Unhappy Marriage? Learn How You Can Revitalize Your Marriage

We were madly in love and wanted to spend all of our time together. He proposed. I was elated. I was going to get married to my dream guy!

So, what happened? We got married, had a gorgeous wedding. But, not even a year later, I was very unhappy. This was not what I was expecting. Our first couple months as a married couple, we got along great. True-blue newlywed bliss. Where did it go?

I’m happy to find out that this is actually quite common. I was even happier to find out that it can be helped. An unhappy marriage does not mean a dead-end marriage, it can be helped!

I know this well. I was so depressed I nearly needed to leave my job. My family couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. My friends asked me if I really should have married him. But that never went through my mind. I loved him, I still love him, I was just unhappy.
So, how do I get out of this awful situation? Well, I knew I couldn’t do what I had been doing for the past six months, which was wait  for him to notice that I was unhappy. Or maybe I thought things would magically get better, or that it was just a phase. I don’t know. But I know now that the first thing I needed to do, that anyone in this situation needs to do-is realize that you have the power to do something. It doesn’ matter what yet, you just need to let yourself know and believe that you can have a happy marriage, it is possible. That is the first and most imprtant step. It took me a long time to understand this. It’s much easier to hope and pray than to get up and get ready to do something scary.

Click Here to Learn How to Revitalize Your Marriage! 

 You start getting worried, what if he leaves me if I say something? Don’t worry about it. You can’t stay in your current situation, it is up to you to change it. You won’t lose him. He likely feels the same way you do, that something has changed, but can’t figure out quite what it is, he may feel the exact same way you do, and just as scared. You need to be strong.

The next step you need to do is figure out what changed. Do Not try to do this before you are completely comfortable with step one! Something had to have changed in order to make you feel as if you are now unhappy. What was it that made you fall in love? What did you do before you were married, before you were unhappy? Do you do any of that now? Do not play the blame game at this point. That will just get you into trouble. Don’t think, “Well, he used to take me out to dinner every Friday night and now he doesn’t, so it’s his fault I’m unhappy”. Don’t do that, that doesn’t help anyone.

After you have figured out the changes, try to figure out what made these changes happen. In the last example, the husband hs stopped taking the wife out to dinner. Does one of you now work longer hours? Do you have something more expensive to pay for, like a child, house, or car? Did you argue on these dates? Or did it just slowly stop happening, due to little obligations, or I’m tired this week, etc? That is actually the most common thing. I realized in my marriage, that we had stopped taking long car rides, talking to each other in bed at night, and going on vacations over long weekends. So I tried to fgure it out. Long car rides- we are both busier now, gas is very expensive, we just don’t think about it. Talking in bed at night- we are very tired when we get home becuase we work long hours. Long weekend vacations- it’s very hard to get off work, money.

I tried not to look at any of these ‘reasons’ as ‘excuses’. But you will probably find that many of these can be fixed rather easily, with a few minor adjustments from both of you. You need to tell your husband that you miss these things. My husband and I made a plan. We would go away on a long weekend twice a year-no matter what. We made deadlines for each one. The first needed to be between January and June, and the second between July and December. If we hadn’t scheduled one by the second to last month, then we jumped on it, took sick days and just left. We needed to make our relationship a priority. We did the same thing with talking to each other at night, we picked one night a week taht we would be willing to be a little tired the next day, or could sleep late, and just talked, updated each other on our lives.

These strategies work. Implement them and you should be happier very soon. But be careful you do them in the correct order and don’t ever blame anybody-including yourself!