What to do if your marriage has been neglected?

There was a time when we were so busy strengthening our family we forget to strengthen our marriage. The two are not always synonymous. 

When my faith transition hit, we had been married for around 15 years. We had been very active in church and very active building our family (FHE, trips, activities, etc). 

We had not been so diligent about building our marriage. If you looked at how we spent our time and money it would be at the bottom or pretty close. 

Maybe you are super busy and focused on school, career, kids church callings and haven’t spent the time and energy on your marriage. 

This was 100% true  for me and my spouse. 

How to really start nurturing your marriage? How to build a marriage along with a family? 

The patterns of neglecting your marriage can be hard to change  You or your spouse may question or think – 

Is this for real? Is this just temporary? This won’t last? You just want something from me.

3 tips to consider when you want to start nurturing your marriage 

  1. Be ok if they don’t believe you. Of course they are skeptical – you probably are too. Let them get familiar with the new way you are choosing so show up in your marriage. We sometimes resist change even if its good and we’ve wanted it for a long time. 

  2. Remember the 5:1 ratio. For every negative interaction you try to have 5 positive ones. Maybe right now your ratio is 1:5. You can change your ratio. The process means you fail A LOT until you succeed and that is OK. Failure is part of any worthy success story.  

  3. Know your WHY. If you don’t remind yourself of your WHY  you will give up at after some push back.  What is  your WHY? – Because you really love your spouse – because you want to change things, because you are 100% committed to this? You get to decide. Keep reminding yourself. 

This process is a process. Learning how to really nurture your marriage does not happen overnight or in a week. You might even need some help . Someone to help you see where you may be falling into old patterns or forgetting your reason why. 

A coach can help with that and so much more.