Save The Marriage

I spend a good portion of my week responding to consultation emails and working with clients. This week, I had two cases that reminded me of a very important fact: we all have a tendency to play tug-of-war.

Let me explain with a personal example. A couple of years ago, I was at a conference. In the afternoon session, we were asked to turn and face another person, and place our arms in an arm wrestling position.

The instructions were simple: touch each others' hand to the table as many times as possible in 60 seconds.

For the next minute, everyone in the room engaged in a strenuous match of arm wrestling. Few people got their count above 10, and that was mostly because of a mismatch in size and strength!

Then, the leaders pulled out a table and put their hands in position, but they cooperated! Each took turns having their hands hit to the table, and they were able to get over 90 touches in! They had given us the directions, but we were already poised to arm wrestle!

Now, back to saving marriages. When a spouse decides that he or she wants out, a tug-of-war can be set up. Our natural tendency is to pull in the opposite direction. In other words, they pull away, we pull toward the relationship!

So, this week, one woman told me how hard she was working to save her marriage. She also told me her husband had already had not one, not two, but three affairs! I suspect there were others! I told the woman that she needed to pause for a moment, and instead of trying to figure out how to save the marriage, she needed to ponder another question. She needed to decide on whether she could continue in a marriage with a philanderer. She suddenly realized that she could not do that.

The very next day, a woman started telling me about all her attempts to save her marriage, then noted the affair and abuse she had suffered through with her husband. Again, I got her to pause in her marriage-saving strategy and ask whether she wanted to have the marriage she was in. She is still thinking.

My point is this: are you just trying to save a marriage, or do you want that marriage? I am all about saving marriages, but I am also about having a marriage you want to have. Don't get caught up in saving a marriage, and fail to see that if you did save it, you wouldn't want it! Instead, focus on saving a marriage AND making it a marriage you can treasure!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

Labels: advice, commitment, free marriage advice, help saving marriage, improve marriage, marital advice, problems in marriage, save marriage, save my marriage, save your marriage

"Marriage shouldn't be that hard." That was the opening comment of my client this week. He was convinced that his marriage was doomed. He believe it was because his marriage had become difficult. He believed that this should not be the case.

I had to chuckle. Marriage is the most intense relationship that any two adults will have in their life. There's no way around it. Two people living together that intensely, making decisions together, having sex together, making decisions together, and doing everything else that married couple do are going to have difficulties. No way around it.

I turned to him and said "why do you say that?" He told me he just figured that marriages should just work. They shouldn't be hard work, and when there are problems, they should just be able to be solved instantly. Now, I don't generally laugh at my client, but it was all I could do to hold back the laughter, and only let out a chuckle. "You have got to be kidding," I said. "Marriage is tough, whether it is in good times or bad, marriage is tough."

I continued on for a second, "every single marriage has problems, the question is whether you work through them out or not. It is not a question of whether you will have problems." You see, I really believe that every marriage is destined to have difficulty. That is just the way it is. Statistically speaking, half of those couples will choose not to work on their problems. About half will find a way to deal with the problems. That does not mean that there were no problems, only that they discovered how to deal with the problem.

"Come with me," I said my client. I walked my client to the window. We looked out onto the parking lot. I pointed to car and said "is that yours?" "Yes," he said, "that's my car. Looks pretty nice doesn't it?" I had to admit, it with a pretty nice car. It looked like it was well taken care of. I asked, "did you just grab the car, or did you do some research? Did you, when you were getting ready to buy it, maybe buy a car magazine? Did you look up the price on the Internet, maybe even did you research on what other people thought about the car?"

"Yes, I sure did! I spent months looking at my options. I probably went to the dealer like 10 times." He chuckled, "my wife was tired of hearing about that car." So then I asked, "have you had any problems with the car?" My client thought for a second. "Well, yes. It made some funny noises."

"What did you do?" I asked. He responded, "first, I looked it up on the Internet. Then, I bought a book about the model of car I had. I found out that it was a fairly common problem, and it only needed a little bit of tightening of a couple of bolts to stop it." I continued, "and did you do it yourself? Or did you take it to the dealer?"

"I took it to the dealer. They are the experts on this." "So, you didn't sell the car?" I pushed him. "No. It was just a little problem." I pushed a little harder, "I'll bet you would have had bigger problems if you hadn't fixed it, and let it go on and on."

"Probably so... Doc, is this about my car or about my marriage?" He had me. He knew I was really talking about his marriage. "How long have you been having problems?" I asked. He thought for a second, then said, "probably four or five years. But we had some of the same problems even before we got married."

"Did you get a book about marriage? Did you talk to a therapist? Did you go to a seminar? Did you do anything that might address the issues?" I asked. I knew I had him. Just like most people, he had a problem in his relationship, but he didn't seek good advice. In fact, as far as I can tell, the only people he talked to were his drinking buddies. Not the best place to go for marriage advice.

Marriage is tough. It's tough because it requires us to set ourselves and our ego aside for the betterment of both of us. In other words, we have to get outside of ourselves, and look at the greater good of both people. That does not mean that one person has to give up everything. But it does mean that it takes looking at the good of the relationship when making decisions.

Someone once said, "You can either be right. Or you can be happy, but you can't be both." This is especially true in marriage. If you insist on being right, you both will be miserable. Choose to be happy. And when there is a problem, recognize that is normal, then seek out some help in resolving it.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

Labels: improve marriage, it's not my fault, marriage advice, mistakes saving marriage, problems in marriage, save marriage, save my marriage, save your marriage, what makes a marriage last

Yesterday, I had the opportunity of talking with a couple that I may never see again. The reason I will never see them again is because they are not ready to make a change.

You see, they were caught in "ME mode."What I mean by that is they were not even able to see outside of themselves. They were not able to see how they were getting in the way of the relationship. Each one pointing the finger at the other. In fact, every conversation quickly went back to "what's wrong with you."

I couldn't see how they could make any changes because they were so caught up in seeing why the other person was wrong. They were never able to see why they were wrong. What a catastrophe! I couldn't believe that we couldn't go even 30 seconds without one pointing the finger at the other end telling me how right he or she was and how wrong the other person was!

You see, even therapist get frustrated sometimes! I played referee for an entire hour! At the end of the time, I suggested that each one needed to decide whether they wanted to really make any changes, or just point out the faults of the other person.

Sadly, this couple could probably fix their marriage with little effort... IF they were willing to see that each one had fault. I just needed a little room. I didn't need any major changes. All that needed to happen was for one or the other to decide that it was not just the other person's fault.

So why do we drive each other crazy? Why are marriages so difficult? Because we are rarely honest with our spouse. More than that, we are rarely honest with ourselves. Over time, everyone of us builds up resentments. Over time, few of us share our resentments. Each one may be very small, but if you add them up, you've created a tinderbox that leads to marital distress, frustration, and ignited of anger.

I am not suggesting that we have to tell our spouse everything that is on our mind. In fact, that would be quite destructive to the relationship. However, we often refuse to even tell the few things that could make a real difference in our marriage. In this case, the man simply wanted to feel like he was liked. Oddly, his wife did like him. She just didn't express it in ways that he recognized. Tragic!

For her side, she kept waiting for him to tell her exactly what he was upset about. Why didn't he? Because in his family, the rule of thumb was to not fight, not argue, and not tell what you wanted. Her family? They fought it out, argued it out, and told you exactly what they wanted.

Two different families, two different roles. And spouses the didn't talk about it. In fact, didn't even recognize it. Now, a marriage is about to end because both people think they are correct, and are definite that the other is wrong.

My advice? First, couples need to get in the habit of talking about the little difficulties. We wait until they build up, they suddenly become very personal, very painful, and almost always intractable.

Second, we humans are a lot like animals. At least in how we train each other. If behavior gives us something that we want, we keep doing it! For example, my dog is one big Labrador retriever. His head can easily rest on our table. Every now and then, my son lets a piece of cereal fall out of his bowl and onto his placemat. It only took a couple of times for my dog to realize that he got a treat as soon as my son left the table. Now, it is very hard to keep my dog away from the table.

When we humans get rewarded for "bad behavior," in other words, when our painful actions towards others gets rewarded, we tend to repeat the behavior, even if it hurts the other person. In fact, we often fail to see that it hurts the other person.

Couples train each other in what behavior works and what behavior doesn't work. Be careful in how you train your spouse. For example, with the couple I saw yesterday, when she pouted, he came to the rescue. But the difference between pouting and looking angry is very slight. Over time, her pout began to look like anger to him. From then on, she was pouting for attention, and he was feeling rejected.

Would either believe me if I told them about this? After about an hour of trying to convince them, I can tell you that neither one will believe what I'm saying. They have already made up their minds.

Third, one thing that is often missing in a marriage is our attempt to not just understand but to accept our spouse. All of us have our faults, and when we forget that, our spouse has a hard time living up to our expectations. Suddenly, all we can see are their faults.

So, the threat is in expecting perfection in our spouse, or seeing only fault. So here's the conundrum: we want to be accepted for who we are, but we have a hard time offering that to our spouse. "ME mode"is probably the most destructive pattern in any marriage. When we get caught up in ourselves, we forget the other. Marriage is all about WE. Remember that, and you have increased the likelihood of success in your marriage a hundredfold.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

Labels: acceptance, advice, free marriage advice, relationship advice, save marriage, save my marriage, save your marriage, what makes a marriage last

Did you see my earlier post about my free video on changing your marriage by addressing your core beliefs? Well, that video created so much email that I made a second video. You can see the free marriage video here.

Here is an email I got yesterday (just one of about 100) about the video:

You wanted feedback? Well here is some:

My marriage has been in a state of crisis for almost a year, and I am trying to put it back together with a psychologist, who is copied.

I think your videos are freakin' GREAT. I am an architect and I make decisions about how developers should spend millions of dollars based on building codes, market conditions, aesthetics, engineering considerations, etc., and I think I know a lot. But these videos are truly eye-opening, and may help me save my marriage, and the futures of 4 innocent young girls. Keep up the great work!

That was from Phil S.

Take a look! No obligation, no signup. Just go here and it will load and play.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE HERE.

Labels: core beliefs, free marriage advice, free marriage video, lee h. baucom, save marriage, save my marriage, save your marriage

That is such an interesting question: can a book or an ebook really save a marriage? The overwhelming answer is "yes, absolutely!" That is the short answer. The longer answer of how any book can save a marriage is little deeper.

First, most people think of "book or therapy" as the two options. "Should we go to therapy?" Or "should we grab that book?" Either/or is rarely a good position. Sometimes, it is "both/and." In other words, if you are already in therapy, a book can give additional information that can be helpful.

That said, let's be real: therapy isn't that effective, according to research. Study after study shows the same thing, that marriage therapy is, by-and-large, ineffective. In fact, about 50% of couples that go to therapy divorce. That is about the same rate as the overall population. In other words, even for those that try to intervene, they are no more likely to stay married than those who did nothing!

More than that, between 8 and 10% of those who go to therapy say that it was helpful at all. That is the percentage that claim to have improved their marriage through therapy!

So, imagine this: you go to the doctor who tells you that you need to go through a procedure that has a 50% mortality rate, and only 10% improve. Who would sign up for that? Yet each year, a huge number of couples choose to undergo the procedure!

Why? Because we have been led to believe this is necessary to save a marriage in trouble. My experience is that a great deal of damage can be done in therapy. Couples tend to re-hash the painful experiences, but with no resolution. You see, the majority of couples therapists work just like they would with an individual (which isn't always helpful for individuals). But when two people are telling stories about what is painful, it ends up being a fight. Right there, in front of the therapist! And the therapist watchs "to see how they interact."

The couple needs tools! They need help in finding a new path! What has happened in the past has little to do with what can happen in the future! And that is the problem with couples therapy.

So, what about books? Books provide tools, new understandings, new strategies. In fact, the latest research in neuro-biology is that our brain needs a new understanding to create a new pattern. Talking about what has happened keeps us in the very old patterns that got us in trouble. New models and understandings change that.

And that is the power of a good book. It can provide new understandings by giving new information. Notice, I said a "good book." There is a lot of information out there. Some is good, and some is useless.

So, the real question is, can a good book (or ebook) save a marriage? Absolutely! If you can't get a spouse to see a therapist, he or she may read a book. And even if a spouse won't read a book, you can take advantage of the information and change your perspective. If you change your perspective, you change the pattern. If you change the pattern, your spouse will have to respond differently. If you are responding differently and your spouse is responding differently, the marriage can change.

There is one major caveat here: Books are meant to be read! Buying a book or downloading an ebook will get you nowhere if you do not read it! There are estimates that up to 95% of self-help books are never fully read! So, if you want to judge a book or an ebook, recognize that you must read it. Second, any self-help book will be ineffective if you merely read it. You must read it, digest it, and put it into practice!

So, if you both read a book and act upon it, and the information is good, yes, you can save your marriage with a book (or ebook).

You may wonder why I keep saying "ebook." It is because this is the format I have chosen for my information. Each month, my ebook is read by more couples than most therapists will see in a lifetime of practice. The reason is because the information is solid (it works) and because it is accessible.

Any time, day or night, you can get my information almost immediately. No waiting for Amazon to ship, no wasting gas getting to the store. Instead, there is immediate access to information when you are ready for it.

If you are ready, grab my ebook by CLICKING HERE!

Labels: marital advice, problems in marriage, save marriage, save your marriage

Do you feel hopeless and unable to change the outcome of your relationship? Then excuse #3 may be the thought that is running through your mind: "I want to do something, but there isn't anything I can do."

Henry Ford said "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right." In other words, part of the issue is the mindset we enter a problem with. No doubt, you have tried to improve things in the past, and perhaps found no success.

But I would contend that a lack of success in the past does not predict a lack of success in the future. . . unless you just do the same thing you were doing before!

Another quote I love is from Albert Einstein. He wrote: "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Think about that -- if you are thinking and acting in the same way you were when the relationship was deteriorating, then that thinking is not going to change the outcome. You end up with a self-fulfilling prophecy: same thinking equals failed relationship.

The point of getting outside help is getting a shift in thinking. When you see things differently, then you will have new tools with which to fix the relationship. It is like going into a home project with only a hammer and nails. Sometimes, you need a screwdriver and screws, or maybe even a saw.

Whenever you gain new tools, you gain new capacities for changing. Whenever you discover new understandings, you discover new possibilities for change. I was an amateur magician in my childhood. I remember having bought this really great magic trick at the magic shop. Little did I know that it actually required a bit of sleight-of-hand (I was hoping for the self-working!).

In the car, I discovered I COULD NOT do this trick. But I kept working at it. Then, I suddenly realized what I needed to do. The instructions had been there all along, but in an instant, they made sense! I could suddenly do the magic trick!

Now, I am not suggesting that your marital problems are as simple as a magic trick, but I have been in the field long enough to know that the problems are more basic and simple to solve than most people wish to believe.

Your task is to quit playing the victim excuse, "I can't do anything," in your head, and find some new ways of thinking and some new tools to work on your marriage. I invite you to try my ebook as a way to to this. You can grab it by CLICKING HERE.

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

Labels: change behavior, communication, I can't save marriage, marital advice, marital help, marriage advice, problems in marriage, save marriage, save your marriage

Here's another excuse I hear over and over from people. "I can't afford your information. It sounds great, but I'm broke!"

Often, they follow this up with "I can find free advice" or "X is cheaper than you." Both statements are correct. You CAN find advice that is free. And you can find cheaper advice. But as they say, You Get What You Pay For!

Why is that advice free? Because it has little value. There is a joke: "What do you call someone who graduates at the bottom of their medical school class? Doctor." But is that who you want to entrust your health to? The person who was at the bottom of the heap? Not me! I want someone who is tops in their field. I want someone who knows what they are doing. I want someone with the right knowledge. I WANT THE RIGHT ANSWER! I don't want just any answer. I want one that gets me better.

Or an attorney. You can go get legal advice from an attorney who deals with anything that comes through his door, and maybe you will pay less than $100 per hour. Or you can find the person who can deal with your situation, a specialized attorney, and pay a little (or a lot) more. But you will at least get the RIGHT answer.

Anyone can give you an answer. And some of those answers will make things worse. Or you can get the answer that will help you.

I always find this excuse baffling. Do you know the average cost (not just legal bills, but lost resources, investments, equity, etc.) of a divorce in America? $30,000. That doesn't even begin to calculate the loss over the years (2 homes, extra clothes for the kids, competing gifts, etc., etc., etc.) or the emotional and physical toll. The cost of a divorce is astronomical! The attorney's fees for a decent divorce attorney start at $150 per hour, and go upwards of $500 per hour!

Or call a plumber to run his snake through the clogged pipe. 15 minutes, and you will pay upwards of $200, and you will gladly do it to take care of a crisis.

Trust me when I tell you: if you have found your way here, you have a crisis. You can deal with it now, or you can deal with it later, but the cost will keep going up.

If you are ready to save your marriage, I would tell you: you can't afford not to!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

Labels: divorce, filing for divorce, marital advice, marital help, marriage advice, problems in marriage, save marriage, save your marriage, stopping divorce

I just received another email about why I can't help them with their marriage. Simply put, the writer told me that their situation is just too unique. No book, ebook, special report, seminar, etc., could help them, because they are just too different. Their situation is just too unique for "general help."

Every week, I get several emails from people wanting to tell me their situation and then ask if my information can help them. Almost always (barring an abusive relationship or a spouse that has departed for the moon!), I answer "yes." I am not worried about the problems. I am concerned with the destination.

So, to the person who wrote that email (don't worry, I've already responded directly), and to all the others who tell themselves that, I have one thing to say: You Are Just Making Excuses!

I don't think you mean to be, but you are. You see, the funny thing about a crisis is that it makes us feel like we are the only ones going through this. We look around and don't see our friends suffering. We don't hear others saying the same things, so we believe we must be unique.

And you are unique. I would even venture to say that your problems may be unique (although at this point in my career, I never hear anything new). Really, the wrapper of the problems (what it looks like) may be unique. But the underlying dynamics are exactly the same.

Remember Leo Tolstoy (you probably had to read War and Peace in high school)? In another book, Anna Karenina, Tolstoy observed that "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." We all see our unhappiness as unique.

But what I have discovered is the path to happiness is exactly the same for every couple! Understand, where you begin that process may be different (in fact, I have isolated 8 different starting points), but what needs to happen, the underlying dynamics, and how to get where you want to be is the same!

So, if you automatically tell yourself that your problems are just too unique to be helped, give that up! It isn't true. Your situation may be unique, but the dynamics and the path to happiness is the same.

In other words, to boil it down, you can use the information in my ebook to save your marriage. Don't destroy your chances of a happy marriage because you keep telling yourself that your problems are just too unique.

Give your marriage a try, Excuse Free!

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More marriage saving information can be found in my ebook, available by CLICKING HERE.

Labels: marriage advice, problems in marriage, relationship advice, save marriage, save your marriage

Is your marriage in trouble? Do you see your relationship on the brink of divorce? You are not alone.

Each year in America alone, nearly 1 million marriages end in divorce. This is an incredible number! That would be as if all the citizens of Houston Texas were divorced (each divorce leaves 2 people).

The question is how many of those marriages could be saved. Unfortunately, that is an invisible number. If your marriage stays together, it is hard to find in the statistics. As Marian Wright Edelman wrote, statistics are stories with the tears washed off. Yet many marriages that should have made it do not.

Can your marriage be saved? If I could answer that, I would be a wealthy man. I can tell you that if your marriage is in trouble and you do nothing, the outcome is guaranteed. If you do something, there is a much better chance that your marriage will be saved. As Wayne Gretzky says, "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

And I can tell you, in four simple steps what you can do to save your marriage. You can start right now. But you must understand that I said "simple." That is not the same as "easy." These steps are not easy. They do, however, give you a path that you must follow if you want to change the destiny of a marriage in trouble.

These are the 4 steps:

1) Quit the blame game. Stop blaming your spouse and stop blaming yourself. This is the first step because marriages get frozen into a pattern of blame that immobilizes any prospect of progress. Instead, the momentum gets dragged down and down.

Blame is our way of avoiding seeing ourselves clearly. It is much easier to point the finger somewhere and say "It's their fault." But in marriage, you can just as easily turn that pointing finger on yourself and place the blame there, saying "it's all my fault."

Unfortunately, blame feels good in the short-term, but in the long-term, it prevents any shift or change. So, even if you can make a long list of why you or your spouse should be blamed, forget it. Even if that list is factual, it will not help you put your marriage back together. Blame is the fuel of divorces.

2) Take responsibility. Decide you can do something. Change always begins with one person who wants to see a change. Understand that taking responsibility is not the same as taking the blame (see above).

Instead, blame is saying "regardless of who is at fault, there are some things I can do differently, and I am going to do them." What buttons do you allow your spouse to push? What buttons do you push with your spouse? Decide not to allow those buttons to be pushed and stop pushing the buttons.

What amazes me in my counseling is that everyone knows what they should be doing or not doing. But it is difficult to move in that direction. Don't be caught in that. Decide that you will take action.

The difference between blame and responsibility is this: if I am in a burning building, I can stand around trying to figure out who started the blaze, why it has spread so quickly, and who I am going to sue when it is over (blame), or I can get myself and anyone else I can out of that building (taking responsibility). When a marriage is in trouble, the house is on fire. How will you take action to save the marriage?

3) Get resources from experts. If others have been helped, you can be, too. Experts with a great deal more perspective and experience can be a real help in these situations. Do your research and divide the useless from the useful, then take advantage of the useful.

Don't assume that your situation is so different from every other situation. I can tell you that after 20-some years of providing therapy, not too much new comes through my doors. Don't get me wrong; the story changes, but the dynamics are the same.

Remember what Albert Einstein said, "The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them." In other words, what got you into trouble will not get you out of trouble. That requires a whole new level of thinking. And that is what you get from an outside expert, someone with a fresh perspective.

4) Take action. More damage is done by doing nothing by taking a misstep. It is too easy to get paralyzed by the situation. Therapists often talk about "analysis paralysis." This occurs when people get so caught up in their churning thoughts and attempts to "figure things out" that they never take action.

It is not enough to simply understand what is causing the problem. You must then act! On a daily basis, I find people coming to my office with the belief that if they can just understand their problem, it will resolve itself. That simply does not happen. Resolution of the situation takes action.

Will your marriage be saved? If you follow my suggestions, you have infinitely more opportunity for saving your marriage than if you do nothing. Marriage is one of those places where it takes two to make it work, but only one to really mess things up. You can only do your part, but many times, that is enough. Resolve not to ask the question but to begin to act.

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If you are ready to take action, grab my ebook, Save The Marriage by CLICKING HERE.

Labels: marriage advice, save marriage, save your marriage