When you’re struggling in your relationship, learning how to fix a broken marriage can save it.
As a counselor and researcher on marital success, I know that a broken marriage can wreak havoc on your health, your children, and even your work productivity.
The consequences of an unhappy marriage make it all the more compelling for couples to fix their marriage and do the work necessary to bring it back (which is possible).
If your marriage feels broken, don’t fret, it’s possible to mend most wounds and learn the skills to bring the love back. These tough times can help strengthen your marriage and create an intimacy that only getting through the hard times can produce. Through the ups and downs, love is strengthened, lessons are learned, and couples find what they’re made of.
One of the first steps to fixing a failing marriage is to improve communication.
Table of Contents
Step One How To Fix A Broken Marriage: Start With Communication
When your marriage isn’t going well, it’s guaranteed there are wounds and hurts that haven’t been healed.
When we’ve got pain and resentments bottled up, we’ll likely act our hurt by being passive-aggressive, yelling, not inviting our partner to join us in activities, shutting our partner out, and withholding our love.
If your wife or husband yells at you or emotionally neglects you, it’s normal to feel rejected and unsure of what to do.
Perhaps you even wonder whether your partner still loves you.
To mend your relationship, you have to unearth what’s hidden.
A healthy relationship involves open communication, transparency, trust, emotional safety, connection, and fun. If you can’t feel all these things, it starts by getting honest with each other about what’s in the way.
Instead of tackling all the issues at once, start slowly. Start gently.
Pick one problem and see if you can dialogue about one issue. Start with a minor issue or a relationship check-in, and then build up from there.
I highly recommend three marriage books to help you with your communication. These books are incredible tools that any couple can use right away.
Conscious Loving
This book teaches couples a step-by-step system of how to create emotional intimacy and deep rapport.
Along with reading this book, I suggest you check out our interview with Dr. Gay Hendricks and this other interview we did with Dr. Kathlyn Hendricks. These podcast episodes offer great insight into the authors’ minds and have some great content on keeping your heart open.
Here’s a link to the book on Amazon
Getting The Love You Want
If you have wondered, “Why do my partner and I keep having the same fights?” Or, “Why do I keep dating the same type of people?” Look no further for your answers.
For the part on communication, jump to the chapter on Imago Dialogues. It’s a great way to open up a conversation and do so without cycling back through arguments and repetitive fights.
Get The Love You Want on Amazon
Five Love Languages
Knowing love languages has helped thousands of couples discover the best way to love each other. This book can be a great read to enjoy together and take on date nights (one of the ways you can fix a broken relationship).
Five Love Languages book on Amazon
Save Your Marriage Workbook
We created this popular workbook to give couples the exact steps to save their marriage together. With marriage intimacy exercises and practices, you and your partner can have tools to get back on track.
Pick up the workbook or get the workbook on Amazon
For some couples, doing it on their own will work. The intention of love is incredibly powerful, and when two people come to the table willing to push through whatever pain is there -you can start repairing a broken marriage.
In other cases, many couples find that they’re in gridlock despite the loving intention to heal the wounds. The issues don’t get untangled, instead, they keep having the same fights and hurting each other. Sometimes, couples need marriage counseling to help them move through this part of their relationship. If you feel that way, contact me for a free consultation.
Also, if you’d like to see a list of the best marriage books, I suggest my article, 9 Best Marriage Books For Couples.
Step Two How To Fix A Broken Marriage: Start Doing Date Nights
Your marriage can’t be saved by talking alone. It’s a significant first step, but couples also need to spark love by having fun together. Spending time together on date nights can help significantly.
When I worked with highly impoverished couples with kids, I found that lack of money, time, and resources made couples short-tempered, uneasy, and on edge. I showed them how to have fun together to shift all that anxiety. Similarly, affluent couples who see me have found that creating fun and laughter together can heal many wounds.
When couples say, “We don’t feel connected. We feel more like roommates,” I know that it’s likely because they’ve forgotten how to date each other and have fun together.
To fuel more passion and desire in your relationship, start by scheduling a date night. Put it on the calendar. Make it a priority to go on a date when you agree to go out.
If you have kids, a job, or any obligations that could get in the way – do what you need to make it, so you go on your date night.
The point here isn’t to plan a fancy or expensive dinner. The intention is to go out with each other and to make it a priority to do so. If you need some date night ideas, check out this article, Creative Date Night Ideas For Fun Dates.
Schedule a date night and then try out the couples card games (below, I’ll explain why these questions are so powerful and why they’ll help bring back the good times into your marriage).
Step Three How To Fix A Broken Marriage: Use Curiosity To Rekindle The Love
When couples are stuck and repeating the same fights — quite often, there’s one symptom:
A lack of curiosity. A lack of communication aimed at creating understanding.
Creating new communication patterns can do wonders. Creating fun is essential. But an open and curious heart is the ultimate and best tool for creating love again.
If you’ve repeatedly had the same fight, the solution is curiosity. The way out of this loop is to bring in new questions and more curiosity. Do this, and the union can find its way back to love.
Our couples card games help bring back curiosity. They’re designed to help couples to listen, open up, and get to know one another again.
Relationship problems are opportunities, and I’ve seen this over and over again. When couples use curiosity, they can mend any wound. Curiosity is crucial to new love and one of the keys to a successful marriage.
These games aren’t about tackling issues head-on but about injecting more fun and connection. Couples learn a skill in a fun way that they can bring into tough conversations.
Step Four How To Fix A Broken Marriage: Create Shared Dreams Together
If a couple comes to me and says they’re considering filing for divorce, I know their goals are not unified.
Happy couples have marital goals that keep them together. One of those common goals that happy couples have is their desire to achieve specific goals together. Shared dreams help couples stay together for a longer and better future. Along with a healthy dose of respect and admiration, shared dreams are like glue that bonds couples through thick and thin.
Just like a team excels when it works together in unison and harmony, a healthy relationship thrives when the couple is unified in their goals. When our partner wants what we want and wishes to make those dreams come true, it makes us feel loved and together.
When partners can find a way to communicate their dreams and goals and get on the same page in a loving and supporting way – it’s possible to have a fantastic marriage.
Saving a marriage takes a lot of effort. It requires a strong commitment and consistent dedication to shared dreams that work like glue to bond the relationship through thick and thin.
Step Five How To Fix A Broken Marriage: Seek Couples Counseling
Unfortunately, the world has taught us that love is what it takes. If that were the case, every couple who ever fell in love could stay together. Sadly, that’s not the case.
Love isn’t enough.
Like most people can’t pick up a skillet and cook like a professional chef, most marriages don’t thrive because two people want it to work.
My parents wanted their marriage to work, but it didn’t. They have told me they wish they had known how to fix their broken marriage, but they lacked the tools and maturity. Now they know better and wish they would have sought expert help before it was too late.
There’s no shame in seeking support. That’s quite often the best thing married couples can do. Just like most of us wouldn’t dare to repair complicated machinery without hiring help, we shouldn’t think that our marriage is some simple thing that can be snapped back together like a Lego set. Love is complicated, and undoing past wounds can be hard. An expert can help.
If you’d like to see if marriage counseling is a good fit for you – feel free to book a free consult. We’d be happy to chat with you, offer some insight, and let you know how relationship coaching services can help your relationship.
Now I feel like I’m awake from my slumbers. I felt some hope flow through me as I read.
The storm is finally over. It was a very hard period for me when my husband me told me it is over between us that he has no feelings love for me anymore, I was not myself for months. but right now i am in my very best conditions because i was able to restore peace back to my marriage.