How to Ask For a Second Chance in Your Marriage

I don't know the specifics of your situation. Perhaps your spouse is only frustrated in the marriage. Perhaps he or she has taken it further already asked for a divorce or break. Maybe you've simply made a mistake and want to ask your husband and wife for forgiveness, to start over, or for another chance. Whatever your circumstances, I firmly believe (from my personal experience and research) that there is a right way and a wrong way to approach your spouse about this. This article will discuss what I feel is the best way, (with the highest chance of success), to talk your spouse into giving your marriage another chance.

The Wrong Way To Plead Your Case Or Ask For Forgiveness From Your Spouse: No matter what you've done, the absolute first thing to remember is not to panic or act in a desperate way that pushes your spouse further away. It's absolutely understandable that you don't want this pain, misunderstanding or marital damage to continue or go on for any longer than is necessary. It makes sense that you would think that the longer your spouse is angry or hurt, the longer it will take to mend, save, or get the marriage back on track.

However, it's important to remember that acting unstable, desperate, or in an exaggerated way (examples are bugging, berating, and making excessive attempts to communicate with your spouse (repeatedly calling, texting, begging, etc.)) is probably only going to make you appear more unattractive and out of control.

Instead, every chance you can, present yourself as a genuinely loving spouse who respects both herself and her spouse enough to communicate with him / her in a dignified and honest way.

The Right Way To Ask Your Spouse To Give Your Marriage Another Or Better Try: Maybe the problems in your marriage are genuinely your fault. Maybe they aren't. I really can't or don't know the specifics or your situation. No matter what got you here, I believe there is a right way to get you out.

First, if you haven't already, put yourself in your husband or your wife's situation. How do they feel right now? What do they really want to resolve this situation? What can you do to accomplish this while maintaining your integrity and dignity?

(Hint: What most spouses truly want is for their spouses to empathize with them, understand how they feel, and care deeply about those feelings.)

So, if you are going to apologize and ask for a second chance, do it in a very specific way. Address exactly why you are sorry. Tell your husband or wife that you have thought a great deal about the marriage and situation and you suspect that they feel (you have to fill in the blanks here with your honest assessment of how your spouse is feeling.) Ask them if this is accurate and ask them to share their feelings with you. Listen without interrupting or correcting them in any way. Apologize that they feel this way and tell them that you, too, are feeling pain and are going to do everything in your power to end that pain. Then, outline your plan. (This is going to vary based upon your unique situation. Remember when you put yourself in your spouse's shoes and thought about what they wanted? Consider this when formulating your plan.)

If your spouse is not receptive, or wants to argue or strike back, diffuse the situation. You don't want to allow more negative emotions into the situation. Your goal is to begin introducing positive feelings. Understand that this may take a while.

What To Do After You've Asked Your Spouse To Hear You Out: Your spouse may not be receptive at first and you should not push them or lose your patience. Forcing your hand or begging for a definitive answer will likely weaken your position.

The best thing that you can do is, every chance you get, present yourself as a patient, loving, understanding partner who fully understands that your spouse is worth any aggravation and wait.

On an extremely regular basis, you want to present your husband or wife with the best version of yourself - the person that he or she likely first fell in love with. Whether you believe it or not, you likely have an advantage here. Your spouse fell in love with and married you once, so you do know what it takes to win their love and devotion. You just have to accomplish this again, in spite of your current situation.

Later, if you need to, educate yourself on what is necessary to make a marriage strong and lasting. You don't want to repeat the same mistakes and, once your marriage is back on track and strong enough to handle it, you'll need to address any reoccurring or major issues that may keep coming up and weakening your marriage.

Saving Your Marriage When One Spouse Does Not Want To

I find it very rare, at least with my readers, that couples who are approaching a divorce do not have at least one party who isn't sure that this is the right path to take. I hardly ever see a situation where both parties are equally sure that ending the marriage is what they really want to do. More often than not, once spouse feels that his or her mind is made up and that breaking up is the only resolution, while the other thinks that with just a little more work, patience, and commitment, the marriage could actually be saved.

Still, wishing, hoping and having good intentions will only get you so far. If his or her mind is really made up, there is little that you can do to change it, at least not until you change the tactics that you've been attempting that haven't worked. When a spouse has checked out of the marriage, it's usually because they have resigned themselves to the fact that things are never going to change. In order to change their mind about this and to therefore to save the marriage, you must show them that in fact things can and will change very dramatically. I will discuss this more in the following article.

Examine Your Actions And Your Tone To Determine If You're Sending The Message That You Really Want To Get Across: I often ask people to take a moment when they interact with their spouse, and to then detach themselves from the situation, and to look at the interactions as an outsider would. What I mean by this is that the next time you're discussing your marriage with your spouse, stop yourself and just objectively listen and watch what is going on. I realize that this is a difficult task, but it can provide you with invaluable information. Often, it will tell you exactly why your spouse has been tuning you out and ignoring you.

It's probably safe to say that they don't like the message that you have been sending or giving. So, it's vital that you determine what that message is. To make things easier, here are some common implications that people report back to me. Now, I'm telling you what your spouse is hearing because of your tone and the way that you are delivering the message. This may not be your intention. But, this is what most spouses tell me that they hear: "You're wrong about all of this. We've been married a long time and you just think you're unhappy because your expectations are impossibly high;" or "Why are you doing this to me and to us? You should be ashamed of yourself to put us and our children through this;" or "You'd better hope that this blows over because I'm going to dwell on this and be resentful for a long time to come and you will have a life sentence of trying to make this up to me;" or "Please don't leave me. I'm not strong enough or capable enough to live on my own. I'm desperately looking for some way or for some foot hold to trick you into dropping this whole silly thing so we can just continue to limp along as we have been."

Again, I don't mean to be critical or to imply that you are literally saying these things. I know that you are not. But, some variation on this is likely at least some of what your spouse is hearing. And, no one wants to be told that they are just plain wrong, or selfish, or mistaken, or have nothing to look forward to other than more of the same and resentment and anger. My point of this exercise was not to upset you, but to show you where your message may be flawed. Because in order to get them to listen to you and to be receptive to you again, the first step is often to change the message.

Finding The Message That Your Spouse Wants To Hear: To regain access to your spouse, you must regain their attention and their trust. So, you will likely have to change your message and, as bad as this may sound, you must disarm them somewhat so that some of the walls will begin to come down. You have to make sure that they are no longer seeing you as a threat, as someone that isn't going to give them a moment's peace until they "give in," or as someone who is only going to fling anger and resentment at them.

So, when you can be calm enough to deliver the message that you want to give, sit them down and tell them that you've had a change of heart. Although what they've been saying hurts you, you know that you owe it them, yourself, and to your marriage to hear them out and to work with them. You've been thinking long and hard about this, and you realize that they have been right about many things. Neither of you are as happy as you could or should be. Both of you deserve that. The marriage has possibly been broken for a long time. You're done denying that or trying to change their mind about it. You can not change this fact. What's done is done. All that you can do now is to control how you react to the situation and how you make it better for both you. And, you can't possibly predict or even control the future. What you can predict though is your own behavior. So, you're not longer going to behave in a negative way. You're going to conduct yourself in a way that you can be proud of.

Now, understand that your spouse is probably going to doubt either your sincerity or the reality of what you're saying. They may well think that you really want to believe what you're saying, but over time, they suspect that you'll start falling back into hold behaviors. You must show them over time that things are really going to be different and that you are very capable of doing exactly what you said that you would.

Use The Advantages That You Have: You may not realize this, but you do have the advantage of history and knowledge on your side. You know your spouse like no other. You have a shared history that does bind and bond you. And, you know what attributes excites your spouse and makes them fall in love. You possess these attributes. Sure, things change, but your core does not. You may have more time commitments, more responsibilities, and less of yourself to give, perhaps. Or at least it feels this way sometimes. But, you do have the ability to change your priorities, at least for as long as you need to, to get things back on track. Don't try to build Rome in a day or this will place too much pressure on you and your spouse. Focus at first just on reconnecting and becoming comfortable with one another again. Take small baby steps and allow a natural give and take. This won't happen overnight, but if you move slowly and focus on what brought you together in the first place, it can happen.

How to Keep Your Marriage In Tact With Meditation

How difficult is it to keep a marriage? You simply need to look at the divorce statistics. Thousands of couples have decided to separate. Many countries are already making divorce legal. The number of single parents and children with absentee mothers and fathers is increasing.

Keeping a marriage is truly difficult. After all, you're dealing with another person whose personality may be completely different to yours. However, you would not be committed today if you aren't decided to at least give it your best shot.

Interestingly, there are many different ways on how to make sure your marriage can definitely last until death will do you apart. You can keep romanticism alive with regular dates or out-of-town trips. You may leave sweet messages to each other. You can also meditate.

How Meditation Can Improve Marriages

You may ask, "How can meditation improve a marriage condition?" Truthfully, you can count on several ways. First, meditation ensures you can have a clear mind all the time. This is very important as negative emotions can also bring about negative energies into the union. If you are constantly worried or uncertain about certain things, you will become very moody and frustrated. You tend to overlook the good things that could be happening right now in your marriage.

Meditation also makes you aware of things, accepting those that need acceptance. If you're having a hard time forgiving your spouse for a mistake he or she did, you may want to take some time off to meditate. Moreover, if you are unsure why you seem to be irritated by your spouse's presence, you can utilize the same process to get to the root cause of the issue. Perhaps it has something to do with your childhood. Coming to terms with it, facing it, and resolving the issue through meditation can get rid of the blockage and allow yourself to nurture the relationship more effectively.

Meditation also relaxes you. In general, marriage can be very stressful; and you don't want that because, again, it lets out the inner demons such as anger, indifference, and hate. The process of meditating and proper breathing allows the proper flow of blood all over the body and the decreased heart rate and blood pressure. Your muscles and nerves will feel more relaxed and comfortable.

Pairing Meditation with Subliminal Messages

You can also make use of meditation or perhaps make it even more efficient through subliminal messages. What are these? These are sentences or phrases that can assist you in changing your thought pattern. If you are thinking of giving up, the subliminal messages may tell you the opposite. Here are a few examples:

I love my husband (or wife).
I am looking forward to building a family with him.
I am loved and I am prepared to give away love.
I have the capacity to build a good marriage.

By using the subliminal messages and meditation, you can change the way you think about marriage: instead of becoming desperate, you will feel more hopeful and motivated.