Have you heard of the 3-year and 7-year itch? These are the common stages in a marriage where couples tend to hit a stumbling block. When you have been married for a long time, the relationship becomes habit an routine. You get stuck in your little ways and no longer try to attract or impress your spouse.

Are you at this point in your marriage? Maybe you have already split from your partner. Regardless of where you are now, there is hope …

Stop asking yourself ‘how do I save my marriage today‘ and go out there and do it, following the advice on this page.

TAKE SOME TIME OUT TO SAVE MY MARRIAGE

If you think your marriage is heading for a divorce, try taking some time out to give each of you some space. Go and visit friends or family to think about your relationship. Try to figure out what the problems are and how you can fix them.

If you have already separated, then take the approach of showing your spouse that you are capable of moving on, you can do very well by yourself. This will make your spouse want you back because it is human nature to want what we can’t have. So, if you make yourself unavailable to your spouse, they will want you back.

In both cases, time away from your spouse and the relationship will give you both a chance to miss each other. Often a marriage will break down because the husband and wife don’t appreciate each other anymore. Their spouse is just someone who is there all the time and moans, nags, doesn’t help around the house etc. People tend to focus on the bad things about their partner and forget about the good. Spending some time apart is the perfect time to think about the good things about your spouse.

CHANGE YOUR VIEWS OF YOUR SPOUSE

If you keep thinking the negative thoughts about your spouse, they will eventually build up and grow and grow. You will begin to see you spouse differently and this will, in turn, make you treat your spouse in a different way. They will respond to being treated like this by changing their behaviour and becoming more of the person you do not like.

You need to think positively. Just because he didn’t do the washing up doesn’t mean he is lazy. You forget the fact that he works 10 hour days as a builder. He is not lazy at all.

Embed positive statements in your mind, such as ‘there are lots of things I love about my spouse’. Over time, these statements will start to ring true because you will see more and more of the positive sides to your partner. This will make you treat them in a better way and they will change their behaviour positively too.

It is important that you make sure your spouse knows that you appreciate them and you value their happiness too. Often when you’fall out of love’it’s because somewhere, somehow you or your spouse have lost sight of what makes both of you happy.

GO OUT ON DATES WITH YOUR SPOUSEsave my marriage HOW TO SAVE MY MARRIAGE TODAY

The feelings you once had when you were first dating are alive and kicking, you just need to rediscover them under everything that has built on top of them.

To stop your marriage feeling like routine, you need to keep refreshing that spark between the two of you. Too frequently, after years of marriage, your relationship with your spouse begins to take a back seat to everything else. You concentrate on your career, your house, the kids and neglect the relationship with your partner. You have to remember that you are not just a businessman, nurse, mum or dad, you are a husband or wife too.

The best way to keep the spark ignited is to go out on dates once a week or once a month, whenever it suits you. But make sure you do it regularly.

Go for a walk along the beach in the sunset, go out to the movies and then to dinner. Spending this quality time together allows you to get to know each other all over again. Catch up on what’s happening in your spouse’s life. Take an interest in what they are doing at work.

THE BIG SIX GREAT DATE EXPERIMENT

This is an online challenge where you go on a date with your husband six times in six months. For each date, you are set a challenge.

The first challenge is nurturing romance, where the pair of you talk about the dates you used to go on or how you tried to impress your spouse at the beginning of the relationship. You are also challenged to slip certain pet names into the conversation or pat his bottom.

The second challenge is to kiss each other at every red traffic light until someone honked their horn for you to move.

Other challenges included buying a £1 present for your partner within 10 minutes and looking back through your wedding album and discussing memories from that day.

CONCLUSION

Your marriage is worth saving. To keep it strong and happy, it just takes a few small adjustments to your behaviour.

You change. Your spouse changes. Best of all, your marriage changes.