So what are the steps to saving a marriage from divorce? This answer to this question is dependant on where the couple is in their current process. If you get this wrong it’s very possible to make a bad situation much worse.
A couple who both want the relationship to work require a very different strategy to a couple where one person is so detached they can’t see how the marriage could ever work. A couple who fall victim to an infidelity require a different approach to a couple where one person no longer feels they are in love with their partner.
To be clear, with the right approach many situations are solvable, but you can’t use the same strategy for all situations. I hear many inexperienced professionals working with couples and making them feel ten times worse, as they have paid the professional to watch them argue or they feel judged.
This doesn’t help the couple at all and to be clear – no one is qualified to judge you!
It’s critical that the couple feel and safe and secure after each meeting. Coming for help is worrying and so they need to leave the meeting feeling looked after and positive.
Every couple is totally unique and each person has very differing processing, internal maps and learning styles that need to be understood and respected.
What I’m saying is to really help someone get to the truth in their relationship that person has to feel that you understand them and you are working to help and support them get to the truth in their relationship.
For couples in crisis, blindly trying to help a couple fix their relationship to my mind is unfair on the couple. Helping the couple learn if they can create a dynamic that works for life, helps the couple to connect with an authentic dynamic and is a far safer approach longterm.
Couples in crisis are usually in fear on some level. They need to be helped out of their fear status and into a place where they can judge their relationship from a new safer perspective. Judging the truth in a relationship from a position of fear, detachment, resentment will only provide a distorted result that’s not safe for that person to act on.
This is why many people, either regret their divorce, or leave their family only to discover the same problems follow them into their new relationships.
Where many change consultants fall over with a couple is they don’t educate them. In simple terms men and women are like a different species. They think, act and process their relationships very differently and this causes confusion which causes fear which causes significant problems.
So the individuals in the relationship must have a good understanding of their partners world and how it works, because unless they can understand each other, how can they be valuable to each other?
They must also understand themselves and how they work so they know how their own mind works and how to take control of it for their own emotional safety both now and in the future.
On top of this educational process the couple need powerful tools they can use in the relationship when challenging situations arise. All couples have problems, Cloe and I have problems. What makes the difference is how you deal with those problems.
Most couples have problems and end up protecting themselves from each other. Couples have to learn how to experience a problem as a team. For example the couple who have conflict and stack resentments are going to create a very distorted relationship, where as the couple that have conflict and are learning from it, will grow their love, connection and security.
When a couple is helped to see with clarity what they are doing and why and how to help each other successfully the couple feel significantly safer and more confident they know what to do when problems strike.
This helps them to feel a peace in the relationship and free.
On the whole I am not concerned with how bad the couple think their relationship is I’m looking for key indicators that tell me the couples relationship is saveable.
I have had couples who have been sexually disconnected for over seven years who now are so much happier with their new relationship that they constantly refer many of their friends to me.
Many people believe my mission is to fix couples relationships. My real mission is to help them learn the truth.
The question that needs answering is this? Do we, with the right information have the ability to create a dynamic that can last for life?
My message is find out the truth.