STOP YOUR SPOUSE BEHAVIOR THAT IS DESTROYING YOUR MARRIAGE: PART 2

When you create that connection with your spouse, you accomplish two profound things. First, you eliminate your spouse's desire for their destructive behavior. You take the wind right out of its sail. You cut it off at its source. They don't need it anymore. There's no more hole to fill. YOU filled it! Second, you offer your spouse a permanent filling for a hole that's been insatiable probably since their childhood. (Your spouse's destructive behaviors can probably be traced back to a disconnected relationship they had with their mother or father). And their DESIRE for your connection, a REAL and LASTING filling of that hole, will trump any momentary interest in seductive pleasures.

So how do you get your spouse to stop their destructive behavior? You create a connection with them. Now here's the kicker. The chances are very good that YOU have no clue how to deeply CONNECT with your spouse. You see, disconnected people tend to marry disconnected people. In other words, you picked your spouse BECAUSE they're disconnected, and that was safe and familiar for you. (Your spouse is probably like your mother or father.). You didn't have to make a real connection to your spouse and that's why you fell in love with them. Your spouse didn't need what you couldn't offer. Do you see how that worked? It's totally dysfunctional, but it's true.

Now don't misunderstand, I'm not saying that your spouse's inappropriate behavior is your fault. But it is your RESPONSIBILITY. Meaning, that you can choose (if you want) to do something about it. You can impact your spouse's choices. But you'll need to learn to forge a real connection with your spouse, and you'll need to learn to do that WITHOUT your spouse's cooperation.

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STOP YOUR SPOUSE BEHAVIOR THAT IS DESTROYING YOUR MARRIAGE: PART 1

Is your spouse having an AFFAIR, hooked on POR-N, addicted to DRUGS or ALCOHOL, a WORKAHOLIC, too emotionally close to an OPPOSITE SEX FRIEND, or OBSESSIVE about a hobby or activity? How do you get your spouse to STOP behavior that's destroying your marriage?
Giving an ultimatum is an interesting idea. I bet a friend or family member even suggested it. I'm sure it's crossed your mind. Maybe it was even advised by your counselor. But will it work?
If you want your spouse to stop that marriage destroying behavior, do NOT give your spouse an ultimatum. It will NOT work. Let me explain why. And let me explain how YOU CAN get your spouse to end their affair or stop their addictive or obsessive behavior.
In a sense, it's empowering to think, and even say to your spouse, "Your behavior is unacceptable. And if it doesn't stop, I'm leaving you." An ultimatum offers the ultimate role reversal. It puts you, the victim, in control. Understandably, that's appealing. And there's no doubt that in the SHORT RUN, you'll FEEL better. Just because something FEELS good does NOT mean it is good. The question you have to ask yourself is: Will the LONG TERM effect be good? Will an ultimatum give me the result I want? Will it lead to the renewal of my marriage?
The answer is NO.
Now I know what you're thinking, "Aphys, what about TOUGH LOVE? Don't I have to set borders and boundaries?" If you give your spouse an ultimatum, you'll establish clear RULES for your marriage. You'll set borders and boundaries. But, where will the MOTIVATION come from for your spouse to live by the rules? In other words, the rules will be clear, but why would your spouse WANT to adhere to them?
You see, if your spouse is a sex addict, a workaholic, an alcoholic, having an affair, into porn, or involved in any other type of obsessive or destructive behavior, the problem is NOT a lack of rules; it's a lack of MOTIVATION to live by the rules.
Your spouse knows their behavior is wrong. Even if they won't admit it, even if they justify it, deep down they know that their behavior is immoral and that it's destroying your marriage and soiling their soul. The problem is that they don't care. The problem is that they lack an internal MOTIVATION to do the right thing.
Your spouse has to WANT to stop. The key is their inner motivation, their WILL. An
ultimatum imposes rules from the outside; it does nothing to address the lack of motivation on the inside. Bottom line: although giving an ultimatum feels good, it misses your target. Your target is your spouse's inner motivation. And how do you affect someone's inner motivation? The secret is to CONNECT with them. Let me explain.
People who make healthy and meaningful connections with other people feel happy and
fulfilled. (Research proves that the single most important factor that determines happiness in life is CONNECTEDNESS.) People who lack a real emotional connection with others will grasp at anything in an attempt to fill that void in their life. That's what leads people to sex, drugs, alcohol, hours of mindless TV, falling in love over and over again with new people, or an obsessive commitment to money, success, work, or a hobby. These trappings offer a MOMENTARY filling. But the cause of the emptiness your spouse seeks to fill is a lack of a meaningful CONNECTION in their life. Continue in part two of this article.

Infidelity In My Marriage? What Should I Do?

A woman who just discovered that her husband cheated on her for many years recently asked me a great question. She said, "My husband apologized 100 times, stopped his affair, and is committed to being a new man. I see he's changed. But wouldn't I be better off divorcing him and starting fresh with someone new?"
I can understand her point of view. Right now in her marriage there's so much pain, baggage, and a mountain of hurt to heal. The same is probably true in your marriage, whether the issue is infidelity or something else.
Is it possible to come back once the trust is broken? Can you heal from your ordeal? Or maybe it just makes sense to just start over with someone else? Most victims of infidelity (and other emotional hardships) believe that they'll be safer in a relationship with someone who never cheated on them or hurt them. I completely understand this FEELING. However, the OPPOSITE might be true.
In the case of the woman above, it appears that her husband really changed. And I've seen many people transform themselves after getting the "I want a divorce" wake up call. Unless her husband is a pathological liar or a sex addict, he's LESS LIKELY to make the same mistake again compared to someone whose track record is clean. In other words, once a spouse learns their lesson, they're LESS vulnerable to make the same mistake than someone who's never erred in that way before.
According to a 1998 survey by researchers at the University of Chicago, about 25 percent of married men and 17 percent of married women in the United States ADMIT to having been unfaithful. The noted author Shirley Glass' research suggests it is probably closer to 25 percent of women and 40 to 50 percent of men! That means that starting from scratch gives the above woman a 50% chance of finding another husband who will be faithful.
Now let me ask you, at this point in this woman's husband's life, given all he's been through and learned, what are the chances that he'll screw up again? If this woman gave him another chance, what's the likelihood that he'd make the same mistake that almost caused him to lose his family years before? In my opinion, it's dramatically less than 50%. In fact, I think it's slim to none.
Here lies an unfortunate irony. People wait years and years for their spouse to wake up and change their ways. Then when they finally do it, they're told it's too late. I understand why someone would feel, after being cheated on, for example, that "it's too late." But the fact of the matter is that they're about to walk away from a person who is FINALLY prepared to be a wonderful loving spouse.
In my experience, it's these people, people who have made serious mistakes, people who have had the harshest wake up calls, who become the BEST spouses and are capable, more than anyone else, of forging the MOST fulfilling relationships.
Do you see the irony here?
The mistakes that ruin relationships are those that transform the sinners into people capable of the most outstanding relationships. The unfortunate thing for the victim is that they don't know how to heal from the hurt that would enable them to reap the benefit of their ordeal.
In other words, the woman above has a choice. If she lets her husband go, he'll most likely fall in love with another woman and treat her like a queen. He'll be the husband to his new wife that the woman above always wanted him to be to her. I've seen it happen too often. Some lucky woman owes a poor victim a lot of gratitude. But this woman has another option. She could forgive her husband and become that lucky woman!

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Fighting Is Good For Your Marriage

Cast your mind back to your wedding day. 'Are you there?' Now, if anybody asked you that day about what could cause problem in your marriage, you would have looked into such a person's eyes and say, 'nothing, I have a loving, understanding and adorable spouse'. If you are asked further to give it an outside chance of something going wrong. You would have said, 'conflicts'.

What do you think? Even now, if you had to mention ONE THING that best predicts whether or not your marriage will succeed, what would you say? You might say "conflict." Of course, if you have a lot of disagreements and fights then, that's not a good sign, right? No. Actually you are wrong, very wrong.

Would you believe that it's the opposite?! That's right; research shows that the number one predictor of divorce is the habitual AVOIDANCE of conflict. This means that, couples who does not fight is at the greatest risk to divorce.

A time, couples avoid having disagreements by not talking about things that ordinarily they should talk about. They do this because anytime they argue or try to talk about issues that are negatively affecting their marriage, they fight. Isn't it ironic? We try to avoid conflict with our spouse for the benefit of our relationship. But there's nothing more damaging to your

marriage than NOT fighting.

Fighting does not mean that you hate your spouse. In actual fact, hate is closer to love. For you to hate somebody, you have to first care about them. You cannot people who have no meaning to your life. Do you hate your mechanic, mailman, and the sales rep who try to sell you things you have no use for? No, you never hate them because you don't care about them. Apathy is the opposite of love.

But the closer you are to someone the more likely it is that you step on each other's toes. Hate is actually a sign of hope. It means you care. It means you're close. Apathy, on the other hand, is a cause for great concern.

Now, just a minute, I'm not saying that you should go and pick a fight with your spouse. You don't need to fight to have a good and successful marriage. I am not saying that fighting is healthy. I said people in healthy marriages fight. In other words, the fact that you fight is a sign that deep down inside you really love each other, that your relationship has potential. But if you want to be happily married, you have to learn to fight WELL.

Couples in successful marriages know how to discuss their differences. This is not something that comes naturally to anyone; it's a learned skill. And once you learn it, all the energy that goes into your fights propels your relationship forward.

Couples in successful marriages have areas of disagreement. No two people are perfectly compatible. There will be some differences. These differences when expressed need to be discussed (discussing it might mean fighting) and these allow spouses to know more about each other. Adjusting to them is the root of successful marriages."Irreconcilable differences" are like a bad knee or a chronic back.They're part of every good marriage.

The key to succeeding in marriage is not finding the right person; it's learning to fight well with the person you found. You'll have "irreconcilable differences" with anyone you pick. The question is whether or not you can learn to discuss them.