How To Fix A Marriage After Growing Apart (How Do You Reconnect After Growing Apart)

Anyone who has ever been in long term relationship can tell you that not every day is a party. When you are dating and have nothing to distract you from pleasing each other, making an effort to have fun, discovering things to do together that make you feel connected, and have the hormonal rush that goes along with physical intimacy it is all well and good. Flash forward a couple of years and the every day stresses of jobs, bills to be paid, kids to be disciplined, never ending household chores and trying to stay awake past 9 PM can definitely take their toll. Your relationship no longer looks like a video montage of couples holding hands running down the beach and laughing when they get wet. Many couples find them selves in "survival mode" just trying to get through another day without a major conflict with their spouse. Fixing a broken marriage is not easy.

Many couples turn to marriage counseling. Traditional marriage counseling has serious limitations. It's expensive, time consuming, draining (really, who likes drudging up past grievances) and requires the participation of both parties. Also, a recent study found that most of the time it doesn't work. 75% of couples interviewed ended up divorced anyway. Marriage counseling is not an effective tool in fixing a broken marriage. While the primary focus of much couples counseling is improved communication techniques, couples found that they were just able to express themselves m ore articulately when they argued.

Does that mean that if you are currently fixing a broken marriage you should just throw in the towel? Absolutely not. Take it from me, who went through divorce after 21 years of marriage, even under the most "amicable" of circumstances, the emotional and financial toll of divorce is devastating. When children are involved the effects are even more far reaching. While my ex and I have both moved on the wiser to very fulfilling relationships, it would have been a lot easier in the long run to have fixed the problems in our marriage than to simply "move on". So here's what research and experience have taught me and many others.

Stop Focusing on Your Problems

Clearly problems such as abuse, addiction and infidelity need to be dealt with. They are not going to get resolved by themselves and they are "deal breakers" in many circumstances. But these types of issues cause actually only a small fraction of divorces. The vast majority of relationships have simply just deteriorated. Arguing, neglect, withholding of intimacy, constant bickering, not being "in love" with the other person anymore. So guess what happens when you go to marriage counseling? You focus on your problems! Clearly issues need to be resolved, but not when your marriage is in "crisis mode". When things are starting to deteriorate the best thing to do is focus on the things that made you fall in love in the first place. Try to have fun and reconnect with each other. Stop complaining to your spouse, your friends, your co-workers about your marriage problems. Instead tell your partner at least one thing that you appreciate about them every day. Start making a list of all your happy memories together and talk about those. This will start to change the energy in your relationship.

Get Physical

If you have read any relationship books at all you know the basic problem of women needing to feel appreciated to be intimate, and men needing to be intimate before they can feel admired or appreciated.

Men - realize that foreplay is not the two minutes you spend groping her breasts before you go in for the kill. Foreplay starts with you taking the kids to school, picking up the house for her, paying her some nice compliments so she feels appreciated and then offering to rub her feel or shoulders so she can rest.

Women - there is an Italian proverb that says "the appetite comes while eating". There might not bee too much about the tension in your house that makes you feel like getting intimate, but you need to make the effort. Stop acting like you are doing your guy a favor by being intimate with him. Take the initiative. Go crazy. Commit to yourself to initiate sex with your husband every day for a week. You will be amazed at how the dynamic of your relationship will change and the tension of your "problems" will seem more manageable.

Give Your Marriage a Review

Just like a job performance review, you should rate your marriage and have goals for it. Start with completing a simple sentence about each other "I love when you do this.... I don't like when you do this...let's both continue doing this..." What goals do you have for your marriage say 6 months from now? Less consumer debt? To be dating each other at least twice a month? Just be sure that you focus on the first two steps above before you start setting goals. This exercise will be more productive if you have cultivated some good will towards each other and reconnected with what you loved about each other before hand.

To sum up, developing new healthy habits is the key to fixing a broken marriage, not rehashing your problems with a stranger. That's not to say that professionals can't help. Many courses and resources are conveniently available on the internet. They are cost effective, confidential and offer the benefit of helping you improve your marriage even if your partner is unwilling to participate in traditional therapy.

Do you want to reawaken a committed and loving relationship in your marriage? There are proven steps that are amazingly powerful that will help you overcome conflicts and breathe life back into your marriage. This is a plan you do not want to pass by. Click here to see the proven steps on how to save your marriage.

Divorce does not have to be your only option. Even if it feels as though your relationship can't be saved because of the ongoing conflicts between you and your spouse, it can be. There are techniques that you can begin using today that will not only stop a divorce but will help also you build a stronger and more loving marriage. To learn more visit: Steps to Save Your Marriage