissoluble begins to fade.
Ironically, the love may still be there. But, if there is also an inexplicable, seemingly unresolvable unhappiness, couples often resign themselves to an assumed reality that love is not enough.
On the other hand, even how love and positivity are expressed (or not) can be problematic.
Do you or your spouse, for example, make assumptions about what the other person knows or feels? Do you take each other for granted, forgetting (or neglecting) the little things that confirm your sense of appreciation?
These things happen — sometimes because of what you have learned and sometimes because of what you have forgotten.
They also happen because you may never have known any other way.
And, tragically, this is where many couples go from there “Can you save an unhappy marriage?” in resignation “no.”
It’s like they walked into a corn maze and can’t for the life of them find their way out. They go back and forth to an area they know is useless—too scared, tired, or disillusioned to risk a new strategy.
And yet, they know they’re going in there is a way out. And, if they had a map in their pockets, they would know exactly how to find it.
But, when it is in the maze, all they see are walls closing in on them. And they all look the same. Frustration mounts, craziness mounts, and the joy of navigating life’s challenges (or a corn maze) fades away.
And all this because they did not know how to find their way.
It is important, of course, to make an honest assessment of the source(s) of unhappiness.
Happy and unhappy they are such broad and subjective terms. And even their commercialized interpretations can seep into your personal and relational expectations of happiness in your life.
Are you dissatisfied with your individual achievements or pursuits? Are you unhappy with your spouse’s behaviors? Your lifestyle? your job; Your sex life?
Is it possible that any of you suffer from an underlying depression that puts a gray gray on everything? Or that there are physical concerns such as fatigue, sleep deprivation or an illness?
Are you unhappy because your life and marriage seem to be stuck? Nothing new or exciting? Have you stopped dreaming new dreams? Have you succumbed to worldly things without keeping them under control?
Are you unhappy because you and/or your spouse have unrealistic expectations of each other and your marriage?
Did one or both of you grow up in a family that did not model healthy communication?
While Premarital counseling is an ideal way to prepare a couple for success from the start of marriage, is not the norm. Most couples will decide to help it with assurances of love and intent alone. And they will add more six years from the start of the problems before you get help.
Saving an unhappy marriage must begin with the assumption that the marriage must To be saved. Marriages that involve physical or emotional abuse, criminal behavior, active addictions, or financial misconduct, for example, may not be worth saving.
Also, if one partner wants to save the marriage but the other does not, it may not be possible to save the marriage. (In this case, sometimes a structured separation—no contact, no visits, no sex, no outside dates—can bring the value of marriage into focus.)
But, what if you both came to a retreat the weekend of the wedding, even as a “last ditch effort,” and asked again, “Can our unhappy marriage be saved?”
This it’s the expression of mutual commitment, tenderly wrapped in vulnerability and openness to learning, that can save your marriage.
The process is humbling. Absolutely. For every finger moment, there is a long night of introspection. And self-accountability becomes the substitute for responsibility.
You save your unhappy marriage by remembering what real happiness looked like…and how you want to feel.
You save it by going into the crevices of feelings, needs and longings – your own and each other’s – together.
You avoid it by learning a new way to language your life towards the goal of happiness and mutual satisfaction.
And you avoid it by learning to ask for directions—even in a corn maze—before the sun goes down.
Mary Ellen Goggin offers relationship coaching for individuals and collaborates with her partner Dr. Jerry Duberstein to offer private accommodations to couples. To learn more about working with Mary Ellen, contact her here.
