When a marriage is going through a rough phase, divorce is not always seen as the obvious choice. Even in abusive marriages, spouses hold on to the hope that their partners will change and they will be able to save their marriage. All they need is the answer to “how to fix a broken marriage alone”.
There are different ways to fix a broken marriage, but for it to happen both spouses must be committed to the cause and follow the right approach to put their issues behind them.
# Understand where things went wrong
A successful marriage is a constant work in progress. You have to put in a lot of effort to keep your marriage vibrant, something not many people understand. A marriage falters when there is a lack of communication, when the love and affection dry up, or there is a crisis. Infidelity affects a marriage adversely too.
But if you want to fix a broken marriage and stop a divorce, you will have to first understand where your relationship went downhill and why it is worth saving. An American Psychological Association finding states that 20-40% of divorces in the United States happen because of infidelity. But the report also says that 50% of the unfaithful partners are still married.
# Do away with negative beliefs and look within
“She won’t listen to my viewpoint.” “He won’t help me with the chores; he is a lazy husband.” Such firm, negative beliefs about each other can erode the very foundation of marriage without either partner realizing it. So, rather than clinging to these beliefs, work to change them.
Exploring your individual role in augmenting your marital issues. Once you recognize and acknowledge that you too have contributed to the deterioration of the quality of the relationship, it becomes easier to cut your spouse some slack for their perceived flaws or shortcomings .
# Reinvent yourself and don’t be rigid
If you want to fix a marriage that is falling apart, then you have to look at yourself first. Change is the greatest constant in life, and this change not only affects us as human beings but our relationships as well.
When your marriage is ten years old, you have changed not only physically but also mentally. You could have climbed up the ladder of success, become busy, gotten a bit arrogant, developed stronger opinions…and all that may have crept into the relationship.
# Get over emotional overwhelm to renew trust and respectTrust is lost if infidelity happens or if you simply have a lying spouse. Trying to fix your marriage when trust is broken can be especially hard. The partner who has had their trust broken can feel overwhelmed by a sense of betrayal, anger and hurt.
Similarly, the spouse who has been lying or cheating may have their own set of negative emotions, such as a lack of fulfillment or anger over past unresolved issues.
# Bring back the connectionReconnecting with a spouse is vital, but it might end up being the toughest thing to do. A lost spark means a loss of communication, affection, and intimacy. When a connection is lost in a marriage, you become like two strangers living together under the same roof and functioning as two different islands.
When bitterness creeps into a relationship, you may realize it’s not as easy to talk to your partner as it was before. But it is possible to renew that connection if there is some effort from both spouses or from even just one spouse.
# Positives of the relationship vis-a-vis individual limitationsIn the midst of paying those bills, shopping for groceries, paying the house mortgage, looking after the kids, and arguing incessantly, we often forget the positives in our own relationship. We keep harping on the negatives and think that the marriage is falling apart.
Even if you want to fix a broken marriage alone, then put all the positives of your marriage in a diary and look at it every day as a reminder of what you already have.
# Pinpoint what you are fighting aboutSometimes fights become a part of a marriage and then go on to become so routine, that after a point in time, you don’t even know what you are fighting about. Remember that huge fight you had that started from complaining about the in-laws, but somehow landed on how you two never consult each other while making decisions? Conflict resolution goes out the window.
There is some difference of opinion and the next moment, the tempers fly. The fights could range from something as trivial as the temperature of the air-conditioner or who would make the bed in the morning to something more serious like a spouse’s incessant texting in the middle of the night.
# Work on the marriage
It is always said that marriage is a work in progress. You have to keep working on it to ensure that it functions like a well-oiled machine. But as you probably know by now, this is easier said than done. Even by solely focusing on the kids and not scheduling time for each other, the marriage can go downhill. You will then be grappling with a situation thinking, “how can I fix a broken marriage?”
You might even be thinking that you have been working on the marriage. You might’ve even tried to initiate a conversation, but once that doesn’t bear much fruit, it’s possible you’ll sit back knowing you did your “best”. You could be doing a few things wrong too, like assuming your best attempt at figuring out how to fix a broken marriage is by saying “Can we talk?” one time.
# Socialise togetherWhen two people start drifting apart they stop socializing with their friends and relatives. But if you want to mend your broken marriage, hanging out with friends is important. It can serve as a reminder of how your relationship was when you were around them.
Also, it could help you shed some of the inhibitions you have developed around each other. When you are laughing and hanging out with old friends, you can truly be yourself. Friends can be a great support too in your journey to fix a broken relationship.