How to Save a Dying Marriage

And Bring it Back to Life

How do you know if your marriage is dying a slow death?

Most couples don’t realize it until it’s (almost) too late. By the time they seek out professional help (if they even do so), they’ve been struggling in their marriage for years or even decades.

So, how do you know if you’re in this camp?

Here are some key signs of a dying marriage:

• Emotional disengagement: decreased emotional responsiveness and engagement with your partner. One or both partners feel disconnected and emotionally detached in the marriage.
• Communication breakdown: when meaningful conversations become scarce, and communication turns into arguments. There’s an inability to de-escalate conflicts and repair after fights.
• Lack of intimacy: physical and emotional intimacy dwindle or become non-existent. Typically, resentment is the reason behind this.
• Constant negative sentiment override: a pattern of negativity and criticism develops, as support and encouragement dwindle. Over time, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling take over as the pervasive dynamic between partners. Partners predominantly see each other in a negative light.
• Avoidance of conflict: partners suppress and avoid issues rather than address and resolve them.

Now that we know the warning signs, it’s also important to know how we got here in the first place. So here are the typical stages of a dying marriage:  

• Stage 1 – Disillusionment: one or both partners begin to have increased dissatisfaction due to unmet needs and expectations. Dissatisfaction is often unaddressed effectively and shows up as arguments.
• Stage 2 – Escalation and Avoidance: anger and blame increase, leading to more heated conflicts, and creating a toxic pattern. Eventually, exasperated partners avoid each other as self-protection, thus, creating greater distance between them.
• Stage 3 – Gradual Emotional Disconnection: over time, partners stop fighting, but they also stop talking and stop caring. They are done.
• Stage 4 – Contemplating Separation: couples resign to the fact that nothing will ever change, and thoughts of separation or divorce start entering the conversation.

So how do we save a dying marriage?

Rebuilding a marriage takes effort, commitment, and a willingness to change. It demands self-awareness and a deep understanding of emotional connection. Here are 8 practical steps I recommend to couples like you, to help you resurrect your dying marriage:  

• Go to therapy: you obviously can’t do this by yourselves. So why keep trying and failing? If you had a cavity, you would go see a dentist. If your car broke down, you would bring it to a mechanic. Likewise, when your marriage is in shambles and you don’t know how to fix it, you need an expert to guide you back to relational health.
• Focus on yourself: work on your part of the dance with your partner. When you change your dance moves, you can singlehandedly change the dance between you and your partner. When you focus on changing yourself instead of your partner, you feel much more in control and your partner will stop feeling blamed.
• Understand your triggers: triggers are typically unresolved childhood baggage in disguise. Think about what annoys or angers you about your partner. These are your triggers. Ask yourself, how do I react in these situations? Am I repeating or reacting to how my caregiver(s) dealt with anger?
• Set ground rules for fair fighting: write down a list of rules that both partners need to follow when disagreeing. This can include things like no name-calling, no swearing, no jumping to conclusions, no yelling, etc. By setting ground rules, you create emotional safety where both partners can feel safe to express vulnerable emotions.
• Take a time-out: when heated and you know where things are headed, take a time-out to cool off and regroup. A time-out is not to be used as an avoidance strategy. Rather, the person who calls a time-out is also the person who will call a time-in, typically within the day. Start with a 30-minute time out, and if you’re still heated, check back with your partner each hour, and let them know you need more time. To build trust, you must always call a time in, after a time out.
• Practice reflective listening. This means you are listening to understand and not listening to rebut. Reflective listening involves paraphrasing what you heard your partner say so your focus is on them instead of defending yourself based on what they just said.
• Validate your partner. Simply let your partner know that you can understand their perspective and why they may feel the way they do. Validation doesn’t mean you agree with them, it just means you are allowing them to express their point of view without disputing or invalidating their position.

• Establish rituals of connection: make it a practice to tell your partner every day 3 things that you are grateful for or appreciate about them. This trains your brain to focus on the positives (that we often forget about or take for granted) instead of the negatives. Research shows that it takes 5 positive comments to undo each negative one.

To help you start healing your marriage, here is a FREE copy of chapter 1 of my book, The Kickass Couple: 7 Secrets to Transform Your Relationship where I teach you the key principles and practices to transform your relationship into the one of your dreams.

Let’s start fighting for your marriage instead of in your marriage.