Episodes

There are some questions that can help a marriage. There are many thoughts that can improve your relationship. But there is one question that will suck the life right out of a marriage. And it is a question you don't even need to ask another person, in order to do the damage. In fact, another person won't make a difference for this question. It is a question lurking within you. Oh, and did I mention that another question, similar to this question -- but very different in direction -- can help re...

Do you find yourself and/or your spouse anchored to a problem by anxiety or anger? Guess what? Anger and Anxiety -- they come from the same space! One is the inner, the other is the outer expression of fear/hurt/threat. And wow, can it ever anchor both of you to the problems -- keeping you from moving to solution. Why does the Anxiety-Anger become an anchor? How do you cut the line and get back on-track to healing your marriage? Listen to today's podcast to learn more on releasing the Anxiety-An...

Since my book, Thrive Principles, came out, people have asked me why I shifted my focus from saving marriages to thriving. In reality, there is no shift. My System on saving a marriage is the same path to having a thriving marriage. In fact, my focus from the beginning was on how to have a thriving life in all areas of living -- including in marriage. Which means that there are many cross-over points between how we thrive and how we save a marriage. In this week's Save The Marriage Podcast, I di...

Sometimes, people tell me that as they are trying to save their marriage, they actually feel like they are trying to earn back the love of a spouse. They want to know if that is what it really is -- earning back the love (and even trust). The short answer is NO, that is not the goal. A slightly longer answer is that if you are working to earn back love, you are also working on building a unsustainable and not-very-healthy relationship. That is my topic for this week's Save The Marriage Podcast: ...

It may be an odd preoccupation, but I pour over the scuba accident reports. I like to see how the accidents happened, what led to the accident, and how it might have been prevented. The same approach is taken to studying scuba accidents as is applied to airline accident and medical accidents. And it should be applied to marriage crises. There's a theory of accidents in systems that is called the "Swiss Cheese Theory of Accidents." Another description would be "multiple causations in spite of pre...

It happens. In the middle of a marriage crisis, you can find yourself surrounded by negativity. A spouse negative about the marriage. Friends and family negative about your efforts to save your marriage. You negative, well, about everything you are doing (it is easy to slip into self-blame and self-doubt). Negativity comes from several sources: fear, protectiveness, anger, resentment, lack of understanding, and lack of clarity. Regardless of the source, you may find yourself reacting poorly -- n...

I get asked this on a regular basis, both from people who are in the middle of wanting to save their marriage, and those who are wanting to leave. This is what I get asked: "What does it matter if we save it or not?" In this episode, I cover some of the negative impacts that come with ending a marriage. Not to scare, but to clarify. Why clarify? Because when we are in pain, we tend to look for a way away from the pain. We tend to not think about those longer term effects. And then, we find ourse...

Slowly, slowly... you are making progress! You keep working on turning your marriage around... and it is working! Maybe you think it isn't moving fast enough. Or maybe you have just been holding all of those emotions, fears, and hurts, in... and they start to grow. You can feel it! But you try hard not to let it out. To keep on moving forward. To keep on making connections. Until... Maybe it was something small... Maybe it was yet one more little thing (or even a medium thing... maybe even a big...

You may just be on a fishing expedition, and not even realize it! If you are trying to get your spouse to respond, trying to get some feedback from your spouse, you are on a fishing expedition! You probably won't attract what you want. And you may scare away what you most want to attract. Do you think you might be on a "fishing expedition"? Listen in to this week's podcast and see if you are fishing. . . and what to do if you ARE! RELATED RESOURCE: Gary Chapman Interview Save The Marriage System

Today, I tackle a pretty sensitive subject: the difference between "Doing The Right Thing" and "Doing It Right." Let me be very clear: I believe that working to save your marriage is heroic work. It is pretty counter-cultural in our world of "throw away." We do it with stuff and relationships. I also believe that working on saving a marriage is courageous. It's pretty scary to be in the middle of a crisis, and to CHOOSE to work on the relationship. That is the definition of courage -- feeling fe...

It is such a common demand from a spouse during a marital crisis: “I need space! You just need to give me space!” Yet here I am, telling you to connect with your spouse, to rebuild the broken connection that led to the crisis. Are they opposites? One listener to the Save The Marriage Podcast was wondering. Which means that others might be wondering the same thing. Here is the problem: When your marriage is in crisis and a spouse asks for space, if you can’t give it, your spouse will demand MORE ...

“Why is marriage so hard?” That is a question I often hear from struggling couples. What happened? All of that love, all the connection, seems to disappear, to be replaced with struggle and strife. At the start, it seemed so easy. You wanted to be together, to spend your life together. Then… something shifted. Things got tough. Does that mean that the marriage was wrong, that you married the wrong person? Or is there something else going on? There are several challenges that arise in any marriag...

You have already journeyed to here. Maybe your relationship is hurting and in pain. Maybe your connection has gone cold. But however you got here, whatever the path, you want to get somewhere different. Somewhere better. It may seem cliche, but it is a journey. And this last part of the journey, it has some stops along the way. Many times, people think (and want) it to be a linear path, stopping along the way, but arriving at the end, reconciled and in love. Those four big stops? Apology Forgivi...

You are working on your marriage. You reach out toward your spouse. . . only to feel rejected. After that stops you in your tracks. You start doubting yourself, your efforts, your plan. . . . STOP. What if your spouse was not really intending to reject you? What if something else was going on? What if I told you that almost always (I would say "always," but then someone would work hard to prove me wrong), it is not really an attempt to reject. It is really an attempt to protect. Not "protect you...

“Should I even keep fighting for my marriage?”, asks “G.” Oof, that word… “fighting.” I hear it often. But so many times, when someone says they are “fighting for” their marriage, they end up “fighting against” their spouse. The spouse who doesn’t see how to move forward. Which is rarely helpful for the process. But I watch person after person “suit up” to do battle, not even sure on what they are fighting. So, let me clarify that with the question from “E.” She asked why I always talk about con...

First, let me be clear: if you are actively saving your marriage, working toward a better relationship... stop reading and go do something else! This won't apply to you! But if you want to save your marriage... but for some reason, you just can't get moving... hang with me! YOU are the one that will benefit from this episode. That "some reason" is what I want to take a look at. In this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, I discuss the 4 "F" words that are keeping you from taking action... ...

In my Save The Marriage System Quick-Start Guide, I show the 8 distinct stages of a marriage crisis. But those are the stages of the crisis. There are also stages to your awareness of the crisis. This is the point where you are aware of the crisis, the level of the crisis, and the potential threat of the crisis. And just to let you know: you are NOT at stage 1. That would be Asleep. This is the point when you are not even aware that things are in trouble. You are blissfully unaware of — or choos...

You've heard the story about the frog and the kettle. It's the slowly heating water that sneaks up on the frog before it can react. Turns out, frogs are smarter than that. They jump when things get dangerous. But the metaphor survives because it describes something we do in marriage. Except our kettle doesn't heat up. It cools down. Most couples hit a pause button at some point — kids, career, a season of life that demands everything. The intention is good: we've got this, we'll get back to us l...

Most people wait for hope to show up. They treat it like weather — something that either arrives or doesn't, something outside their control. And when it doesn't show up, they take that as a sign. Maybe it's over. Maybe it wasn't meant to be. Maybe there's just nothing left to work with. But what if hope isn't something you wait for? What if it's something you build? Waiting for hope is passive. Building hope is a choice. In this episode, I go back to work from researcher Charles Snyder, who map...

She did everything right. When her marriage hit a crisis, she and her husband went to therapy. They showed up every week. They stayed with it for months. They did what you're supposed to do. And then the therapist told them she didn't think she could help them. Nothing was working. She didn't see a path forward. They walked out feeling like failures. Like they had somehow flunked marriage therapy. Like the problem was them. Here's what I want you to know: she was wrong about that. And if you've ...

If your spouse has said the word divorce — or you're afraid they're about to — the next 72 hours matter more than you might think. Not because you can fix everything that quickly. But because what you do in this window will either create a path forward or make recovery significantly harder. In this episode I talk about what's actually happening in this moment — in your brain, in your body, and in the dynamic between you and your spouse — and why the response that feels most necessary right now i...

People ask me this all the time. And given that my website is called Save The Marriage, most assume they already know my answer. They're wrong. No. Not every marriage can (or should) be saved. I want to be straight about that. There are situations where saving the marriage is not the goal, and pursuing it would be a mistake. If that's where you are, this episode will tell you clearly. But here's what I also believe: far more marriages could be saved than actually are. And the gap between those t...

Most people who contact me have already decided. They've looked at where things stand — the distance, the silence, the failed attempts — and they've reached a conclusion: it's too late. The damage is too deep. Nothing is going to work. Here's the problem with that conclusion. It's almost certainly wrong. Not because things aren't serious. They may be very serious. But because there's a critical difference between a marriage that is truly bankrupt and one that is simply overdrawn — and from the i...

No, this isn't some electrical engineering idea. Instead, it has more to do with human nature. We often want to find the switch, the on/off switch for some situation. Turn off stress by doing this, turn on fitness by doing this. On or off. With a switch. This causes us to be looking for some super-easy, simple solution... often to complex issues. Particularly when it is a marriage crisis. A marriage -- much less a marriage crisis -- is not an on/off situation, and no simple switch will turn it a...