Mark: It seems like it’s nearly daily that we hear about another marriage breaking up. What’s so hard for me is knowing that a large percentage of those divorces don’t really need to happen.
Jill: Sometimes it’s folks we know and sometimes it’s folks we only know about. However, there’s often one common denominator that we’ve observed: they spend more energy on pursuing divorce than they spend on pursuing marriage.
Mark: I understand hopelessness. If you know any of my story, I also believed at one time that divorce was the answer. Looking back, however, I can now see that I spent way more time in my head focused on ending our relationship than I did on healing our relationship. I didn’t believe it could be healed so I quit trying. In doing so, I nearly destroyed us.
Jill: What goes on inside our head and our heart really makes a difference in what goes on inside our marriage relationship. Here are some questions you can ask yourself today:
Am I focusing more on what my spouse does wrong than what my spouse does right?- Am I spending a lot of energy trying to change him/her?
- What if I took the amount of energy I’m spending on the wrong things and put it on the right things?
- What if instead of securing the services of a lawyer, I secured the services of a marriage counselor?
- What if I took the money it will cost to divorce and invested it into getting help for our marriage instead?
- Have I spent the time needed to really figure out what’s going on inside of me that’s contributing to the dysfunction or frustrations in our marriage?
- Have we read books, gone to marriage retreats, and sought out the help of someone who can help us hear each other better?
- Am I being honest with my spouse about how I’m really feeling? (Stop that slow fade of minimizing today!)
Mark: Even if your marriage is in a good place asking yourself what you’re focusing on most can make a big difference in how you see your spouse.
Jill: And if you’re marriage is in a hard place, please don’t give up before giving it all you’ve got.
