5 Steps to Mend a Broken Marriage

Marriages are difficult. Even the best of relationships can reach a place that requires a little bit of TLC. You should remember that there are many different reasons that your relationship might need mending, so the way to repairing the relationship may be unique to those circumstances. But following is a list of five simple steps that you can take to start mending your broken marriage today.

1. Commit to mending it. This means that both people get together and have an honest conversation agreeing that you both want to fix this thing. Many marriages end because only one person wants to repair it. Find out now if that's the case and save yourself a little bit of the heartache.
2. Stop the blame game. Mending your marriage isn't about "winning". It isn't about who did things right and who did them wrong. You won't get anywhere with the relationship if you take that approach to healing it. So next time that you're about to say, "but you did this" or "you never that", stop yourself. Those sentences lead nowhere. Likewise, it's useless to think in terms of, "if only I'd done this" or "it's my fault that she did that". Just stop so you can move on with the mending.
3. Figure out what you want. You can't mend a marriage if you don't even know what you want from the other person. Sit down with a journal, a best friend or a private counselor and figure out what you see as being the problems in the relationship. Figure out what you need to be different before you can have a happy marriage again.
4. Be nice. One of the things that frequently happens in marriages is that you forget to be nice to one another. Remember the little ways that you used to light up each other's lives? When he came in the door, you greeted him with a kiss and a genuine look of appreciation that he was there. When she put on a new dress, you stopped in your tracks to stare and tell her she was beautiful. Yes, now you've seen each other at your ugliest and you put up with each other's flaws. But taking little steps to remind each other of why you think the other person's pretty terrific goes a long way towards mending the daily problems of a relationship.
5. Plan a no-baggage vacation. Yes, your marriage has big issues that need to be dealt with. You need to talk about the money problems, the lack of attention, the different directions you're going, the in-laws, the affair. It's all going to need to be dealt with. Eventually. But it's a lot easier to deal with those things when you feel pleasant towards one another. Take a few days to go on a vacation in which the goal is just to get to re-know each other and have a good time. See something new together, ask first-date-type questions such as, "why did you get the degree you did" and "what exactly do you do at your job?" Assuming that you know the other person is a huge problem in marriages. Taking the time to get to know them again without the fights and hang-ups and baggage lays a good foundation for dealing with the big issues that need to be addressed.