By Jeff Forte
Change always happens one thing at a time.
Even when I knew this was true, it was still hard for me to do because it seemed like so much was wrong with my marriage that none of the common marriage advice could fix it.
I was walking on eggshells around my wife, trying to avoid another disagreement. They were happening far too often. It seemed like we couldn’t see eye to eye on anything, and both of us were getting more stressed out day by day.
I knew I wanted to live happily ever after, I just didn’t know how to make it happen.
I also knew for sure that our marriage wasn’t going to survive much more of this. It seemed like there were so many aspects of our marriage that needed to be fixed, and I didn’t know where to start.
Then a thought occurred to me ... I could at least do one thing.
But which one thing? Where would I start?
When I thought about everything that was wrong in my marriage I realized that none of it was going to change unless my wife and I could talk to each other without arguing.
How was that going to happen?
I realized that the only way we would even want to talk with one another would be if we felt closer to each other.
So I decided that what I needed to do was to work on improving the feelings of closeness between us.
That was it!
All I did every day was to work on bringing us closer together. I focused on affection, connection, and feelings of togetherness.
You could do that too. It worked wonders for me.
That’s the one thing, and the only thing, that gave all of our other issues a chance to be resolved. By putting everything else that wasn’t working in our relationship on hold, we both had a chance to breathe.
When I put everything outside of feeling connected to each other on hold, it took the pressure off of us. And the stress went away.
If I hadn’t done that, and instead had continued to try to address all of our problems at once, we might have divorced.
I know personally that love isn’t always easy.
It can be hard when you are feeling bitter or resentful. It can be difficult when you feel unloved by your partner. It can even be painful if your feelings of affection get rejected.
But you could also do one thing.
You could focus on the feelings of togetherness, creating a better connection, and demonstrating affection for each other. You could do any of those things.
People also need to know how to resolve their conflicts and improve intimacy and communication. We are either growing in love with our partner — or losing love. We are either feeling more deeply connected or less. And those are all things you can do something about.
Will you?
If you are looking for resources to help you turn your marriage around, read The 90-Minute Marriage Miracle for lots of helpful ideas to repair your marriage with plenty of real life examples. Everyone needs to know how to bring love back into their lives. If you are interested in getting Jeff's thoughts on how to repair your marriage, reach out to him here.
This article originally appeared on YourTango.
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