Weddings Toasts & Speeches

It may seem counter-intuitive to say that in order to save your marriage you need to stop talking to your partner, but this could in fact be the very thing that allows some couples to move beyond their problems and return to happiness together.

In most cases, a couple going through a stormy period of marriage will end up sitting with a couple’s therapist in attempt to work out the problems. At first it is often tense and having to sit there and listen to the other person’s gripes and grumbles is very aggravating. Yet in the end, some will be able to find common ground and come out okay. Others will turn their sessions into shouting matches that eventually lead to a divorce.

Are you wondering how you can end up one of the former, rather than the latter?

If you want to turn talk time into a rekindled marriage, you have to understand at some point that the actual talking is not what heals a marriage. What will ultimately save a relationship is both people being able to really listen to one another and then take deliberate steps outside of talk time to make things better for one another.

Talk that does not lead to action is not enough. Sessions that include two closed-off, bitter people sitting with arms crossed tight waiting for their chance to rip the other person apart or cry about how they have been hurt and betrayed will lead nowhere good. It can’t do any good because everyone is talking but no one is listening.

If you are going to try to talk things out, pay attention to what happens after each session. There will always be some sort of action at every moment of every day, and it’s the action after a talk session that will ultimately determine your chances of really working things out. If you both storm to opposite corners or have a huge screaming match, chances are low of coming out successful.

Yet, if you can really listen to one another in the therapists office or even just while sitting down for an honest conversation, then you have a fighting chance. You don’t need months of sessions or months of at-home fighting to fix a marriage. What you need is a short period of honest discussion followed by action.

If you really want to save your marriage, then realize that action counts more than words. When it comes down to rekindling a flame or letting it snuff out, what you do counts much more than what you say.