Save Your Marriage

How do you save your marriage? Exactly, what would one do to save his or her marriage?

I am serious about asking the question. Saving a marriage is a term that I have heard for years and I have always thought that I knew what it meant. It's just that upon thinking about it, I realized that I pretty much haven't got a clue what that means.

I guess it's like saving an old, historic building from the wrecking ball. Keeping the marriage intact. But, does that mean legally? Does that mean emotionally? Does that mean physically?

Anyway, a marriage is a dynamic entity. Something that comes into being when two individuals interact. Individuals who are continually aging, learning, forgetting, making mistakes, doing great things, etc. etc.

An historic building just sits there. Maybe it gets new windows, safer wiring, new elevators, but if it didn't stay relatively static, why wouldn't we just build a new one?

When it comes to marriages, relationships, I think that the White Queen had it right when she explained to Alice in the Alice in Wonderland story that she was always running because if she stopped, she would go backwards.

Is it possible that "saving a marriage" is so hard because it implies stopping and stopping is actually going backwards?

Of course, there is something comforting in saving something in that we know what we're saving and in moving forward we can't know what will happen.

Relationships grow in cycles of a series of steps, (a description of which can be found by clicking HERE .) With each step we build on the old, but we never know for sure what the new will bring until we step into it.

Divorce Is A Tough Deal At Best

No matter how you slice it or dice it, divorce is hard on everyone involved. Maybe it is the best that you can do, but don't get the idea that it is easy or a positive step forward as some divorce lawyers' webites would have you believe.

Before you talk to divorce lawyers or mediators, get yourself a course in the realities of getting divorced

• financial
  
• emotional
  
• children
  
• odds of getting right the second time.
  

Remember that they are in the business of getting you divorced, not saving marriages. Don't expect them to be able to answer questions that are rightly only answered by you. Should you divorce? Yours/What will it cost? Theirs/How will it affect your children? Yours/ etc.

It is a lot cheaper financially and emotionally to do everything you can to
save your marriage before you head for the lawyer's office.

And, let's not forget both the spiritual costs and opportunities afforded by this intensely personally challenging situation. There are excellent resources available to save your Christian marriage.

In one of my favorite quotes that is usually misquoted, Grantland Rice (a great sports writer from the 1930's) said: "When you meet that great scorekeeper in the sky, he will ask you not if you won or lost, but how you played the game."

Also, for those of you in the AARP age range, I have a growing website that talks about these kinds of things too www.Better-Relationships-Over-50.com/divorce.html. I don't purport to have all the answers (or even all the questions), but it is an honest attempt to put out some good stuff.