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

Do you want to know how to fix a broken relationship?

If you’re wondering, “Is restoring broken relationships possible?” the answer is yes.

Repairing broken relationships may not be easy, but it can be done.

If you want to know how to fix a damaged relationship, this article will outline the best tips to help you mend and heal your relationship. 

No matter what’s happened, just about every problem in a relationship can be fixed.

How to identify a broken relationship

Your relationship may be in trouble if you recognize the following warning signs:

• Trust issues 
• Money problems and financial fights 
• Cheating and infidelity 
• Arguments that get very heated  
• Differences regarding kids and how to raise them
• Trauma bonding
• Sexual intimacy problems that go on for years 
• Communication breakdowns  
• Yelling and screaming bouts 
• Signs of impending divorce 
• Constantly fighting and arguing
• Not feeling understood and distant from each other 
• Differences with the in-laws and other family members 
• Commitment issues (such as a boyfriend’s hesitance to propose)

Most challenges that couples can endure can be fixed. However, some issues take more work and require more effort. But if both people are willing to put in the time and effort, it’s possible to mend the wounds. 

Fixing a broken relationship is worth all your effort because until you resolve the problems, you won’t be able to rest easy. 

As you likely already know, a broken relationship can make it harder to sleep, control your moods, stay happy, be productive at work, and add to your anxiety levels. Overall, relationship strain can make you feel defeated, contributing to a broken spirit.

And the science is pretty clear – there are many negative effects of staying in an unhappy relationship on your physical and mental health and outlook on life. 

Steps for how to repair a broken relationship

Follow these steps for repairing a broken relationship:

1. Acknowledge There’s A Problem 
2. Make A Pact To Work On Things Together 
3. Take Full Responsibility For Your Part
4. Get Relationship Counseling As A Couple 
5. Begin Scheduling Quality Time 
6. Practice Full Transparency 
7. Fill The Tank, Give Appreciation 

Listen To Our Interview with Larry Bilotta – How To Fix Your Marriage

Step One For How To Fix A Broken Relationship: Acknowledge There’s A Problem  

Fixing a broken relationship starts the same way as any recovery program. 

At first, you spent time denying the issues and swept them under the rug. You let the problems live on, hoping they would disappear or hoping things wouldn’t get worse if you just ignored them. But things didn’t get better. They likely got worse. 

Now you’re here, and things are broken. 

Maybe the future looks bleak, but you want your relationship to work. 

The only way forward is to stop ignoring that there’s a problem. 

It’s time to admit there’s an issue. It’s been going on for too long. And it’s time to fix the problems, to find answers, and to heal the wounds. 

When both people can admit things aren’t perfect, you can heal together. Even more, when both people can verbally acknowledge that something is broken, both people can mend wounds, find healing, and do it together as a team. 

Being willing to mend as a team is a giant step. It’s the most essential step in your healing journey. 

Every relationship that breaks always does so because the couple stops being together. For one reason or another, the partners don’t feel unified.

Maybe they don’t feel understood, perhaps they feel like strangers, maybe they feel too different, or like they have different priorities.

Maybe you even wonder if your wife or husband still loves you. The reasons why partners don’t feel unified are endless, and yet, the cause of a broken relationship is the same. 

Not feeling together, unified, and understood is the cause of every break in your relationship. 

Admitting that things are broken together brings you back as a couple. 

This one step, when taken together, begins the process of fixing things. 

The relationship broke because you lost the sense of togetherness. But now, coming together on this one thing will lead you to the next step to fix your broken relationship. 

Related Articles: Signs My Husband Isn’t Attracted To Me and My Wife Loves Me But Doesn’t Desire Me

Step Two For How To Fix A Broken Relationship: Make A Pact To Work On Things Together 

Sometimes someone will call me for online marriage counseling, asking: 

“Can I do sessions alone and fix my relationship?” 

My answer is always the same. 

“If you want to fix a broken relationship, you should do it together.” 

You can only change so much when only one person works on things. 

After ten years of counseling married couples, I’ve seen a pattern:

When only one partner is working on the relationship, it creates an imbalance. Relationship issues are created together, and they can only be healed as a couple. 

Acknowledging that things are broken brings you together, and now by making a pact to work on things together, you create that balance of togetherness that you were missing. 

Being a team, being a couple, that’s how you fix a broken relationship. 

At this stage, you may not have the answers. You may not know how to restore broken relationships, but by making a pact to be a team to fix the problems, you begin an alchemical process that leads to healing. 

The agreement to work on things together is like covering holes on a sinking ship. Without this agreement, you can’t fix your relationship’s sinking ship.

Coming together on the fact that things are broken and making a pact to work on things, these steps are the most monumental steps any couple can take. Getting unified on the most basic of things brings you together and creates a glue that will bring you and your partner together in a way nothing else can. 

Step Three For How To Fix A Broken Relationship: Take Full Responsibility For Creating The Problems 

When couples choose to take responsibility for their issues, it opens the realm of transformation. 

While a broken relationship experiences a tear because both people are pointing fingers, a transformed and healthy partnership experiences healing when each person can take responsibility. 

Pointing fingers, wishing your partner would change, and trying to make your partner see your perspective usually just leads to more fighting. 

After spending thousands of hours sitting with couples, it’s clear to me that the fastest path to healing is through taking personal responsibility.  

Without a doubt, every broken relationship suffers from these core issues: 

• Both partners don’t feel heard
• Each partner doesn’t feel listened to or understood
• Both people feel like they’re fighting to have their voices heard 
• Nobody feels fully validated or accepted  
• Both people wish their partner would just stop and listen 
• Nobody is taking responsibility, and both people blame one another 

These problems often manifest in fights about intimacy, money, the children, sex, home life, commitment problems, power struggles, and trust issues. There’s a variety of ways relationships find their way to being broken, yet, the road back to love is always the same. 

On that road back to love, the steps always start with coming together. Deciding that you both want your relationship, you want it more than you want the fighting. 

Once the agreement is made that you both want love, you will both need to take personal responsibility for the ways you’ve hurt your partner or contributed to unhelpful patterns in the relationship. 

To move into this stage of healing, both people will need to answer this crucial question 

Both you and your partner must ask yourself the following questions to heal a relationship:

“In what way do I contribute to the issues my relationship is experiencing?” 

“How do I contribute to the problems in my relationship?” 

No more finger-pointing, no more blaming, just personal responsibility.

If it’s true that it takes two to tango, it’s true that every relationship problem you and your partner must fix together. 

Seeing how we contribute to relationship issues isn’t always easy, and it’s usually challenging to find our responsibility in perpetuating our relationship problems. 

And here’s a truth that is hard to swallow, every single problem we have in our relationship, we’re somehow responsible.

Just imagine how much you’d like your partner to say: 

“I know when I do X, it really upsets you. I’m so sorry,” or “I deeply regret the hurtful words I said, and I feel terrible for hurting you.”

Wouldn’t it feel wonderful to have your partner acknowledge how they hurt you? 

Wouldn’t it be great if your partner took responsibility instead of becoming defensive?

If your partner could just see how they’re creating the issue, you love it. But it won’t happen until both people take responsibility. 

No matter how much blame there is to go around, both people participate in the issues you’re having. 

Turning towards one another and admitting how you’ve contributed to the issue is the solution. Healing and mending can begin when both people own their part in breaking the relationship. 

Sometimes couples can do this alone, and quite often, it helps to hire a marriage and family therapist or relationship counselor. Not only does a relationship counselor help the couple open up, but a counselor can help both people find their half of creating the issue.

Ideally, you work with a relationship counselor, as this kind of counselor knows couples, and it’s their specialty to help people build a healthy relationship.

Step Four For How To Fix A Broken Relationship: Hire A Relationship Counselor To Move Things Along 

If you’re wondering how to restart a broken relationship and heal past hurts, consider seeking support.

At the height of Tiger Woods’s career, he had twenty-one coaches. 

Similarly, every professional athlete who plays at the highest levels has a coach. 

All of us who want to be great at anything have coaches, mentors, and trainers. 

While you might think you can save a dying relationship alone, you’d do well to consider that many blind spots got you into this mess. Forgiving your partner can seem impossible.

It’s never a requirement for a couple to get a counselor, but just like athletes and professionals in any field benefit by having a coach or mentor, couples can expedite the healing and learn with a good relationship counselor. 

Benefits of hiring a relationship counselor

• Having a third non-biased party present. 
• Get training that helps you move past your negative patterns.  
• Be supported through your process of transformation so you don’t get stuck in the same old issues. 
• Learning how to fall back in love with someone who hurt you
• It can help you clarify your feelings and hear your partner’s perspective more clearly. 
• Having a relationship expert spot your and your partner’s blind spots. 
• Having an expert guide you through proven methods to ensure healthy communication.
• Being in a new space with a professional who stops fights before they happen. 
• Learn marriage intimacy exercises proven to strengthen your connection.
• Have someone role model and support you through the process of talking to your partner in new, more loving ways.
• Get the insights that you are missing, which make it possible to transform how you manage and handle your partnership.  
• Have someone to notice and help you tweak your unconscious patterns (Duke University study reveals that 40% of our habits are unconscious, a counselor can help spot those patterns and encourage conscious transformation). 

As a marriage counselor, it’s impossible to list all the benefits, but the most important one for couples is this:

A counselor can help you consciously create the love you want so you’re happy in your relationship. 

If you’re able to, do yourself a favor and hire a relationship counselor who specializes in couples and makes the healing process more straightforward. 

Book A Free Relationship Counseling Consult

Step Five For How To Fix A Broken Relationship: Schedule Quality Time Together 

A common symptom of unhealthy relationships is a lack of togetherness. 

When relationships break, it happens in pieces.

First, there’s a series of unresolved arguments, disputes, and the feeling that your partner doesn’t care or understand you. 

Bit by bit, the couple feels distant and struggles to enjoy each other’s company. What was good is now tainted with the fear of a looming fight. 

To avoid more problems, the couple slowly starts to spend less time together. And that, in turn, makes them grow apart more and more until one day, the best decision to call it quits. 

Divorce doesn’t happen because a couple feels unified and is having a lot of fun. Many romantic relationships end because people feel too different, they don’t want to fight anymore, or things aren’t as good as they once were.  

Before you grow apart too much, come back together. If you’re curious about how to get your spark back, it’s through shared experiences and quality time together.

The best way back to love is to spend quality time together. 

In our overworked society, it’s easy to make our relationship the last thing on our ‘to-do’ list. And it’s that kind of lousy prioritization that hurts long-term relationships. Put your relationship at the bottom of important things, and soon, it will suffer the consequences. 

We work with busy CEOs, executives, entrepreneurs, and employees with high-paying jobs, and we know this all too well – when people put work, kids, and other things above their relationship, soon it catches up. 

When things are bad in our relationship, it’s not a natural compulsion to lean in, schedule time together, and find ways to make our partnership great again. Yet, the way back to wholehearted connection can only be had when couples schedule quality time together. 

The best way to grow together is by spending time together. 

Even though things are bad, and it might be scary to schedule time together, the time apart guarantees you’ll grow apart.

It’s only through increasing quality time together that you can

• Rebuild trust
• Grow together and feel like a team again
• Improve your love maps and love quotient
• Start the healing process and mend those wounds 
• Undo those knots and feel that connection again 
• Share love, time, and space together 
• Reignite attraction and passion

Time together is one of the best ways to mend those broken things. Even if things aren’t so good, time together can begin the process of making things great again. 

How To Schedule Time Together To Fix Your Broken Relationship 

If you’re convinced now that time together will help mend the wounds, it’s time to discuss how you can best spend time together with your partner. 

Most people do this part wrong. 

Since things have been bad, most people hear the advice to spend time together and either recoil and feel free, or they take this action to an extreme and plan a long week or weekend together. 

Both of these strategies tend to work against the intended desire, so here’s the best way to spend time together so it actually works. 

Spend time together in small increments. Instead of a scheduled long weekend, try planning a short amount of time where you’ll focus on enjoying each other’s company. 

Suggestions for short scheduled ‘mini-dates’

• Take a ten-minute walk together 
• Watch a sitcom show together 
• Cook a leisurely meal as a couple
• Ask your partner about their day, set a 5-minute timer, and take turns 
• Give each other short 5-10 minute massages and play soothing music 
• Go to the gym together and do a part of your workout together (stretch, or lifting, or treadmill side-by-side)
• Clean the house as a couple for 10 minutes 
• Try our couples card games

The idea here isn’t so much as ‘what you do’ but rather – how you do it. 

If a relationship has been riddled with negativity, scheduling short bursts of positive time together can start rebuilding a broken relationship into something that feeds both of you. 

Short bursts of time together are comfortable and don’t require much, but over time, this strategy will work wonders on your relationship. 

Recommended: Get The Date Night Workbook

Step Six For How To Fix A Broken Relationship: Practice Honest And Kind Transparency 

If you’re wondering how to gain someone’s trust back, start by practicing complete honesty and transparency.

In any long-term relationship riddled with issues, honesty works like a healing salve.

Being honest with kindness and love in mind – will work wonders for any relationship that suffers from trust issues, disconnection, communication breakdowns, and negative patterns. 

Learning to be honest in a kind way is crucial. 

An excellent way to practice kind and honest communication is to use a formula. Although it may feel awkward to use a script with how you communicate your emotions, decades of research have shown it works. 

Just like any formula, try this out, tweak it in a way that works for you, but stick as close to this formula as you can – and then, as you become more proficient in the method, you can take off the training wheels.

Start with the formula so you can experience what it’s like to express negative emotions with kindness, love, and empathy. 

When you’re upset, sad, mad, or angry use this formula

I feel __________ (insert an emotion like sad, mad, angry, happy, anxious, uncomfortable) about __________ (insert situation that caused your feelings), and I am wondering if we can talk about it. 

This formula ensures you’ll bring up an issue in a way that doesn’t set your partner’s alarms but instead helps them hear you. 

I know this method, done without a relationship counselor, can feel awkward.

However, repeated research from The Gottman Institute shows it works to help couples have disagreements without fighting. 

Another suggestion to help you learn the process of communicating with more honesty and kindness, check out the Save Your Marriage Workbook.

Besides a book or trying this formula, relationship counseling is the most desirable and assured way to help you transform toxic communication patterns. Learn more about online relationship counseling.

Step Seven For How To Fix A Broken Relationship: Practice Appreciation, Give Gratitude 

“Love is not a feeling, it’s an ability.” 

And if it’s an ability, it’s something we can get better at. It’s something we can practice and improve at. 

Fixing broken relationships requires taking the right actions to remedy the problems. 

One of the chronic symptoms of relationships that are falling apart is that both partners don’t feel appreciated or understood. 

Injecting appreciation, gratitude, and verbal praise into your relationship can help remedy many of the significant issues. 

To practice gratitude and appreciation in your relationship, try these suggestions

• Let your partner know how much you appreciate something they’ve done, no matter how small it is. (Maybe they made dinner, took out the garbage, or texted you something sweet?)
• Has your partner hugged you or kissed you recently in a way you liked? Let him/her know. 
• Leave a post-it note or small card with a sweet note in it somewhere your partner will find it. 
• Give your partner a long hug, and whisper something kind into his/her ear. 
• Send your partner a sweet text message.
• Offer to do something small and kind for your partner. 
• Play the Appreciation Couples Card Game together.
• Call your partner to say, “Just wanted to let you know I was having sweet thoughts of you.” 
• Make your partner something you know they like to eat and pack it in his/her lunch. 
• Tell your partner one quality that you admire about him/her. 
• Share with your partner something that you remember fondly. 
• Close your eyes and send your partner thoughts of wellness and healing 
• Lastly, offer to give your partner a short massage and tell them it’s because you want to say “thank you” for all he/she does 

Start with something small. You don’t have to do large gestures to show appreciation. What you need is consistency, small actions taken regularly will work to rewire your partner to expect goodness from you and to look forward to the goodness in your relationship. 

In summary, when both people take action to fix the relationship and use the outlined steps here on how to fix strained relationship, you can heal any wounds and past hurts.

Get the exact steps and insights for how to fix a broken relationship in the Save Your Marriage Course.

Share – In what ways has your relationship been hurt, and what’s helped you repair it?