Can You Agree With Your Husband and Save the Marriage?
I often write about saving your marriage and preventing divorce. One of the tips I often give is that if the husband is just not responsive to your attempts to save the marriage, has one foot out the door, and you are just not getting through to him, that you should (as a last resort) agree that a break is needed. This is because agreeing will greatly lesson the tension and any of the walls that he is putting up to block your attempts at reconciliation. In essence, agreeing with your husband is meant to buy you time and make the job of saving the marriage ultimately easier. In this article, I will clarify what I mean when I say that there are situations where you should agree with your husband when you are trying to prevent a divorce or save a marriage.
I Don't Mean Lying, Neglecting Your Own Feelings Or Agreeing Just To Keep The Peace At Your Own Expense: When I say that you should agree with your husband to save the marriage, I don't mean that you should put your own feelings on the back burner and lie about how you really feel.
If an issue is an important to you, I would never advise you to downplay it at your own expense. But, I also know from experience and from extensive research, that people tend to beat an issue to death so that eventually it takes a life of it's own and then contributes to all sorts of negative feelings that will deteriorate a marriage. There are constructive ways to work through an issue while maintaining both husband and wife's dignity and integrity. And, there's a way to get your point across in a way that unites rather than divides you.
When I used to get so caught up on these issues that I could no longer see the forest for the trees, a very good friend of mine used to stop me and ask, "Leslie, would you rather be right or would you rather be happy?" I'd rather have both, but ultimately, I'd rather be happy. It's important not to let your indigence and inability to bend or compromise push your husband further away when that's not at all what you really want deep down.
I Don't Mean Agreeing To A Divorce. First, Agree That The Marriage Needs Work And Agree To A Break To Work On Yourselves If You Have To: I want to clarify that when I saw to agree, I don't mean agreeing to a divorce. I would never advise that. I was always very clear to my husband that I would never concede to a divorce. It was never what I wanted and I wasn't willing to gamble that far.
In the best case scenario, you can both agree that the marriage needs work. This will confirm that you are both committed to working on and saving the marriage and you can then come up with a unified, concrete plan to fix it. However, before you start having deep discussions, you should first restore feelings of affection and empathy (very important.)There are tons of excellent resources I've listed on my blog to help with this.
It's highly important that when you reach this agreement, you do everything you can to elicit positive feelings in your husband and your marriage and make your best effort to show him the best version of yourself - that carefree, loving, happy go lucky, intriguing woman he first fell in love with.
If the situation is beyond agreeing to work on or save the marriage, then the next step is agreeing to a break. This is sometimes necessary when it's clear that your husband is dead set on it and you feel it necessary to call his bluff or diffuse the situation. Agreeing to a break though can work to your advantage, which I'll discuss below.
If You Have To Agree To A Break, Use It To Your Advantage To Save The Marriage: Once you've made the call to agree to a break, use it to your full benefit. One thing that almost always happens is that when two people are apart, it will bring to the forefront issues that they both miss and do not miss about the other person. This often brings about nostalgic feelings or feelings of curiosity as to what the other person is up to or how they are fairing. It's extremely important that you play this correctly.
While it's important that your husband knows you love him and are committed to saving the marriage, your job right now is to demonstrate that you are an attractive, worthwhile, alluring individual who respects herself enough to remain active and do those things that make her happy. See friends. Pursue old hobbies. Get a make over. Pick up all of those things you've been dying to do but have put off. Go on vacation. Do what ever you have to do to put a genuine smile on your face.
Leak this to mutual friends so that your husband knows about it - and the next time you see or talk to him, display this alive, busy, forward moving person that he may not have known was lurking. Not only will this peak his interest, it will keep your self esteem in tact during a trying time. You want to play it so that when your husband thinks of you, he doesn't envision a depressed woman sitting on the couch with wrinkled clothing and a sour, sad face.
Instead, you want him to see the alive, attractive woman he first fell in love with - and you want him to miss her immensely.
I never agreed to a divorce when my husband wanted it, but I did make some concessions that I believe worked well for me. This may have seemed like "giving in" at the time, but, in the end, it was actually all part of a larger plan on my part. You can read my very personal story of how I agreed with my husband and then got moving to save my marriage on my blog at http://you-can-save-your-marriage.blogspot.com/
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/
Added: September 17, 2008
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