If you’re facing a storm in your marriage, take heart! Even the best marriages go through times of crisis, and you can survive it. Here are some keys to repairing your marriage:
1. Seek qualified counsel. As you struggle with a mix of emotions, grief, and decisions, you’ll need a safe place to air out your pain and get helpful feedback. Seek out a counselor who shares your core values (If you’re a Christian, a Christian counselor is the best bet.), and be honest in your talks with her. If your spouse will agree to seeing a counselor together to work through tough issues, that’s great. But even if he’s not ready to get help, you can greatly benefit from going on your own.
2. Don’t broadcast your business. Be very selective with regard to who you share your marriage trouble with. Rule of thumb: the fewer people, the better. Involving the town gossips won’t help in any way, and could actually make things worse. Additionally, when you’ve forgiven your spouse and are ready to move on with your life, others—like extended family—may have a harder time forgiving and forgetting. If you choose to confide in a trusted friend or two, make sure they understand your desire to keep your situation private.
3. Protect your children. As much as possible, shield your children from the ugly details of a marital dispute. It burdens and hurts them, and it adds to the emotional wreckage in your home and the amount of work required to restore peace and harmony.
4. Focus on wisdom and grace. For any marriage to survive, both partners must be willing to extend grace to one another from time to time. And what is grace? Undeserved favor. So even if your spouse made a huge mistake, pray hard and dig deep to find the grace to forgive. If it’s you who caused the problem, make a sincere effort to correct the thinking or circumstances that led to the mistake. Going forward, pray for wisdom on how to prevent the same trouble from making a repeat appearance in your lives.
