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Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Don’t Be Deceived, There Are No Quick Fix To Your Marriage Problems

Still Friends: Living Happily Ever After...Even If Your Marriage Falls Apart
How To Find Help for Marriage Problems
What to Say or Do If Your Child...: A Parent's Quick Reference for Handling Common Behavior Problems

People share with me their relationship stories that took years to unfold in a couple of short paragraphs. And then end with, "What should I do?" In most cases, it took years for their marriage to give birth to this question and the cause of their circumstances lies in the roots of their marital and personal scripting.

Nonetheless, they want an answer.

And you thought you had a tough job!

In this era of high-speed internet, it's quite common for people to want to "microwave" their marriage to renewal. That will never work. When it comes to THINGS, you can be efficient. When it comes to relationships, there are no short cuts. It takes time.

Ironically, the search for a quick answer to your marital situation delays the process you will eventually have to go through. When it comes to your marriage, slow is fast and fast is slow. In other words, if you try to go too fast and skip-over the necessary steps, you'll slow down the whole process. But if you go slow and rebuild your marriage one step at a time...that's the fastest way.

I know you have questions. Good questions. Deep questions. But give those questions the respect they deserve. Give yourself the time and resources it takes to formulate lasting answers. Don't waste your time looking for a quick fix. It's the slow road to repairing your marriage.

I will like to recommend to you, the Marriage Fitness Tele-Boot Camp, which takes you step-by-step through the process of renewing your marriage. The answer to the various questions is not an email; it's a course! It's the Marriage Fitness Tele-Boot Camp. That's the answer.
Get help for your marriage, attend the Marriage Fitness Tele-Boot Camp today!

Monday, September 20, 2010

GIFTS THAT CAN TRANSFORM YOUR MARRIAGE

Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage: America's Love Lab Experts Share Their Strategies for Strengthening Your Relationship
From Anger to Intimacy: How Forgiveness Can Transform Your Marriage
Why Talking Is Not Enough: Eight Loving Actions That Will Transform Your Marriage

You have some changes you'd like to see in your spouse and your marriage, right? And if I were a betting man, I'd bet that your spouse has some ideas too! So what are you waiting for? Are you waiting:
• For your spouse to make the first move?
• For your spouse to be more open to it?
• To feel love?

What most people should know is that, the feeling of love comes before we express love. And in the beginning of a relationship, that's what happens. You fall in love and then you do acts of love. Your feelings inspire your actions.

But mature love asks more of you. To create a strong lasting marriage, you first choose loving actions. Your feelings will follow. After all, you don't jog two miles or skip dessert because you feel healthy. You feel healthy because you jogged two miles and skipped dessert. So too, when it comes to your marriage, your actions dictates your feelings!

Go back in time, when you fell in love, it was easy to give to your spouse, and you probably
enjoyed thinking up new ways to express how you felt through your giving. Remember surprising your spouse with something you knew they wanted? Remember?

Within the next 48 hours, give your spouse a gift. Now here's the key. It can't be just any gift. Your spouse has to feel YOU in it. You see, the most important part of a present is that it embodies the presence of the one who gave it to you. This is not a matter of money. This takes time, thought, and energy.

What gift would tickle the soul of your spouse?
What could you buy or make for your spouse that?
Would show how much of YOU went into the gift?

Don't just buy anything. Make sure it's your spouse's favorite color, made in their hometown,
or something they mentioned last week. Stick with this for a minute, like I said before, this takes some deep thought, but I promise that if you make a habit of this kind of giving it will transform your marriage.

What could you give your spouse that would make them glow and look at you with intense
appreciation? Suggestions might be; did they recently mention they wanted something? What's your spouse's favorite dessert? Favorite flower? Favorite sports team (tickets to a game)? Favorite author (new book)? Favorite musician (CD or tickets)?

Inside your spouse is a child that wants to be understood. If your spouse is like most people,
he/she does NOT feel understood even by you. When you get the right gift for your spouse, they will feel understood, and connected to you, the giver. When you give someone a gift that says, "I know you, I understand you," you can "melt" them.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

STOP EMAILING YOUR SPOUSE

Are you trying to get heard? Do you feel ignored? Is your spouse not responding to your communication? We live in an interesting time. With one click, you can communicate with anyone in the world. It's easy, quick, and free. You even have options. If you don't want to click, you could dial, beep, page, instant-message, or Fed Ex.


You know what's killing marriages these days? Email! More and more I'm seeing husbands and wives resort to email to communicate with each other. You want to do something tangible today to improve your marriage? Stop emailing your spouse! Email is for information. But in a marriage you've got to HEAR each other. And I don't mean hear the sounds of each other's words. You've got to be able to hear the silence between the sounds and interpret the unspoken meaning of pressed lips or teary eyes. You've got to be able to hear the shapes and sounds in each other's heart. You can NOT accomplish this via email.


It's true. Your ability to communicate with the outside world has become increasingly easy. But my guess is that your ability to communicate with your spouse has become increasingly difficult. 


The reason for this is that most people confuse information communication with personal communication. Technological advancements give us all sorts of options to communicate information. But how do you feel the pulse of someone's soul? How do you communicate the subtleties in your heart? You can't text message that. You can have the latest and greatest in communication gadgets, but it won't matter. Personal communication is a whole different ball game. And it's personal communication that determines the success or failure of your marriage.


I want to be clear about something; you can't do it with communication techniques either. There's no clinical communication therapy that can help you and your spouse think each other's thoughts, feel each other joy, and cringe from each other's pain. The world is filled with casualties of traditional communication strategies. If you're like most people with marriage trouble, you've been down that path and you know that it does NOT work.


Creating love in your marriage paves the way for effective communication. I'll prove it to you. Think about when you fell in love. How was your communication? Good, right? In fact, when you're in love, you communicate with the wink of an eye and you can finish each other's sentences. And yet you haven't known each other that long and you haven't learned any communication techniques.


Listen carefully. Communication has very little to do with techniques or knowledge of each other. It has everything to do with the depth of connection between the communicators. The question you should be asking is NOT, "How do I communicate effectively with my spouse." The question you should be asking is, "How do I connect with my spouse again?" Once you reconnect, you won't be sitting in silence in the basement. You'll hear the sound of the pipes from above. It'll be your spouse. You were heard.  




 

 

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Salvage Your Relationship Before it Ends


Understanding - Understand that happiness comes within. If you are one of those people that says "my partner doesn't make me happy", maybe you should consider for a moment why you thought they would? True happiness comes from within yourself, and unless your partner is a true horror of humanity, a thoroughly unpleasant person, chances are the only reason you are unhappy is because of something inside yourself, some unfulfilled potential or hidden dream. Insecurities can also haunt a person and rob them of any chance of happiness.

Work as a Team. Unify as one. - Unify your home. Talk over how you picture your home in your mind. It's important to agree on this, as if you both aspire to making the home a different way, it's going to cause long term conflict. The typical example is the man wanting his home to look like his home, with his things where he can get at them etc, and the woman wanting everything neatly filed away at all times like a show home. You need to compromise together, as it's not really fair for either of you to expect the other to live how you want them to.


Spend time together, and interact. - Arrange some together time. It doesn't even need to be a particularly large amount of time, the point is that it should be just the two of you and no distractions. No TV, no company, no kids (if you have them) just the two of you. This will help you retain a sense of how to interact with each other. If an argument starts, take 5 minutes and calmly talk it over – this time should be spend enjoying each other at all costs.

Think to the past as positive, not negative. - Actively reminisce about past times. The good times you have shared can act like the glue that bonds you together, and it can be genuinely good fun to talk about the past and exciting things you have done together. Another plus point to this is that the more exciting and fun things you do with each other, the more stuff you will have to reminisce about. Bringing up the past can be touchy, especially when done in a spiteful way. So think about the joy you’ve shared, not the heart ache.
 

Friday, September 17, 2010

How To Survive Cheating In A Relationship


After an affair, relationships can be hard to mend. The most essential part of any relationship is trust, and if you've cheated this bond is broken. The good news is that it is possible for a relationship to come back from cheating. The bad news is that you are going to have to work for it.



The first thing you need to do is swear off affair relationships. This is not a guide on how to cheat on your partner. If you're going to continue to cheat, then these guidelines will not be of much help to you. If you're willing to do the work, then these tips will help you repair your relationship.



The first thing you to need to do is admit your affair. Relationships are built on trust, and you can't have trust when you're lying to the other person. Not telling them is lying, a lie of omission. You need to tell them if they don't know, even though it is going to hurt.



Aside from general honesty, which is always a virtue, there is a practical side to this as well. If they don't know, they will find out, and it's better that you take the bullet now rather than add to the pain when they do find out. If you try to keep it a secret, you're going to torpedo the relationship.



The next thing you need to do is to take the blame. You may feel that your partner did something to drive you to cheat. We also all have natural tendency to rationalize our behavior, to explain ourselves by coming up with an excuse. But the reality is that it is you that cheated, you that the affair. Relationships aren't built by blaming your partner for your mistakes. Take the blame and move on.



Then you need to apologize. What you're looking for here is a complete admission and a sincere apology. You need to make sure that they know that you are truly repentant and regret what you did. Don't try to explain, just let them know how you feel.



Once you've done that, you need to give them some space. They are going to react, they are going to be hurt, and you can't push them into forgiving you any faster than they are going to already. Be there for them, but make sure that you don't push. They will be ready when they are ready, and if you try to push the issue then you are only going to succeed in pushing them further away. 




After an affair, relationships are going to be different. The best thing you can do is to look at it as if you are starting the relationship all over again. You're going to need to win back their trust, and this is a process that is going to take some time.



Fortunately, there are resources available to you to help you repair the relationship. It may be hard to admit to yourself that you need help, but using one of the systems can be the best relationship move you'll ever make.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Define The Relationship To Save Your Relationship


If you want to have a healthy relationship, you need to define the relationship. One of the biggest reasons that relationships have problems is because both people in the relationship have different expectations and assumptions about what kind of relationship they're in.

Frankly, if you think you're on the road to marriage and happily ever after and your boyfriend or girlfriend thinks that's what you have is a nice light fling, you are going to have problems. Hurt emotions, broken hearts and generally misery tend to lie in the future for people who fail to define the relationship they're in.

The problem is that everyone, and I mean everyone, tends to think of everything they do as normal. This is a problem because there is no such thing as normal. Every person is a unique bundle of needs, fears, and desires. The strengths and weaknesses that make us who we are make the need to define the relationship essential.

Whether we realize it or not, we are all using ourselves as the baseline for behavior. This means that on some very essential levels, we assume that other people want what we want, feel what we feel. Most of us are aware that this isn't the case on a conscious level, but it's hard to put this into action all the time.

As long as things seem to be going okay, we have a tendency to let this go on more and more. After all, when they seem happy and you seem happy, there's no reason to examine your assumptions and expectations. Most of us only do that when things have gone wrong in a relationship. 


This is the reason you need to define the relationship early on is so great. Because other people are, well, other people. They may be happy in the relationship, but they may be happy for different reasons. If you let this go too far, you may be setting yourself up for resentment and pain.

By taking the time to define the relationship, you are taking the reins in the relationship. You will be able to see where you are and where you are heading. This will allow you to have a healthier, stronger relationship because you will both be pulling in the same direction rather than going off in two different emotional directions until the strain on the relationship is so great that it breaks.

The problem with taking action to define the relationship is that it's not the comfortable path to take. The conversations can be awkward, and there's always an element of fear that the two of you will have such radically different expectations and goals that the relationship may end.


These are false worries, for the most part. You need to look at the effort to define the relationship as being exercise for your relationship: it may be tough and the time and there's a small chance that you may get injured, but the truth is that it will almost always make the relationship better and stronger.

If you need help in figuring out what you need to do to define the relationship, there is loads of help available. This is one of the best things you can do to build a strong relationship, and it is well worth the effort.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Ease the Pain of a Relationship Breakup Right Now


 A relationship breakup is one of the hardest things most people will ever have to do Indeed, most studies on stress show that a divorce ranks even higher on the stress scale than losing a loved one. Most people don't have any idea how to properly handle a relationship breakup.
The end of a relationship will always be painful, even if it's one that needs to be broken up. You've spent a lot of time and emotion with this person, and even if you're the one doing the breaking up, it's going to come with a lot of hurt feelings.
Obviously, this going to be even worse if you're the one being broken up with. A relationship breakup that you don't want or expect is a horrible event. What you have to keep in mind is that a relationship needs two people in it. You may want it to go on, but if the other person has checked out, you may have to consider that the relationship needed to end.
Still there are techniques you can use to ease the pain of a relationship breakup. I'm going to outline several techniques that have been proven to help relieve the pain of a broken heart and move you past the hurt.
Step One: Figure Out Why
You need to know why the relationship ended. This doesn't matter if you were the one doing the breaking up or the one being broken up with. Either way you need to do some soul searching to find out what the reasons were behind the breakup. If you have some questions about why you broke up, then you're never going to be able to move beyond the relationship breakup.

Step Two: Get Rid of Reminders
You need to get some space between you and the person you've broken up with. This means that you can't go to bed each night hanging on to your ex's old sweater. You need to clean the deck and get your mind off of them. You need to make a clean break, so you need to put away all the little reminders.

Step Three: Positive People
There are negative people in the world and there are positive people. If you've just experienced a relationship breakup, you're going to find that you are in a very negative place. What you need to do is find the most upbeat and positive people you can and spend as much time with them as possible. In combination with the previous two steps, this will put you in the right place to move.

Step Four: Start Dating Again
The final step in recovering from a relationship break up is to start dating other people. The thing you need to keep in mind is that you are not trying to replace your ex, you're just trying to start seeing the world as a place without them. So you need to see other people and get out there. Don't look at every date as a new chance at love, just look at them as a way to get your mojo back.

The four steps will have you over your relationship breakup in no time flat. But keep in mind; you don't necessarily have to get over a break up. Sometimes good relationships fall apart for the wrong reasons, and you can fix the damage. You just need to find the right plan.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

4 Steps To Stop Your Divorce And Save Your Marriage

The thing you need to know is that it is not too late to stop your divorce. The break up of marriage is one of the worst things that can happen to a person, and it is all too common. More than half of all marriages today will end in divorce. When you consider that divorce is commonly regarded as one of the most stressful events that can happen in a person's life, even beyond the death of a dear one, there is a lot of heartache out there in the world.


The tragedy is that most of these breakups could have been prevented. You do not have to be a statistic. You can do something about it; you can stop your divorce. I won't say that it is going to be easy, but it is possible. You just have to follow the steps to rebuild what has been broken.


You can't expect to stop your divorce without a plan anymore than you can expect to build a house without blueprints. Fortunately, the help is available and it behooves you to take advantage of it. Your marriage does not have to fail. You can do something.

Step One: Find the Problem

You can't stop your divorce if you don't know why your marriage is falling apart. You need to work with your spouse to diagnose what is wrong with the marriage. This is a little harder than it sounds, because what you think might be the reason for the divorce is just a symptom.

Step Two: Fix the Problem

In many ways, this is the most important step. If you can't fix the problem, then you can't stop your divorce. Some problems can't be fixed, but most can. The reason most marriage ending problems don't get solved is that they are never identified. But you've already done that in step one. What you need to do know is work with your spouse to make the compromises that will save your marriage.

Step Three: Remember the Good Times

You're going to need to remind both your spouse and yourself why you were together to begin with. No matter how bad your marriage has gotten, there was a point when things were good. You should try to get back to that place, but you should always keep in mind that it existed.

Step Four: Start Over

The last step in your quest to stop your divorce is to begin again. You need to look at your marriage as a brand new marriage. While you should keep in mind the good times, you need to forget the bad times and learn about your spouse all over again. Things have changed, and you need to make your marriage work with the person you are married to, not the person you used to be married to or the person you wish they were. Accept them as they are, and work together to build a better, stronger marriage.

If you follow these four steps, you will be able to stop your divorce. If you need more help, then don't be afraid to look for it. There are systems out there to help fix what is broken in your relationship, and you need to be willing to use them.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Marriage Quotes

Marriage is not a noun; it's a verb. It isn't something you get. It's something you do. It's the way you love your partner every day.
-Barbara De Angelis

If divorce has increased by one thousand percent, don't blame the women's movement. Blame the obsolete sex roles on which our marriages were based.
-speech, New York City, January 20, 1974

BILL COSBY:
For two people in a marriage to live together day after day is unquestionably the one miracle the Vatican has overlooked.


BRUCE FISHER AND ROBERT ALBERTI:
Many people marry for the wrong reasons, among them 1) to overcome loneliness, 2) to escape an unhappy parental home, 3) because they think that everyone is expected to marry, 4) because only "losers" who can't find someone to marry stay single, 5) out of a need to parent, or be parented by another person, 6) because they got pregnant, 7) because "we fell in love," ... and on goes the list.


GAY HENDRICKS:
One of the first things a relationship therapist learns is that couples argue to burn up energy that could be used for something else. In fact, arguments often serve the purpose of using up energy, so that the couple do not have to take the courageous, creative leap into an unknown they fear. Arguing serves the function of being a zone of familiarity into which you can retreat when you are afraid of making a creative breakthrough.


GEORG C. LICHTENBERG:
Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW:
All young women begin by believing they can change and reform the men they marry. They can't.


GLORIA STEINEM:
I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and
a career.



Sunday, September 12, 2010

Discover The Secret Of Marriage Part 2

Discover where change starts, and how you can use this knowledge to get in control of the situation (NOT the same as being controlling!). Learn about commitment, and how it becomes your friend, not the enemy, when you know what it is about! Find the ONE TRUTH that eludes the majority of marriages, leading to a lifetime of unhappiness, but if understood, leads to a lifetime of bliss! Discover why you must STOP “reading the tea leaves” and start taking action (and what action to take, RIGHT NOW!).

Learn the astonishing truth about communication. It isn’t the heart of problems, and when you act like it is, you are headed for disaster. Discover the unique power of a marriage to heal, when given the opportunity. Learn how to apply this principle to bring about healing and understanding.
Learn how resentment eats away at a marriage and how to transform resentment into attachment.
Discover the “blinders” we all wear that keep us from seeing the truth of what our marriage is about. Find how to get rid of the blinders, once and for all!

The only question you really have to answer is “are you willing to take a risk on the marriage?” I’ve already removed the risk from getting the information. If you are ready to take action, you will know it -- and you will act! If you only talk about improving your marriage, you will know that, too. In that case, this is not for you!
Find clarity of vision about your marriage, even if you think you are seeing things clearly (you are not, and neither is your spouse). If you keep seeing things the way you do now, you will continue to get the problems you already have.
Build new intentions and focus, destroying the negative intentions that have held your marriage back. Discover a whole new level of forgiveness that you never knew existed. And find out how to make forgiveness an everyday task!

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Discover The Secret Of Marriage Part 1

The Secret Of Marriage is an incredible program that was developed over the past months. The opportunity is before you to discover the secret of marriage. But there is something I have learned after 2 decades of helping people: until you are ready to help yourself, there is nothing I can do. You have to take action for anything to change. And change does take effort. If anyone tells you that they have an instant cure for anything worthwhile, they are lying. “Overnight riches” and “overnight marriage cures” fall into the same category. Anything worthwhile will take effort.

My guess, though, is all your efforts are currently in the wrong direction. By not knowing what to move TOWARD, we tend to try to move AWAY from something. That is a recipe for failure. You have to know where to go toward. Let’s face it, a marriage does not get into a crisis overnight. It will take time for the marriage to turn around. So the question is: will you make the effort? Will you take the action? I have the key. I know the secret. I can show you what to do and how to do it. You must take it from there. Will you let me show you the secret? 

Discover the truth about marriage. What it REALLY is about! Forget the myth. How your brain and your mind affect your marriage. And what to DO about it! Why you can change the direction of the marriage BY YOURSELF. And more importantly, HOW you can do this. Imagine “marital judo,” using the energy of the relationship to transform it, even when the energy is negative!

Friday, September 10, 2010

My Spouse Does Not Respond To Peaceful Resolution Of Conflict Part 2


Here are some questions for married couples to consider:

1.      If you give yourself time to think, do you not often discover that there is no good cause to be angry?
2.      Do you keep yourself cool, and hold back words that would make your spouse hot.
3.      The word that is right at one time may be wrong for another time. Are you perceptive as to what are the right words at the right time?
4.      Before you speak, do you stop and think what effect your words will have on your spouse.
5.      Sometimes when you upset we say more than we mean, and we are sorry after wards. Do you guard against this?
6.      It takes two to argue. Are you matured enough to be the one to stop?
7.      Do you continually rehash old disputes, or do you love your spouse enough to put them behind you?
8.      Are you too proud to make concessions and seek peace in your marriage?
9.      Can you stop arguing, or must you have the last word?
10.  Do you dwell on differences and thereby prolong the misery for both yourself and your spouse

Answering these questions and trying them out will benefit your marriage. Similarly, be willing to try the suggestions your spouse makes. See if it works. Who is to blame if something goes wrong? That’s not important. What is important is how things can be made right. Be flexible, air differences, talk them out, and don’t take yourself too seriously.

Communicate! If you ‘love your mate as you do yourself’, it should not be too difficult to adjust to the marriage relationship and to make it a happy one.