In the early days of relationships most people are led by their libidos, by passion and desire for each other, and by a sense of attraction that has grown sufficiently large that they actually want to get married. Now, up until this point everything is rosy. Both partners respect and love each other, and it seems very natural to take the next step and get married. Then what happens is that for the first little period everything is great. Almost idyllic, and at this stage you WILL see the fabled ‘heavenly’ marriages with couples being very much in love. The only problem is that generally it doesn’t last. The real world steps in in the form of children, bills to pay and hassles at work and all that time that you used to spend together somehow drifts away, and suddenly your thoughts are more towards “save marriage” then they are about “enjoying the marriage”.

Luckily, the way to turn things around in your marriage is actually much quicker then the path you are on to divorce. You simply need to start appreciating each other again, and start seeing each other in the same light that you did when you first went out. When you first met it was probably passionate very quickly, or at the very least it developed into passion and love at some stage. You may have let it slip, but you can get it back. One of the immediate things that you need to do is to start talking to your partner properly again. Not just about politics, what is wrong with the world or your boss. But about all the juice of life stuff that used to make you smile together, used to make you laugh.

For most couples a great place to start rebuilding your relationship is to each draw up a list of the things about the other person that initially attracted you to them when you first met. This is going back to the early building blocks of your relationship, and hence bypasses a lot of the later stuff which is probably the cause of the vast bulk of your arguments, and is the beginning of most couples counseling techniques, but without the high dollar per hour cost. Also, when you first met is a much clearer period of time then many other periods in your relationship. It will be something that both parties will be able to remember, and the only reason you or your partner won’t be able to come up with ‘reasons’ for their initial attraction is because the current state of your relationship is clouding their judgement temporarily. Try to get past that though, and come up with genuine answers.

Ask your partner to put your differences aside just for the moment, and seek to get some common ground. Tell your partner that you sincerely want to make things work, and that just for a little while you want them to reserve judgement on whether this is a pack of nonsense, or something really helpful. Ask them to simply go along with it. In truth if you can get them to participate then it bodes extremely well for your efforts to get them to start appreciate the marriage again, because even though they may still have many issues with you, at least you are both on the same pathway. And you can then take it further with a book like Bob Grants “What Husbands Can’t Resist“, which is a great book for couples seeking to better understand their relationship.

Marriage counsellors will usually be very adept at helping couples struggling through these times. Whether it is a Christian marriage or any other, there are places and people you can go to that will help you and the one you love get through this. Marriage can change people, so sitting down and taking a good hard look at yourself, and seeing where you have changed can be a good first step. Finding your old self can be a difficult task, especially after you consider all the things you have been through over the time when the marriage was not going well. If you do the exercise I suggested as a first action then you will be able to notice the glimmer of sunshine that focusing on good times brings. It is only the first step on what may be a longer journey. But at least it marks a new start to an effort to improve your marriage.