Think that the symptoms are the real issue.  Money, sex, affairs, children, arguments, emotional withdrawl and poor communication are all symptoms of the real issue.  THEY ARE NOT THE REAL PROBLEM!!

• When you treat symptoms, the problem doesn’t really go away, it just becomes masked

• Ultimately if you solved your concerns with any of these issues, another problem would crop up somewhere else to take its place...

• That’s because you haven’t identified and solved the real isssue

Get to the root of what the real issues are.  

What has led to your spouse pulling away from the relationship?  

What are the core issues behind the behaviors, words and actions?  

This is often the most difficult aspect of improving a marriage but absolutely

essential to building connection with your  spouse once more.

Insist that your spouse "fix" the marriage with you.  

• The main reason for this is that no one likes to be “worked on.”  People don’t like to think of themselves as someone who needs fixing.

• This isn’t to say you should stop trying to make improvements, or to make things better, it’s mostly about how you view the work, how you describe it and how you go about doing it.

• When we first move towards healing a relationship it can often cause more problems to ask for a partner who is withdrawing from the relationship to “commit.” 

• A marriage in this situation is in dire need of support, because what may seem like the right move, may actually be having the opposite effect as what was intended. The reason for this is that if your spouse has checked out, trying to pull them back in is going to backfire.  If your spouse is pulling away they are likely considering other options.  These options seem like they might finally relieve some tension or bring some happiness.  Trying to pull them back into a situation that they believe won’t change and is causing unhappiness will make them upset for the time being.
  

Build positive connection and create pleasant experiences with your spouse.

• Instead of “Fixing” the marriage, the focus needs to be on satisfaction

• When you are able to turn things from “fixing you”, or “solving you,” or

Waste any more time hoping it will work out without taking action. 

You can’t dabble with this.  You don’t dabble with your work, you probably didn’t dabble in your education and certainly didn’t dabble when you were dating your spouse.  Now is the time for some dedication​

• How much more important is your marriage than your job?

• Problems don’t have to take forever to make progress and change

• Change can happen quickly when you dedicate enough effort and resources to make those changes

Dedicate yourself to change.

Change your marriage by improving and changing YOURSELF first.  Put forth the necessary time, energy, money and effort to save the thing that matters most to you: your marriage and your family.   Take ACTION now!!!

Think you can do it all on your own.