“Therefore what God has joined together, let nothing put asunder” (Mark 10:9).
When you feel your marriage is in crisis, emergency tactics are needed to save it, just the same way a hospital emergency is used in severe health related situations.
It is not a time to look other way and think things will get better miraculously, while folding your arms.
In an article by Mitch Temple, he defined a marriage crisis as “a crisis that typically occurs when an unusual amount of stress or unresolved conflict causes the level of anxiety to become too intense for the couple to manage.
As a result, anger, resentment, dissatisfaction, frustration, and hopelessness take control of the relationship. The couple typically continues the negative interactions – or disengages completely from one another, and the relationship shuts down.”
When couple realise that problem is starting to over-shadow the good in the relationship, it is necessary for this couple to look for ways to sort out this problem as fast as possible. Because the more time you leave marital problems to linger, the greater the damage.
In resolving a marriage crisis, the first thing to do is to remove the thought, image of ‘divorce’ out of your head, according to the old military expression “surrender is not an option.”
The thought of divorce alone drains away the energy needed to resolve the problems you are facing.
The only option guaranteed in marriage when faced with crisis is to stand your ground, fight off the things that would separate you and your spouse from one another, and find ways to make things work.
The next resort is to take yourself to the best emergency room, this could be visiting a marriage counsellor or a pro in marriage matters, not just anyone outside the marriage who will only complicate matter the more.
Also, be careful of when and where you table your relationship matters, don’t feel because you are at a family gathering, you should use the opportunity to let your Aunty Abigail in into what you and your spouse have been quarrelling about.
This method will only make things worse, you might upset your spouse more if you use this route, or the third party might give the wrong advice.
During the course of your marital crisis and in the process of resolving it, do not involve your children.
Involving your children can cause damage to them, you might feel you want to gain approval or backing from them, but in doing so you cause them some emotional stress.
Don’t stop showing love; continue to treat your spouse with respect in words and in deeds. You can start afresh; date your spouse all over again, infuse humour and laughing. This will bring back the loving memory that attracted you to one another.
Stop repressing the positive feelings you use to have about your marriage, though it is natural for us to distance ourselves from the positive feelings in order to survive the hurt and hurdles experienced during the marital crisis.
We must find a way to reattach ourselves to those positive, wonderful qualities that our marriage revolves around.
Stop the communication game playing with one another. This is a process whereby one spouse is trying to win an argument by using unfair tactics on the other spouse.
For example, a spouse is trying to prove a point that the other spouse does not know how to spend. S/he then backs up the point saying “it is because h/she came from a poor background.”
Another scenario to explain the communication game playing is when you are amongst friends, and there is an argument on fashion sense, while trying to get your point across, you bluntly used your spouse as an example – “she just doesn’t know how to combine the colours most of the time.”
In this case, though you’ve gotten your point across and won the argument, your spouse on the other hand feels humiliated.
It is foolish to think you are a winner at the expense of making your spouse feel defeated.