When most people are told that they need to ‘change’ to help save their marriage, they often get defensive from the start. Unfortunately, this is only natural, after all, the first thing that probably shoots through our heads when we hear that we need to change is: What? But it’s not our fault!
Frankly, there is no ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ when it comes to most relationship problems. Granted, yours may be different, but in the vast majority of cases it is simple things borne out of living together for a prolonged period that eventually simply boil over.
Thus, the question of laying blame should never even arise. Instead, you need to realize that there’s more than one form of change.
Almost everyone, when told that they need to try and change, associate it with the fact that they’re doing something to upset their partner and so they should stop doing it. While in some cases this may be true, it certainly isn’t the only way in which you should look at your relationship’s problems. Maybe the majority of your arguments were caused because it was your partner who was doing something that you simply couldn’t stand…
In that situation does it mean that there’s nothing you can change?
Of course not! When the problem is something of that nature, all you need to do is try to change and be more tolerant. Really, this may be even harder than simply breaking an old habit, because tolerance is something that does take time to build.
If you look back at the various problems you’ve had over the course of your marriage now though, and think about all the times when an argument could have been averted by if you’d simply changed something small… do you think your marriage would be in the dire straits that it is in? Probably not.
Changing and saving a marriage definitely does take on more than one form, for both you, and your spouse.
