My Husband Wants A Divorce But I Don't (I Don't Want To Get Divorce But My Husband Does)

It is never easy to maintain a healthy relationship, but it becomes even more difficult when your partner wants to end it. Many people who are in a marriage feel completely helpless when their spouse tells them that they want to get a divorce. This is why I'm going to tell you some things you can do to help save your marriage when your spouse wants a divorce.

Realize That You Are Only In Control Of Yourself

It seems obvious, but so many people in a marriage seem to think that they can control the actions of their partner. This is simply not true, you are only in control of yourself. You can't force a person to stay in a relationship with you, so if you want to save your marriage you'll have to go about it another way. You're only in for an uphill battle if you think you can make your spouse want to stay married to you.

You Can't Change Their Mind, Only Your Actions

Rather than trying to change your spouses mind, you instead need to work on changing your own actions. This means working on yourself and not your partner, no sort of manipulation or pleading is going to save your marriage. If your spouse wants a divorce, it means that they are unhappy with some aspect of the marriage. Work with them to find out what they are unhappy with, and then work on finding some compromise that you are both happy with.

As difficult as it may seem, when your husband wants out of the marriage you need to take a look at how you've been behaving. Men rarely suddenly decide that they are no longer happy. Instead it's a gradual progression. If you've noticed a change in your husband and you chose to ignore it instead of addressing it, part of the blame for your marriage trouble lies squarely on your own shoulders. You obviously can't go back in time to change things but you can alter the future. Apologize to him for not being as focused on him as you should have been. Make it clear to him that you are available whenever he wants to talk. Don't push him to open up though. Typically this makes men withdraw more.

They Loved You At Some Point

However your spouse feels about you now, they must have loved you at some point in the past, or they wouldn't have married you. If you want to save the marriage, you need to show your husband or wife that the person they fell in love with is still there. You may have changed over the years, but you need to show them that underneath you are still the same person and can still give them the feelings that made them want to marry you in the first place.

One common reason why a husband wants out of the marriage is related to the family dynamic. Once children arrive many couples cease being romantic partners and instead transform into co-parents. When this happens the husband often feels neglected. If you two have stopped acting like a couple in love and now mainly discuss household matters and how to raise the children, you need to shift that dynamic. You need to make time for one another away from the rest of the family. It can be something as elaborate as a second honeymoon or even a lunch with one another every now and again. Unless you put some effort into rekindling the closeness between you and your spouse, it won't happen. Put your husband first if you are serious about saving the relationship and keeping your family intact.

How To Divorce-Proof Your Marriage

The average wedding in the U.S. costs around $30,000. You would think that such an extravagant ceremony would reflect a high level of commitment among married couples. Yet roughly 50% of marriages in the U.S. end in divorce. That divorce rate rises even more sharply with second marriages.

While these sobering statistics may make it seem like the success or failure of your marriage is just a very expensive coin toss, there are concrete reasons why some marriages make it while others fail, and what's more: there are things that you as a couple can do to improve your odds.

Emotional Muscle

By far, the #1 problem that the couples I work with identify in their marriages is that they "can't communicate" with each other. What that usually means is that difficult topics cannot be discussed reasonably, where both sides speak their mind and negotiate a solution. What happens instead is that these topics either turn into vicious fights or are avoided altogether. One of the key factors that lead to the success of a marriage however is a couple's ability to work through these kinds of issues. In other words, it's not simply the lack of "bad stuff" that helps long-term couples to become resilient to adversity, but how they deal with those challenges. So how can you and your partner learn to communicate in a constructive way about those difficult topics?

First, it's important to understand that not only is disagreement normal, it's a good thing! You are two different people with different upbringings, preferences, fears, and coping mechanisms. Second, learning this will be hard at first. That's normal, too! Successful relationships take "emotional muscle," and if you haven't exercised your "relationship muscles" in a while, coping with differences will be painful. But in the same way that you can develop physical muscle, you can stretch and grow relational muscle, too, and as a result make your marriage stronger and more resilient.

Showing up

A key factor in developing the emotional muscle of healthy communication is something I like to call showing up. Couples tend to feel closest when they can share everything with each other, but that requires being present with each other. Showing up has two aspects to it:

1. Showing up means expressing yourself authentically.

This means being able to recognize your own thoughts, feelings, values, and desires, and to be willing to honestly share these with your partner. It means showing yourself to your partner with all of who you are-both your good and your bad sides. It means acknowledging that you and your partner are separate people, and that disagreeing on points is an acceptable fact of life.

Expressing yourself honestly can be difficult. Some have a hard time identifying what their needs and preferences actually are. Others hesitate to express their desires for fear of being denied what they long for. Opening yourself up, only to have your partner argue with you, may feel like more than you can bear-so there is a temptation for people to bottle up their desires, often expressing their displeasure and resentment indirectly and therefore in an ineffective and nonconstructive way.

2. Showing up means letting your partner express themselves authentically, too.

In other words, you need to become a good listener. As a good listener you stay curious about your partner's thoughts and feelings without immediately thinking about what that means for yourself and your own agenda. A good listener can put him or herself into the other person's shoes. This can be quite difficult, especially when you disagree with your partner's point of view, so the temptation to argue or defend yourself is great.

The goal is to create an atmosphere at home where both of you can be real, and which supports your development both as individuals and as a couple. This is usually not a skill set that comes naturally, but one that needs to be learned and practiced daily.

Training Your Muscles

You may long to develop the communication skills described above, but don't know where to start. Couples' genuine attempts to discuss the changes they long for can often end in bitter arguments and even more estrangement. That's why distressed couples need support. This can come from friends, relatives, and faith communities. Books and articles like this one can be helpful as well. But in the same way that serious athletes need professional trainers, the most systematic support a couple can get is through formal marriage counseling (also known as couples therapy ).

Couple's therapy creates a safe space to explore your relationship, providing you with the tools you'll need-both to communicate your own needs, and to listen to the needs of your partner. As a skilled witness, your therapist can help to uncover and break out of the underlying dynamics and destructive patterns in your interactions with each other.

This will take time. You will literally need to re-wire your brain from responding in old ways. But the good news is that this re-wiring for relational resilience can be done, provided you both are willing to put in the time and effort to grow that muscle.

It's all up to you! If you don't take this action to save your marriage, then who will?

To learn how to save your marriage alone, then check out this plan of actions that is 100% guaranteed. Over 60,000 couples were able to save their marriages by doing the very same series of steps that you will be doing. If they saved their marriages then you can too! Click Here to see how it's done… All my best to you and your spouse!

There are specific techniques that will show you exactly what to do and what to say to get your spouse back in your arms- Especially if you are the only one trying… Visit Save The Marriage to find out more.