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Monday, March 28, 2011

What Can They Do To Save This Marriage?

By Tancy Paulin


People who look back on the years, days or hours of their marriage and think it may have been a bad idea from the start often ask if what can be done to save this marriage? Maybe they should be asking if anything should be done.

The idea of saving often implies saving from something. What does this marriage need to be saved from? Are other men or women intruding and creating strife? Is the marriage starving for lack of emotional or financial investment? Are the partners bored and looking for novelty outside the marriage instead of bringing excitement in?

Saving a marriage usually means an effort to prevent it from ending. But what is it about the marriage they don't want to end? Are their efforts keeping it alive or prolonging its dying?

What do couples want to save their marriage for? Do they want their marriage to create a home and safe haven for children and pets and visiting relatives? Do they want it to provide a model of domestic bliss their friends will envy? Do they want to have someone they can always be themselves with, even if their real self is a jerk? It's a good idea for couples to know and agree on what they think their marriage can accomplish.

A marriage that can and ought to be saved is one in which the parties contribute something to each other that makes their lives better or in some way more complete than they were before.

A marriage worth saving is one in which the partners feel safe to make future plans, confident that in two three or ten years both partners will still be committed to each other if not to their original plans. Partners who are committed to each other can develop new plans agreeable to both as interests and situations change.

Another sign that a marriage is worth saving is if the two partners find that being part of the partnership causes them to grow and improve. If they become smarter, kinder, more loving, more tolerant, more patient, more adventurous, or more competent than they were before they may be involved in the kind of marriage that is worth some sacrifices.

One of the favorite plots in murder mysteries involves people getting married because one of them stands to inherit a huge amount of money. Either the inheritance is contingent up the heir being married or the husband or wife of the heir is a fortune hunter. Of course since these stories are usually murder mysteries it isn't hard to imagine that such marriages don't often work out well.




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