Saving Your Marriage

She's wondering whether it's wrong to leave this problem marriage. I wonder if she is avoiding talking about domestic violence.

She married him because she was in love, pregnant, Christians were telling her it was the moral thing to do and she was bribed. During the past seven years she has tried to get him to go to counseling, repeatedly asked for a divorce, been lured back to the marriage after she's left, and now he's promising to change -- one more time. She says her kids are being put in harm's way.

I don't have details, but from the rambling description she wrote, I strongly suspect that the mistreatment she alludes to should be called abuse or domestic violence. Read her words http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111225084126AAsPF4q and decide whether you agree with my answer.

It's never wrong to leave an abusive relationship. I'm reading between the lines here, but after 40 years as a marriage counselor I see too many signs of a cycle of abuse to ignore them. It sounds as if you had been in an emotionally abusive relationship that has degenerated into a physically abusive one.

The signs I am reading are that you have tried repeatedly to leave this marriage and being lured back by promises of good behavior that have never really materialized.

You said, "He knows he screwed up but he still wants to try and work on it. He said that 2 years ago and he said that last month. He has never shown signs of truly changing%u2026"

I can't tell you how many abused women I've heard say the same thing. Every time an incident happens and you threaten to leave, he promises to reform. The reform lasts a very short time and then the negative behavior resumes and gets worse. You seem to be describing exactly this cycle.

It often takes women many tries to get out of a relationship like this. Some never do and wind up that badly hurt or even dead. Leaving can be dangerous, so take precautions for your physical safety. Check out the National Domestic Violence Hot Line www.thehotline.org for help.
It isn't wrong to walk out an abusive seven year marriage. Get out now. You owe it to yourself and your children.

He says he'll do anything to fix his marriage. He knows he made a mistake. She left and says she'll come back if he gets counseling. The problem is that he is still feeling resentful that she won't take responsibility for the problems in their marriage.
You can see his entire question here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111224035301AALbXep This is my answer.

If you would do truly anything to fix it, then get counseling now, not soon. You're not likely to find peace of mind about this for a while. You have a lot to learn about relationships and you're just getting started. Counseling, whether or not she comes along, should be useful for you.

It takes a lot of work to grow a relationship. It takes learning to talk about problems that you're experiencing without blaming your partner for what's wrong. Whenever you blame someone you're likely to get a defensive response. When you don't have the conversation at all, your resentment builds and you do dumb things like having an online chat with an old flirt.

Apparently this all started because you were not getting as much closeness (including sexual intimacy) as you wanted. Maybe she was getting more than she was comfortable having. Or maybe she was building resentment about other things and that led her to not want to be close to you. I certainly don't know.

What I do know is that if you can't learn to talk to each other without blaming each other for problems you won't get very far. Counseling can help you learn to have those conversations. So can some of the materials available for healing relationships.
A tip from my booklet, "124 Tips for Having a Great Relationship" is: "Expect the closeness and distance you experience with your partner to vary from hour to hour, day to day and season to season. People experienced enough closeness much as they experience enough food - any more leads to discomfort. We all have different capacities."

You need this kind of information in order to build a relationship.
"124 Tips for Having a Great Relationship" http://www.YourGreatRelationships.com/
24 free tips and additional information about how to save your marriage are available at http://www.BeingHappyProgram.com

Jeanette says, "I want to save my 15-year marriage but we're separated. My husband ended a long-term affair with his mistress two years ago. We're spending time with our four children and beginning to start our relationship over, like friends. Should I act as if I don't care that he sometimes still sees this woman?"

This is a complicated question because Jeanette didn't share the circumstances where her husband encounters the woman she still thinks of as "his mistress." Since their affair ended some time ago, I'm going to assume that their contact is casual. Jeanette is really wondering whether she should reconcile with her husband by withholding important information about herself from him.

It's never a good idea to base a relationship on what is essentially a lie. Instead of withholding this important information Jeanette definitely needs to talk about her remaining discomfort with this situation. Before she does this though she needs to do some thinking about why she is still uncomfortable and what she would like him to do differently.

I suspect that she fears his exposure to his former mistress will be a temptation to him and make it harder for her to learn to trust him again. She feels vulnerable because of the very real possibility that she could be hurt again. The real problem may be recognizing the uncomfortable fact that we are all vulnerable. There is no way that any of us can be absolutely certain we won't be hurt in a relationship.

Rather than imposing impossible or unrealistic limits on her husband's activities, it would be more productive to establish a pattern of clear communication right now while they are starting to rebuild their marriage. Having regular conversations about what's important to each of them is more likely to lead to a strong and lasting partnership than anything else.

The first conversation should probably be about asking for details about her husband's current contact with his former mistress. Once she understands what really is happening it will be important to talk about how she feels about it and to think about what she really wants to happen in the future. Then she needs to talk about that also. The resources suggested in The Being Happy Program http://www.BeingHappyProgram.com can be used as a guide to having further important conversations that will help rebuild their relationship.

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You've said that you want to save your marriage from divorce and that you're willing to change your attitude in order to get him to come back. I think you will need to change more than your attitude. Since you say "he doesn't want to continue the marriage in the current way" you will need to change your behavior.

You have not said exactly what taking him for granted means. It could mean that you expect him to ignore destructive things that you do like not keeping agreements or engaging in inappropriate use of alcohol or drugs. If so, then what I am going to suggest probably won't be enough. However if you are fairly typical and the problem is that you tell him what he is doing wrong and don't comment on all the good things he does, then you can make changes pretty quickly.

There is a general cultural belief in the US that people are supposed to do a "good job" and we are not supposed to give recognition to someone for just doing their job. We are supposed to recognize only outstandingly good or outstandingly bad behavior. (Other ways of describing this recognition are praise, acknowledge, and strokes, as in "different strokes for different folks.") We can give folks either positive strokes that feel good or negative ones that feel bad.

The problem is that the system we use creates all kinds of trouble. People NEED strokes! Without it they either wither or spend way too much energy trying to get the strokes they crave. I suspect that you either haven't given your husband enough positive strokes or too many negative ones. This happens in many marriages.
From now on, whenever you talk to him, start doing this. It's simple but it may not be easy because of your "attitude" and your old patterns. This is a two part solution. Part one is to stop telling him about what he is doing wrong. I know you think he will never improve if you don't call these problems to his attention, but STOP anyway.

Part two is simply to train yourself to catch him doing things right and thank him for doing each thing every time you catch him. If he is willing to try again, you must do this many times each day! You can remind yourself to do this by putting 10 pennies in one pocket and each time you give out a positive stroke you move one penny to a different pocket. Your job is to move 10 pennies each and every day.

Many problems with couples just go away when one of them starts practicing this little trick. Try it and see for yourself.

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You say he wants to end the marriage because he can't trust you, but you want to save the marriage anyhow. I wonder whether he's just reflecting your lack of trust in him back to you. Let me explain. You have admitted withholding money in a separate account, but why would you withhold money if you completely trusted your husband?

Often when one partner in a marriage is afraid or feeling something that is negative or unacceptable, somehow the other partner expresses the feeling instead. If you really want to reestablish trust and save the marriage you'll have to start talking about who feels what, and why. This means you will have to look at your own reason for withholding the money in the first place.

Once you understand why you took that action you will need to take responsibility for sharing that with your husband. This is likely to lead to important conversations about your values and his. You have probably made agreements about sharing money in this marriage that you didn't want to make in the first place. If you have wanted to make them, there would've been no reason to break them.

You need to renegotiate those agreements. I know that can be challenging: that's why I included 11 different conversation starters about money for couples in The Being Happy Program (www.BeingHappyProgram.com) . I suggest that you only make agreements that you are willing and intend to keep. If you and your husband can't resolve these issues you must think seriously about whether it makes sense to stay in your marriage.

I can think of all kinds of reasons why a woman would want to keep some money in a separate account. In fact many couples have clear agreements about how to share some of their money and keep some of the private.

* Many women just want to feel independent and able to spend money in whatever way they choose without needing to account for every penny.

* Sometimes there's a misunderstanding between a husband and wife that leads to one of them feeling threatened because he or she believes that money is going to be used inappropriately.

* Sometimes there's real evidence that one of the partners uses money in a way that's detrimental to the family.

Taking responsibility for negotiating how money is to be handled is a good way to begin to reestablish trust between you and your husband.

But even more important is demonstrating your commitment to either keep the agreements that you make or renegotiating them instead of changing them without consulting your partner.

Hey, by the way... Here's something I think will really interest you. It's a *very* meaty Free Special Report all about 5 frequently asked questions about troubled relationships. It's titled "How To Save Your Marriage: Insider Secrets For Anxious Wives and Frustrated Husbands " and you can grab it for free here www.BeingHappyProgram.com/getmarriagereport1.htm

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Trying to save a marriage by having the baby is a really desperate move. Although it stems from a belief that your husband wants another baby because he is trying to make another woman pregnant, that doesn't mean he really wants a baby. He probably wants to control her and keep her tied to him. It does not mean he would stay because he felt responsible for the new baby. After all he seems to have no intention of staying for the baby you already have together.

Aside from that, having a baby for any purpose other than wanting a baby is a very bad idea. Here are some of the reasons why.

1. Using a baby to attempt to rescue troubled marriage is keeping you from seeing the baby as a human being to be well loved and nurtured in its own right. To deny this right from conception on is unfair to the child.

2. Having a baby is more likely to stress a marriage than to save it. The demands of an infant are intense and among other things lead to lack of sleep for the parents. This reduces opportunities for their own intimacy and may drive the parents further apart. Since the baby is more likely to cry more in a stressful situation like this it causes a cycle of escalating stress in your marriage.

3. Suppose it doesn't work? Even on the outside chance that your husband adores babies, if your marriage is troubled in the first place and nothing else is done about the problems, they won't go away. You are likely to divorce after a year or so anyhow and you'll be left with the care of two children. Are you ready to take on the responsibilities of being a single mother and provide for the needs of another human being for 18 years?

So if you really want to save your marriage you will try other tested methods like exploring what the real problems are and learning to each get what you want in your relationship. An excellent way to do this is to use the conversation starters in The Being Happy Program to connect with each other in as little as an hour a week. He is likely to be surprised and interested if you start to have conversations that are about something besides what is wrong with him.

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