Save Your Marriage

Have you noticed how often prophesies seem to be self-fulfilling?  That is rather than predict the future, they set the path of the future into place?

Have you noticed how well you can predict when your spouse will be nice and when he or she will misbehave?  Do you find yourself preparing yourself for the worst, preparing for battle, getting all your verbal weapons lined up and responses prepared so that you can respond to what your spouse is going to say before its finished being said?

And, what happens after that when you see your spouse?  Sparks fly?  If your spouse doesn’t start them, you start them just to make sure your spouse doesn’t get there first.  Or the look on your face and your body language and the tone of your voice sets your spouse off.  Perhaps there’s a silent treatment involved, or perhaps you think there is and don’t want to be oblivious.  But, you know there’s a fight coming, and soon you find you’re right.

Can I be blunt and honest about it?  That’s dumb.  But, we’ve probably all done it.

Good News

If this principle can work in the negative, guess what?  It can also work in the positive.

Try this:  Tell yourself the next time you see your spouse, your spouse is going to be loving, nice, responsible, caring, decent, and in a great mood.  Tell yourself your spouse is diligent, wise, and the best there is.  If your spouse commits a small offense win a victory over it by acting as if it has not happened or as though there your spouse must have been under stress to do such a thing and would never have done it if not for that stress.

That’s the “As If” technique.  Often when we choose to think and behave as though our spouses were at their best, before long they will want to live up to that and things automatically start to get better.

Of course, if you know for certain your spouse is doing something really horrible like beating you or your children or carrying on with affairs, this technique would not be appropriate for that kind of behavior.  You and your children need to be safe and more drastic measures are needed.  But, for the everyday struggles of normal marriages, this technique can often work wonders.