Hey whats up! I downloaded a really good eBook the other week about how to fix marriage issues by a man named TW (T Dub) Jackson. Its called The Magic of Making Up. I read through it, trying to see what kind of advice he gives about marriage issues and working things out… I actually really liked it, and would recommend taking a look yourself.
Its got 62 pages and has been downloaded over 50,119 Customers In 77 Countries, so its obviously got some good advice. Having read it my self, I don’t know why I haven’t told anyone else about it till now.
Just so you know, here is what he covers….
Understanding Why Your Relationship Ended (And Why It’s Not Over Just Yet)
Don’t Panic – Your Key to Winning Back Their Love (Getting Your Head On Straight)
Removing the Splinter in Your Relationship (Where Do You Stand?)
Re-Igniting the Spark of Passion and Desire (The Plan)
Dates and Lovers – How Other People Can Actually Bring You Back Together With Your Ex
Easing Back Into Your Relationship to Solidify Your Love
Maintaining the Fun and Love Without Dredging Up Old Wounds and Arguments
When Your Relationship Can’t Be Saved – Moving On With Grace
I don’t know of any other eBook that is so indepth and practical. I know how tough things can be, so if you really want to know how to fix marriage problems, do your self a favor, take a sec and just check it out.
Hey, it’s Jorgen again. Here’s another little tip for you.
By regularly thinking positive and optimistic thoughts, marital happiness will grow between you and your spouse. This way of thinking is nourishment for a healthy and happy mind, life and marriage. But with each negative and pessimistic thought, you feed yourself poison.
The more positive and optimistic thoughts you form and entertain, the more you’ll nourish your tender plant of marital happiness. The more noble and pure they are, the more determination you’ll have to be true to your values. The more controlled they are, the more power you’ll have to act rather than react. Thoughts are very powerful, for good or for bad.
Are you discouraged or just disappointed?
I want to describe the differences between a few things to help you understand how vital it is to be positive and optimistic, and the affect this way of thinking has on you.
There is a difference between discouragement and disappointment, and your happiness is at stake if you don’t know what it is.
When you are discouraged, you lack faith. Because something didn’t turn out the way you wanted or expected, you begin thinking negative and pessimistic thoughts. You begin losing hope. You begin believing that something may never happen. Your strength and determination to keep going diminishes. Feelings of disparity grow. Fear and doubt creep in. Your tender plant of happiness begins to wither away.
When you are disappointed, you don’t lose hope. Although you were let down, you think positive and optimistic thoughts. Your faith remains strong. You still believe that something good or beneficial will happen, thus you continue to exert strength and determination. Your tender plant of happiness continues to grow strong.
Fear and doubt are opposites of faith and belief. Discouragement is the opposite of disappointment. Fear and doubt are tied to discouragement. Faith and belief are tied to disappointment. Everyone feels discouragement or disappointment throughout their lives – it’s normal. But don’t let yourself get caught up in feeling discouragement, because it’s a poison. It’s perfectly fine, though, to feel disappointment.
By being positive and optimistic, you prevent discouragement. And when you prevent discouragement, you prevent misery. By being positive and optimistic, you nourish your tender plant of happiness and enjoy the fruit thereof on an ongoing basis.
Here’s a scenario to think about – Would you feel discouraged or disappointed if you had screwed up a big presentation at work that you had been preparing for all week? You may say “disappointed”, but what if you screwed up on 10 presentations in a row – would you feel discouraged or disappointed?
Does disappointment ever turn into discouragement? It sure can, and it often does! The challenge is to prevent it by staying positive and optimistic, full of faith and hope. At the moment you feed yourself the poison of negativity and pessimism, the change begins – you begin walking down the dark path of discouragement and your happiness withers.
Here’s another scenario. What if your dad kept making promises to you, and breaking them? Would you be discouraged or disappointed? Not only does that depend on your thoughts, but also where you get your happiness. Do you get it by your dad keeping promises or do you get it by planting and nourishing these 7 seeds? If your happiness is dependent on your dad, you will get discouraged at some point. But if your happiness is dependent on you planting and nourishing these seeds, you will only be disappointed when your dad breaks his promises. You will still have happiness inside.
Here’s a religious scenario. If a man is trying his best to do what God wants him to do, but he keeps messing up, does God get discouraged or just disappointed? Let me rephrase that question. Does God lose hope in him or does He keep believing that he’ll someday make the right choices? Does He ever give up on this man or will He continue to help him somehow? Does He get frustrated or is he patient? Does God get depressed or is He everlastingly happy? If you are religious, just ponder about what I’ve said and make your own conclusion. Could discouragement just be a mortal, finite characteristic? Food for thought.
Are you a worry-wart?
There’s a difference between being worried and being concerned. And again, your happiness is at stake if you don’t know the difference. My mentor described it like this, “Worry is stupid, but concern is intelligent.”
When someone worries, they are constantly troubled by something. They spend a lot of time focusing their attention and energy thinking about it, even though they may not be able to do anything about it. They feel disparity and hopelessness. They’re negative and pessimistic. They end up realizing that worrying was just a waste of time and energy, and hardly anything got accomplished or resolved. Worrying is simply stupid.
When someone is concerned, they do think about what’s troubling them, but they don’t have the attitude of “wo is me”. They’re constructive in their thoughts and formulate a plan on how to accomplish or resolve the issue that’s on their mind. They’re positive and optimistic. They realize that what they’ve been concerned about will soon be accomplished or resolved. Being concerned is intelligent.
How to fix marriage suffering from negativity and discouragement
Make a list of things you’re discouraged with on the worksheet below. Notice the types of thoughts you have when you think about them. Notice the feelings that come over you. Try persuading yourself to believe that what you’re discouraged about will be ok. Just trying to persuade yourself makes you think positive and optimistic thoughts, and is very nourishing to the soul. The more you do this, the more happiness will grow within your marriage. Your discouragement will turn into a simple disappointment and you’ll have more enthusiasm, strength and faith to fix what has happened or what is happening.
Make a list of things you worry about and are concerned with. When you review your list, ask yourself if you really need to worry about these things or if being concerned is a better option. You’ll realize that being concerned is always the better option. So, if you’re concerned about the things on your list, make an action plan on how you’re going to accomplish or resolve them. This way, you won’t let worry control your mood, behavior and thoughts. You’re in control.
When you are balanced in life, your relationship thrives in the light of happiness. Extremes, on the other hand, are detrimental and don’t allow relationships to grow and thrive. When it comes to how to fix a marriage, finding a balance somewhere in the middle is absolutely necessary. There is no such thing as being perfectly balanced in your life all the time, but you can strive to cross over that middle threshold as often as possible. If you hardly cross it, you’ll hardly have lasting happiness. But the more often you cross it, the more you and your spouse will love each other.
To explain balance, let’s look at the issue of sexual relationships. If people live a celibate lifestyle, they abstain from any sexual relation. If people live a profligate lifestyle, they shamelessly indulge in sexual relations with no restraint. Both lifestyles are extreme and detrimental, right?
What lifestyle would destroy the world if everyone lived it – celibacy or profligacy? The answer is that they both would! If no one had sex, there would be no births. The human race with it’s billions of people would be extinct in about 100 years. If everyone had sex with anyone and everyone they saw, diseases would infect the whole human race and result in pain and suffering, and would kill us all faster than we could be cured.
The balance of the two lifestyles lies in a legal and lawful marriage, where couples cultivate their sexual relation with true love and fidelity to their spouse. In marriage, you are neither profligate nor celibate, but are balanced. This is the balance that allows mankind to keep populating the human race, and to do it in the most beneficial, healthy and moral manner possible. Both celibacy and profligacy are extreme lifestyles. Remember, extremes are detrimental.
Another example explaining balance is how much sleep you have. Your body and mind require sleep to function properly and to be healthy. Studies have shown that if you have too much sleep, you’ll experience very similar symptoms as those you get when you have too little sleep. You’ll experience
Difficulty falling asleep
Waking during the night
Waking up to early
Not feeling refreshed after waking
Daytime sleepiness
Researches have found that 7-8 hours of sleep each night at the appropriate timeframe is the optimal amount of sleep your body needs. This is the balance between extremes which allows you to function properly the following day.
Another example has to do with how much electromagnetic radiation (or light) from the Sun is let through the Earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere is crucial to us in that it repels, absorbs and allows entrance of certain frequencies and wavelengths of light. What would happen if the atmosphere blocked out all light from the Sun? What would happen if it didn’t block out any light? Which scenario would kill us? They both would. If there is no light, vegetation would cease and we’d starve, along with being really, really cold. If there is too much light, we’d cook like steak. The extremes in both scenarios are detrimental and would kill us all. But the atmosphere allows just the right amount of light to enter, thus balancing out the extremes and allowing us to grow and thrive.
The same goes with marriage happiness. For happiness to grow and thrive, you need balance in your life. What are some extremes that deprive you of happy marriage? A couple may be your perceptions and expectations of life, yourself and your spouse. If your perceptions are extreme – out of this world or non-existent – you’re in for deceit, heartache and misery. If your expectations are extreme – too high or too low – you’re in for frustration, discouragement and despair.
The key to balancing your perceptions lies in seeing things as they really are and accepting them. See and accept that marriage life is not perfect, neither are those involved in it. Things don’t always go according to plan. Good and bad things happen to all people. When you see things as they really are, your power to make wise and beneficial choices is increased. Your judgment is enhanced. You keep things in proportion. You don’t take things too far. Seeing things as they really are and accepting them allows you to cross the threshold of balance often.
The key to balancing your expectations lies in reevaluating and changing them when they need it. When your expectations are extreme in that they are too low or too high, they’ll end up hurting you as well as your spouse who you love. Lasting marital happiness and peace lies right in the middle where balance is.
Why are extreme expectations detrimental? On one hand, trying to fulfill them is very overwhelming and you can end up completely drained and unhealthy. On the other hand, when they’re not met, you beat yourself up (mentally, emotionally or physically), you get more and more frustrated, discouraged, angry or sad, and you hurt other people.
Your expectations might include
You being perfect in every way
Having total honesty and loyalty from a new friend
Receiving praise and glory from someone that you did something nice for
Getting sympathy from those around you because you had a horrible accident
Things to never go right in life
Your spouse never keeping his/her promises
You never getting better at learning a skill
One more common extreme in life that I want to describe has to do with paying bills. If you’re constantly worrying about bills, you’ll get discouraged and unhappy. But if you’re never concerned about paying them (and paying on time), you’ll end up getting in trouble with your creditors and having a bunch of stressful legal issues. What do you do to get rid of each extreme? Be concerned with paying your bills on time, but don’t constantly worry about them.
So what can you do to know how to fix marriage problems?
Make a list of your expectations about life, yourself and your spouse on a piece of paper. Go on, try it out. See if they are extreme – too high or too low. If they are, fix them – raise or lower them. There’s a common mistake people make while doing this. No need to worry, it’s normal and we all do it occasionally. It is that you might go from one extreme to another. For instance, you might go from expecting perfection to expecting nothing at all. Both are harmful and lead to marital problems, and even divorce. But somewhere in between is where you want to be, where your expectation is not too high or too low. You’ll find happiness and a loving relationship in the middle.
If you have too high expectations, lower them. If you lower them too much, raise them. If they’re still too high, lower them again but not as much as before. Reevaluating your expectations enough times will give you a sense of where the middle balance is. It’s impossible to land in the absolute middle, but you can cross it often. The more you cross it, the happier your marriage will be.
Posted on : 23-06-2010 | By : Admin | In : fix marriage
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Sometimes one of the best ways to fix a marriage is to learn to ACT rather than REACT in tough marital situations. Seriously, how many times have you or your spouse snapped at the other without really thinking first? Or maybe you intentionally snap, which is not the best choice!
When you act rather than react (because you’re in control of your behavior and moods), you can actually start to fix your marriage and make it a happy one. You choose not to create dark clouds of hopelessness and despair in your mind, but let the sun shine. You choose to not kick up the dust of fear and doubt so you can see clearly. You choose to be balanced so you don’t create wave after wave of extreme expectations that drown you. You choose to not get angry, frustrated or jealous. You choose to not be negative, unforgiving or mad.
So many things that you choose not to do, I know. But what about things you proactively choose to do? You choose to think positively in tough situations. You choose to have a good perception of your spouse instead of believing the lie that forms due to tough situations. You choose to not be bothered that family members and friends seem to enjoy your spouse more than you. When you feel anger coming on, you initiate your action plan to stop it instead of just giving in. You choose to remove the pebble-sized issue from right in front of your eyes so you can see how big it really is – just a small pebble.
By you acting rather than reacting, circumstances won’t control how happy you are in your marriage – you will. It is always up to you as to who or what controls your behavior and mood. And that, my friend, will definitely help fix a marriage.
Reacting to marriage problems means that you have no control over how you behave or what mood you’re in because you let circumstances do the controlling. For example, if your spouse didn’t clean the big pile of dishes when you were at work all day, you might react by getting angry and convincing yourself that your spouse is lazy. This of course puts you in a foul mood. You’ve let the dirty dishes determine how you feel inside which pushed aside your marital happiness.
Acting means that you have total control. You don’t let circumstances control your behavior or mood. If your spouse didn’t do the dishes, you’d choose to remain calm and positive. You’d choose to ask if he/she had a busy day and if you could help. Because you acted instead of reacted, you didn’t let anger control you, nor did you start thinking negatively.
As an intelligent human being, you have the ability to choose, which is key in helping you with how to fix marriage issues. You may not always be able to choose the circumstances you have, but you can choose how you handle every one you’re in.
I always knew that when my wife and I got married we would eventually be faced with challenges – did we know how to fix marriage issues when the time came? I don’t think anyone can be fully prepared. Some of the most far reaching lessons in life are learned by experience. And I whole heartedly believe that people who think they’ll never have problems are living a wide-eyed fairy tale!
My advice about that? Don’t make the same mistakes we did. Buckle-down and incorporate these 3 important factors of a healthy relationship.
Define personal values and determine common beliefs – One of the worst things you can do before getting married is not talk about your values and beliefs. Be sure to get it out there. But if you’re already married and are dealing with huge differences in values, now is the time to talk about them before its too late.
If you have a core belief about one thing and your spouse obviously doesn’t, it can hurt or offend you when they go against your belief. When it first happens, you might be patient. But as time goes on, it will keep nagging at you and you’ll just end up resenting your spouse more and more.
When this is the case, you need to have a sit-down with your spouse and frankly open Please, take a few moments with your hubby or wife and discuss what is important to you individually. Then discuss your common values. Be ready to compromise for the sake of your spouse’s happiness. This should be the case with both husband and wife.
Have and Express Gratitude – Another key element in how to save a marriage is having gratitude and actually expressing it. Guys usually don’t do this as often as they should… but women are guilty of it, too. A simple expression of gratitude goes a long way and will always be appreciated.
Did you know there’s a difference between being grateful FOR something and being grateful BECAUSE of something? The latter is usually the case when someone has an expectation that is met or exceeded. But when that expectation is not met, there is no gratitude. But being grateful FOR something requires you to have gratitude no matter what.
For example, if your spouse tries so hard at something and fails miserably, be grateful for the effort that was put into it, and express that gratitude. It fortifies love, security and trust, and is a key factor of how to fix a marriage and how to fix marriage issues.
Truly Contribute – Partners need to “truly contribute” to each others happiness and welfare. But what does that really mean? It means to occasionally give without expecting anything in return.
I’ve seen it over and over again… a husband gives something to or does something for his wife and expects something/anything in return. When she doesn’t do what he is expecting in return, he gets upset. This causes challenges in a marriage.
But when the husband truly contributes to the welfare and happiness of his wife (or visa versa) and doesn’t expect something in return, and is grateful for her and what she does, and stays true to common values, happiness and love are bound to grow!
Those are just a few steps on how to save a marriage and stop a divorce. I hope it helps!
I'm Jorgen and when I got married to Josee, we ran into some major problems as some new couples do. But whatever you do, don't give up! Learning how to fix a marriage can be tough, but its not impossible.