When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. ~Victor Frankl
You don’t need me to tell you about the dire state of the American economy and the reverberations being felt around the world. While you’re probably well aware of how this is directly impacting your bank account, home value, and nest egg, there is a <i>hidden casualty</i> that doesn’t seem to be getting any press:
Marriages and relationships are buckling under the stress of these uncertain, stressful economic times.
Money is a sensitive and complicated issue for many couples. Arguments and power struggles can easily result and couples often feel blindsided by how a once strong relationship can be pulled apart by conflicts over finances. Here are five steps you can take to help your relationship survive this economic crisis.
1. Make the decision to keep your relationship a priority
It is easy to lose sight of the importance of your relationship during tough economic times (or during any stressful period). Many loving couples lose their way when worries about job security and money begin to take center stage in their relationship-intimacy is temporarily compromised when you or your partner become overwhelmed by fear; the very bond that supports your union can be weakened when your fears become a mainstay of your relationship.
Becoming conscious of this danger is essential to the health of your marriage or relationship. Make it a habit to check in with each other and acknowledge the importance of your relationship-you both need to make a conscious effort to help your love transcend the hurdles you face. With a little planning you and your partner can create “no-worry-zones” throughout the day–protected moments where you both give one another permission to only think about each other, about the positive aspects of your relationship. Think of these as temporary pit-stops that can allow you both to refuel the relationship.
Remember, if you’re anxious about money and/or job security, it will take effort and practice for you to be fully present with your spouse or partner in these moments.
2. Acknowledge and accept changing roles
We all play different roles in our relationships (and in our lives). For instance, you might be the “go-to person” during times of trouble; or maybe you’re the joker who makes everyone smile.
Often changes in family income bring about changes in the roles that were a natural part of your relationship-the bread-winner who took pride in supporting her/his family may now have to apply for unemployment (or take two jobs just to make ends meet); The full-time parent may now be forced to leave the children in someone else’s care and search for work. Beyond defining us as individuals, many of our assumed roles give particular meaning and value to our lives-and we can feel shaken at our core when stripped of these roles.
Share your struggles with your spouse/partner and supportive others if you are having difficulty transitioning into a new and unwelcome role in your life.
3. Find new ways to connect and enjoy one another
Your income and resources may change drastically during a financial crisis-or you may live with chronic anxiety that your finances can drastically change at any moment. Money that you originally allocated for vacations, dining out, gifts and other leisure activities may suddenly be needed to pay the mortgage or rent, be used for food, and utility bills (or saved for future expenses). Your relationship needs to change with the changing tides of your finances.
The challenge is for you and your partner to seek out new ways to connect and enjoy each other without the constraints of limited finances. You’ll need to adopt a new mindset for this to occur and you’ll each need to sacrifice. As your inspiration think of the starving artist or broke college student who are able to create meaningful relationships despite being financially destitute. Try to forget the trappings that money brings and head back to romance basics: holding hands, long walks, movies, games (is anyone up for charades?), making each other laugh…brainstorm together on how to have inexpensive, low- to no- cost fun.
4. Learn to ask for help/seek support from each other
Denial and stoicism aren’t useful, especially if you’re feeling overwhelmed and anxious. Unfortunately, some couples keep their collective heads in the sand and act like it is business as usual until something drastic happens-well, something pretty drastic is happening, so now may be a good time to get your head out of the sand.
All too often couples don’t share their fears with one another-this is especially the case for men. It’s so common it’s become a cliché: the stoic male who’d rather not talk about his feelings (especially emotions that make him feel helpless and not in control); the male who doesn’t access his partner for support but instead pulls away and attempts to deal with problems by himself, leaving his spouse/partner feeling isolated, confused and alone. And, while this pattern is more typically seen in men, there are women who also withdraw in the face of stress.
There’s no way to sugarcoat this: It’s dangerous for you and your partner to begin withdrawing from each other-you’ll now be faced with the anxiety of a troubled relationship on top of everything that’s playing out across the global economy.
5. Understand how you each cope with stress
Lack of financial security creates anxiety in all of us. As your anxiety level escalates during these uncertain times it becomes easy to displace your reactions to stress onto your partner.
No matter how healthy your relationship or marriage is, it is common for conflict to escalate when you and/or your partner are under stress. Ideally couples will learn to rely on one another to get through the difficult times that are part of every life. The reality, however, is often different.
A brief example of how financial stress negatively affected Vince and Karen:
Vince recently lost his job as a systems analyst at a large insurance company. In order to make ends meet, he needed to find work quickly and took a job making significantly less money. For the first time in their marriage, money was extremely tight. Rather than seek out Karen for support, Vince became more withdrawn and began to feel inadequate as a husband–his self-esteem is tightly wrapped around his ability to support his family. Confused by her husband’s behavior, Karen began to confront Vince about his “bad attitude.” Repeated conflicts replaced the once peaceful terrain of their marriage.
Part of the problem for Vince and Karen (as well as for many couples) is that they each have very different coping styles when faced with stressful life events. Vince withdraws and ruminates (rather than seeking support from others) and this triggers a fear reaction in Karen who begins to worry that their marriage is in trouble.
Is there a solution to this dilemma?
Become mindful of each other’s coping style
Often a marriage or relationship is damaged not by the stress itself, but by the way in which you and your partner cope with stress. The more information you have about how you both deal with the pressures of life (your typical patterns of coping), the more understanding and empathy you will have for one another during relationship rough patches.
Is your relationship worth protecting?
Visit StrengthenYourRelationship.com and sign up for Dr. Nicastro’s FREE Relationship Toolbox Newsletter.
As a bonus, you will receive the popular free reports: “The four mindsets that can topple your relationship” and “Relationship self-defense:
Control the w
ay you argue before your arguments control you.”
Richard Nicastro, Ph.D. is a marriage and relationship expert with over fifteen years experience helping individuals and couples live more fulfilling lives. Dr. Nicastro’s relationship advice has appeared on television, radio and in national magazines.
Marriage is tied firmly with the aid of love and love itself comprises a number of characters that serve as elements that aid and empower love to performing its action in marriage thus tightning marriage firmly.
However,marriage being the primary source of every family and family being the primary source of every society,should have meaning making it the primary source of every society.
Marriage in brief;is the legal union between male and female thus,coming together of male and female to become husband and wife legally.Meanwhile,LOVE is sacrifice.In this regard;sacrifice means;given up your pleasure or taste at the expense of the other which is what is expected in marriage.
LOVE cannot just exis and last in marriage till it is accompanied by these characters:
Emotion:
This is the first character of love in any relationship bringing people together.Emotion is the strong feeling we have for each other when we are in relationship and it shows some kind of appreciation for ones existence in ones life that makes it some how difficult for one to live when the other is not.There must be emotional feeling in marriage to encourage love.
EXPRESSION:
This is a way of expressing our feelings mostly without saying anything.When one is in love and does not express it,it disappoints and disagrees with ones partner’s love and may cause shortage of the love when it is not encouraged for relatively a long period of time.
CARING:
This is another way of showing love.Caring is prepared in the heart stays in the heart and only shows when the occasion calls for it and needs some weapon to blossom its action.Some times;its weapon could be money,mental devotion,physical or some other thing,it just need it.
Affection:
Affection is a character of love that shows when the love has gotten deep.At this stage,lovers always know what is in each other’s mind,each other’s feeling even with saying nothing.It is just a way of knowing real love.
FEELINGS:
This is synonymous to above mentioned in love.For full details on MARRIAGE,LOVE and their TIES click TIES OF LOVE IN MARRIAGE.In what ways do we see functions of love in marriage?
Selfishness in marriage:
This is an aspect of marriage where the role of love in marriage is seen.It eliminates the selfishness in marriage and improves sacrifice.
Doubt:
Doubt is one of the factors that causes divorce in marriage and if there is a solid strong pure love accompanied with its ties in marriage;doubt will always be far away from the home.
Faith:
Love improves faith in marriage and when there is faith,there will always be co-operation and progress in the home.
Mutual Understanding:
It is the existence of love in marriage that permits the existence of mutual understanding and dispute free family.
Advantages and need for love is so many beyond what I can narrate here.For more on it click details on love.
However,advantages of love and its need are mentioned in brief above,now,how can we improve LOVE in the family?
Sacrifice:
This is one of the major way through which we can promote love in relationship.this is illustrated with this quote “loving a perfect person in a perfect way is not love but loving an imperfect person in a perfect way”.Meaning:naturally,nothing is perfect but with sacrifice,we can make things perfect to sweet our need.
Appreciation:
This is another way of improving love in marriage.www.myngn.blogspot.com discusses further on all.
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No one can deny the benefit of preventive medicine. First of all, it’s often easier to prevent an illness than it is to cure it–that’s why you go in for your annual physical (or why you should). And we all can agree that feeling healthy is preferable to feeling sick. So looking out for potential illnesses before they take over your life is the reasoning behind the medical check-up.
But when was your last relationship check-up?
Everyone needs a Relationship Check-up…
Unfortunately, couples and couples counselors have not adopted the philosophy of the regular physical for relationships. Most often, the approach is to wait for problems to arise, persist, and then to seek help. To compound the problem, most marriage counseling is focused exclusively on the presenting complaint–this problem-centered focus often obscures any resilient aspects of a relationship that already exist, ones that might be used in a healthy way. This sends the message that couples should only seek counseling or give their relationship close attention when a crisis arises. Couples counseling is seen as a last resort, an act of desperation.
Shouldn’t there be an alternative to this approach?
The typical journey to marriage counseling:
Meet Joanna and Bernie—the “every” couple.
Like many modern-day couples who try to juggle numerous commitments and responsibilities, Joanna and Bernie have their share of stress. And this stress has taken a toll on them. Over time, their relationship has suffered.
Depending on circumstances, relationship problems surfaced but then seemed to disappear…only to resurface at some later point. As time passed, this pattern intensified and became more frequent, often with no resolution. The vitality and life that was once a part of their relationship started to give way to hurt feelings, then withdrawal and finally indifference. As their marriage became more painful, Joanna and Bernie started to channel their energies elsewhere: Work-related activities, parenting and/or time spent with family and friends supplanted the time that was once spent enjoying each other.
As unresolved issues continued to fester, the familiar relationship that once offered comfort and meaning was nowhere to be found. Beleaguered and hopeless, it became painfully obvious to Joanna and Bernie that marriage counseling was needed if they wanted to head off a divorce.
Couples often endure an agonizing existence for years before seeking help—and like a slowly developing medical problem, the more time that elapses before seeking treatment, the poorer the prognosis.
But what if Joanna and Bernie had been going for an annual relationship check-up?
Isn’t it possible that their marriage problems could have been identified early on and Joanna and Bernie been given the tools needed to tackle these issues?
Unfortunately, few options exist for couples who want to evaluate the overall health of their relationship before problems crop up.
When is a problem a “real” problem?
There is a level of decisiveness when someone is dealing with a physical aliment: if you develop a pounding headache that won’t go away, you call your doctor; when you injure your back to the point where you can hardly move, you see a specialist immediately.
This level of decisiveness is lacking when it comes to relationship aliments.
Some couples quarrel often and still have strong relationships; however, conflict can signal the start of significant trouble for others. Some couples make love infrequently but still feel fulfilled and connected with each other, while for other couples, a lack of physical intimacy is a sign that help is needed. In other words, a problem for one couple isn’t necessarily a problem for another.
Would you call a counselor for a relationship check-up if you faced any of the following?
~Lately your marriage seems less fulfilling;
~You start wondering if this is all that love has to offer;
~Over the last few months, you and your husband have been arguing more frequently;
~You’ve noticed that your wife has been withdrawing from you and avoiding intimacy;
~When you have the choice, you prefer spending time with friends rather than with your partner;
~You find that you have no desire to make love to your husband.
If you answered “no” to the above question (whether or not you’d call a professional if you faced any of the aforementioned issues), you’re not alone. And quite frankly, your marriage or relationship might be fine in spite of any one of the above concerns. But then again, one of these observations might also signal that your relationship needs some attention. This is why ongoing attention is so vital for the health of your relationship.
What a Relationship Check-up Can Do for You:
A relationship check-up should focus on all aspects of your relationship—highlighting what is working well, each person’s unique strengths, how these strengths can best be utilized in the relationship, as well as any areas that might need attention so problems can be prevented. Couples can leave a relationship check-up invigorated and with a plan of action that will help them keep their marriage or relationship moving in the right direction.
This preventive medicine approach is a healthy alternative to “just putting up with” relationship problems before seeking help.
Are you ready to implement the preventive medicine model for your relationship? Dr. Nicastro offers a FREE relationship check-up by phone!
Visit www.StrengthenYourRelationship.com to schedule your free relationship check-up. And don’t forget to sign up for Dr. Nicastro’s Relationship Toolbox Newsletter.
Richard Nicastro, Ph.D. is a relationship and intimacy coach with fifteen years experience helping individuals and couples. Dr. Nicastro’s relationship advice has been featured on television, radio and in national magazines.
Marital problems are one reason why many marriages falter. These problems begin to erode the foundations of a marriage. Our lifestyles is part of the reason why most couples have trouble making their marriages work. The distance that creeps into a marriage is yet another reason for marriages become broken.
With so many reasons for marital problems being seen, it is a miracle that people still get married. The faith in a marriage is one reason why there is hope left to resolve these marital problems. You will also find many people who can help you through the difficult times that these problems bring.
One fact that sometimes gets forgotten in marital problems is that it is not only the couple who suffer from the problems. The other members in the entire family are affected by the problem. This fact becomes even worse if there are children. In this case the problems need to be solved in an amicable manner.
The children should not become victims of the marital problems. Instead you should find ways of dealing with these problems while keeping the children safe and happy. It should be realized that sometimes the various problems in the marriage have made the idea of living together an impossibility.
If this is the case divorce is the only solution. Getting help from trained professionals can help you see the best way to end the marriage without giving yourself and others lots of pain. While the end of a marriage can be in itself very painful there is no need to prolong the agony by dragging at all of the marital problems.
To help couples solve these many marital problems your counselor should have some interesting alternatives to look into. One such idea that you can try out is that of going to spend some time at a marriage retreat. These are located at various scenic locations in the country. As they are away from the hustle and bustle of city life you can find ways of resolving your marital problems without any distractions.
To solve any serious marital problems that you have it is important that you talk about these matters in the presence of a third party. This party will be able to give you some advice. You can use the advice or if you feel that you can’t live together see about getting a divorce.
Marital problems are an intrinsic part of married life. How you deal with these problems reflect the attitude you have towards your marriage. Unrealistic ideas will only help to disintegrate your marriage. This means that if you want a happy married life you should expect to see some marital problems crop up which you will have the ability to resolve quickly.
Muna wa Wanjiru is a web administrator and has been researching and reporting on internet marketing for years. For more information on Marital problems, visit his site at MARITAL PROBLEMS
OK, so you know you have marriage problems, or believe that you do but can you actually define what the root cause of your marriage problems actually is? You might believe that your marital issues are so great that you can’t reconcile your differences but if you can’t actually identify the true problem how do you actually know?
You’re talking about a life long commitment here. How can you even consider throwing your marriage on the scrap heap if you can’t even define what your marriage problems are? And I’m not talking about all the petty little issues that you are trying to pin the problem on, I’m talking about the real marriage problems, the ones that started the wedge between you and are continuing to drive you apart.
If you can’t define the problems you have no chance of resolving them. You need to put some effort in here, it might seem like too much of a chore and a waste of your time but I can assure you that actually identifying what your true marriage problems / problem are, is time well spent.
Let me ask you one question, what is one of the best ways to learn? Most people will find that they learn by experience, by making their own mistakes and learning from them. Apply this to your marriage problems and you’ll see that it’s well worth understanding what’s going on here. Understand what your marriage problems are, I mean really understand, and you’ll have something to work with and learn from. If you know what you need to fix it’s so much easier to fix it, this applies to marriage as much as it does to any other problems you have in life.
If you don’t do something now the likelihood is that you’ll live to regret it. What if you knew that just defining your marriage problems means that you have a strong chance of sorting your marriage out? Wouldn’t that one piece of knowledge make you want to take action?
If you are reading this you are already searching for a solution and have probably already realised, like most things in life, there is no magic cure to marriage problems, but there is a systematic approach that can be applied to understand and resolve most marital issues, with understanding the root cause being the first step to getting your marriage back on track.
Just take some time to think about your marriage problems:
If the intimacy is gone, where has it gone? It’s not enough to know it’s happened you need to understand why?
If you no longer have anything in common, why? What did you used to do? When did things change? Why did things change?
If you are continually arguing, when did it start? Why did it start? What changed?
If one of you has had an affair, why did it happen? I’m not talking about the affair itself I’m talking about what was going on in your marriage before the affair started. Be totally honest here, were there problems with the marriage before the affair started? What were the problems?
This is just a small example of the kind of questions you need to ask yourself, obviously the type of questions are dependent on the marriage problems you need to address but I think by now you are starting to understand the basic fact that if you want to resolve your marriage problems and save your marriage you need to identify and understand what your marriage problems actually are.
To learn how to resolve marriage problems visit commonmarriageproblems.marriagehealth.com
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