“Help Me Save My Marriage.”

Many men are frustrated and say “help me save my marriage.”  In fact, they may not have known anything was wrong before their wife served the divorce papers on them.  This is a more frequent occurrence than you might suspect.  Therefore, if you are saying help me save my marriage, read on.


Help Me Save My Marriage


A typical scenario in a marriage is that there is a “honeymoon” period where everything goes beautifully.  This may last a few weeks or a couple of years.

After a time, the fights start.  These can be raging battles or silent wars.  It is a tough time in the marriage and everyone recognizes it.  At this point, you may start talking about going to counseling.  At this point, both parties are reaching out, saying “help me save my marriage.”

But after a while, things get quieter.  The man thinks that whatever was wrong has “passed.”  They relax about their marital problems and go on with their life.

Meanwhile, the wife has decided that fighting has produced no results.  But, the situation has not become resolved for her.  Instead, she is weighing her options.  She is planning her post-marriage life.  She will be getting her financial accounts in order, planning how the children’s lives will be affected, and deciding how to support herself after the divorce.  This period can go on for months or years as she puts her house in order.

So, the situation is that the wife has given up on the marriage whereas the husband thinks everything is going along perfectly.

Then, he is shocked when he gets handed divorce papers.  If they weren’t fighting about anything, why should they split up?  He is totally unprepared for the split whereas the wife has been planning for a long time.

He may suggest marital counseling at this point.  But he should be prepared for resistance.  Remember that the wife gave up on the marriage a long time ago.

So, the man needs to open up the lines of communication again.  As the husband, he needs to find out what her needs are and how he can meet them.  His responsibility is to find out what went wrong and to correct it.

It is not easy to fix things when they get this far.  But, it’s not impossible either.  If a wife feels that her concerns have a good chance of being addressed, she may reconsider the divorce.

If she does reconsider, the husband needs to make sure that he never lets down his guard again.  Just because he thinks everything is going along perfectly doesn’t mean his wife sees things the same way.

And that’s the answer to “help me save my marriage.”