How To Fix A Broken Marriage – 5 Proven Methods

Learning how to fix a broken marriage is essential. You can save your marriage with these simple steps to repair your relationship.

As a counselor and researcher on marital success, I know that a broken marriage can wreak havoc on your health, children, and work productivity.

The consequences of an unhappy marriage make it all the more compelling for you to fix your marriage and do the marriage 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 repairing your marriage is to improve communication, bring back the fun, create more connection, and heal the past.

Step One For Fixing 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 spoken, communicated, heard, and healed.

When we’ve bottled up pain and resentment, we’ll likely act our hurt. For example, we’ll be passive-aggressive, yell, not invite our partner to join us on activities, shut our partner out, or withhold our love.

To mend your relationship, you have to unearth what’s hidden.

A healthy relationship takes open communication, transparency, trust, emotional safety, connection, and fun together. If you can’t feel all these things, it starts by getting honest with each other about what’s in the way.

Starting slow is the best way to do this. 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 first and then build up from there.

I highly recommend these 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 the 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. 

Pick up Conscious Loving on Amazon

Here’s an interview we did with Dr. Gay Hendricks

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 marriage.).

Five Love Languages book on Amazon

Save Your Marriage Workbook

My wife and I wrote the Save Your Marriage Workbook to help you and your partner communicate and start repairing marriage conflict and disconnection. In this beautifully designed workbook, you’ll get your marriage back on track with evidence-based exercises and guidance. 

We created this popular workbook to give couples the exact steps to save their marriage together. With intimacy exercises and practice, you and your partner will have the tools to get back on track.

Get The Save Your Marriage Workbook or get the workbook on Amazon

For some couples, going through the workbook 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 – repairing a marriage is possible.

Also, if you’d like to see a list of the best marriage books, I suggest my article, Best Marriage Books For Couples.

Step Two For How To Fix A Broken Marriage: Have Fun And Schedule Date Nights

Saving your marriage can’t be done by just discussing all your issues. It’s a significant first step, but along with that – 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 who had kids, I found that lack of money, time, and resources made couples short-tempered, uneasy, and on edge. So 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 date, each other, start by scheduling a date night. Please put it on the calendar. Make it a priority to go on a date at the day and time 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. Check out this Creative Date Night Ideas article if you need some ideas.

Schedule a date night, and then try out the Intimacy Game (I’ll explain why these questions are so powerful and why they’ll help bring back the good times into your marriage).

Step Three For Fixing A Broken Marriage: Use Curiosity To Rekindle The Love

When couples are stuck, and their marriage is failing, quite often, there’s one symptom:

The couple has forgotten how to be curious, interested, and engaged with each other.

Creating new communication patterns can do wonders. Creating fun is essential. But the ultimate and best tool for creating love again is an open and curious heart.

If you’ve ever felt you and your partner have the same fight repeatedly and it never gets resolved – the solution is curiosity.

When you hurt someone you love, the best thing you can do is seek to understand their perspective and acknowledge their feelings.

When I teach couples to listen without becoming defensive so they both feel heard – you can save the marriage. The union can find its way back to love.

The Intimacy Game is designed to help couples bring back curiosity. It’s designed to help couples to listen, open up, and get to know one another again.

Problems are opportunities, and I’ve seen this over and over again. When couples use curiosity, they can mend any wound. Curiosity is a crucial ingredient to new love and one of the keys to a successful marriage.

The game I created isn’t about tackling issues head-on, but instead, it’s about injecting more fun and connection – and by practicing with the game, couples learn a skill in a fun way that they can bring into tough conversations.

Related Article: How To Fix A Broken Relationship: 7 Steps To Get Back On Track

Step Four For 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 that it’s because their goals are not unified.

Happy couples have marital goals that keep them together. One of those common goals that happy marriages have is their desire to achieve specific goals together. Couples have shared dreams and are held together by a shared vision for a future. Along with a healthy dose of respect and admiration, shared dreams are like a glue that bonds couples through thick and thin.

Just like a team excels when it works together in unison and in harmony, a healthy relationship thrives when the couple is unified in their goals. When we feel our partner wants what we want and wishes to make those dreams come true, it makes us feel loved and creates a feeling of togetherness.

When partners can find a way to communicate their dreams and goals and manage to 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 keep the relationship bonded through thick and thin.

Step Five For How To Fix A Broken Marriage: Seek Couples Counseling

Unfortunately, the world taught us that love is what it takes. If that were the case, every couple who ever fell in love could stay together. Falling in love would be enough. But, sadly, that’s not the case.

Love isn’t enough.

Just 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. In fact, marriage counseling is quite often the best thing married couples can do. But, just like most of us wouldn’t dare to repair some 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 difficult. An expert can help.

In other cases, many couples find that they’re in gridlock despite the loving intention to heal the wounds. The issues won’t get untangled, and they need a marriage counselor to help them overcome the problems. If you feel that way, contact me for a free couple’s consultation.

If you’d like to see if marriage counseling is a good fit for you – book a free couples consult. I’d be happy to chat with you, offer some insight, and let you know how my services can help.