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Keep Your Marriage Internet MagazineVolume 3/ Issue No. 01 January 2, 2007 Nancy J. Wasson, Ph.D., and Lee Hefner, Publishers Welcome to Keep Your Marriage Internet Magazine, the resource for individuals who want to overcome marriage problems and create a rewarding, loving marriage. The Keep Your Marriage Philosophy The steps to creating an exceptional marriage include:
It is possible to create the marriage of your dreams if you're willing to work hard, love deeply, dream big, and persevere. In This Issue:
We hope you’ve survived the holiday season reasonably intact, at least. And we want to wish each of you a very Happy New Year ahead. Even if things aren’t perfect in your marriage or your life, there are always many things to be thankful for and numerous unexpected blessings that are headed your way in the coming year. Some of the blessings may be large ones, but others may be less dramatic and easy to overlook if you’re not paying attention and looking for them. You’ll be amazed at what you’ll see if you form the habit of noticing what’s right with your life and expecting to find things to be grateful for each day. Here are some quotes about the New Year that I like:
“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put
words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its
first chapter is New Year's Day.”
“We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room,
drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched.
Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through
the rooms of our lives...not looking for flaws, but for
potential.”
“One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To
rise above the little things.”
“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it
right.” In closing, I’m doing something a little different by including a four-minute audio message that gives my New Year’s wish for you. To listen, just click twice on the left button:
Love and Blessings, Nancy
The Secret of How to Change
Your Marriage Do you hope every day that your spouse will change in some way? That he (or she) will finally “see the light” and recognize the “error of his ways?” There’s nothing wrong with wanting a spouse to change as long as you don’t stop there. If you don’t take the next step, at some point you’ll start to feel helplessly dependent on your spouse’s choices and will be in danger of adopting a victim mentality. Many spouses don’t know the secret of how to change a marital relationship into something different than it is currently. The temptation is to view change as rooted in the other person or “out there” somewhere outside of your control. But, in reality, the ability to create change lies within you. You may have heard the saying, “Change is an inside job.” It’s true. When you change yourself, then your relationship with your spouse, family members, friends, co-workers, neighbors, and acquaintances will also change. Some time ago, I received an email from a woman I’ll call “Annie.” Annie was writing to tell me how much help she had received from the Keep Your Marriage book and bonus materials. I could tell from reading Annie’s email that she really understood the impact that making personal changes can have on a marriage. One Example of Hope and Inspiration Annie has granted her permission for me to share her email with you in hopes that it will provide help and inspiration. Here is an excerpt from her email: “My husband moved out saying he was ‘unhappy’ but would say no more. I have spent the past few months in hell, but your advice gave me something to work on. I have now changed myself, my friends have noticed a big difference in me, and on New Year’s Eve, my husband, unprompted, told me he loved me. Annie “gets it” that the secret to changing your marriage and your life lies within yourself. She made changes in herself that eventually made a difference in her marriage. In a follow-up email, Annie writes: “…the important thing is to keep trying and don’t give in…I’m also now a great believer in time…often the effects of the words I said to my husband weren’t immediate, but given a little time they would sink in and they worked. Before I was the kind of person to demand answers and refuse to accept ‘I don’t know’ as valid. I would pick and chisel away until I thought I had the answer I wanted. I was chiseling away my marriage.Annie deserves the credit and kudos for putting consistent, hard work into working on herself. Many spouses read words of advice suggesting changes they can make, but they never implement the changes. Annie resisted the temptation to blame her husband or sit back passively waiting for him to change. Instead, she chose to focus on putting energy and effort into improving herself and making needed changes. By doing so, she created a win-win situation for herself and for her marriage. Now that you know Annie’s “secret” to changing her marriage, what are you going to do with this knowledge? If your marriage is going to be substantially different at the end of this calendar year, it’s time to get moving. * * * * *
* * * * * “Of all the emails I receive, your weekly newsletter
is the one that gets me ‘stirred up.’ I have been married several times
but I've never before fully understood that all of the responsibility
wasn't my husbands' fault. 4. How to Schedule a Private Consultation
"A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too
busy to take care of his tools." "Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live." "When you are down on your back, if you can look up, you can get up." "No man is ever whipped, until he quits—in his own mind." "I've come to believe that all my past failures and frustrations were
actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created
the new level of living I now enjoy." "Happiness is not a matter of good fortune or worldly possessions.
It's a mental attitude. It comes from appreciating what we have, instead
of being miserable about what we don't have. It's so simple—yet so hard
for the human mind to comprehend."
7. Question and Answer for the Week How to Keep Depression from Hijacking Your Marriage QUESTION: My husband and I have had lack of communication all during our five years of being together. We have been married for four years, and we have three children. Two weeks ago, my husband told me that he doesn’t love me any more and that he couldn’t continue with the marriage. He said that I had changed and that he didn’t like my attitude. He also said that I’m selfish, irritable, and demanding and that I want my own way all the time. I’m not denying this isn’t true, and I realize I can be difficult and hard to put up with. I went to see my doctor, and he referred me to a counselor and made an appointment for my husband to go along, too. He reluctantly went and it turns out that he is depressed and has been for years. When we met, I knew he suffered from depression. He has one sibling who is bipolar and another one who suffers from depression, too. So now I know that everything that has happened in the marriage isn’t just about me. My husband’s depression hasn’t helped our situation, and then the way I’ve been acting just made everything worse. Now, he is seeing a counselor, too, and hopefully this will help. He didn’t have a great childhood, and I think that is affecting him now. I think deep down that he does love me but just can’t show it because of the depression. He has decided to give me a chance and our marriage a couple of months to see if the feelings for me do return. I told him that he can’t put a time limit on sorting out our marriage. But at least he’s giving it a try. Will the counseling help him? Will he have a better outlook on our marriage? Will he get better? Also, how do I change my ways and not return to my old selfish ways? I’m hoping you can advise us. Thanks. ANSWER: What a stroke of luck that the doctor referred you to the counselor and set up the appointment for your husband to go, too. At least he is now getting treatment and help for the depression, and he now knows what’s behind some of the feelings he has been experiencing. According to statistics provided by the National Institute of Mental Health, more than 19 million American adults experience clinical depression annually. Depression is one of the most common psychological problems. It impacts the depressed person’s work, family life, social life, and self-image. When depression is present, it’s as though the individual is wearing glasses that filter out the positive happenings in his or her life and magnify everything that’s negative. The person is more negative, pessimistic, self-critical, and less motivated than usual. A sense of hopelessness and apathy can be present. Many depressed individuals lose their normal enjoyment of activities that they used to find pleasurable. In addition, depression can cause sleep difficulties, resulting in chronic fatigue and lack of energy. Poor self-esteem and excessive guilt are also common. It can be a huge effort for a depressed individual just to go through the normal routines and demands of daily life. Thus, the depression is limiting your husband’s ability to be creative, to think positively about solutions, and to have a more balanced perspective of you and the marriage. It is also likely to be affecting his sexual desire, which may disappear during a bout with depression. This can make the depressed person feel that the passionate “spark” that was once there is gone permanently and can’t be relit. Not only does depression negatively affect sexual passion, but so do some of the medications prescribed to treat depression. That’s why it’s not wise to make major life-changing decisions when suffering from clinical depression. The depression distorts thinking, perceptions, and feelings. The good news is that with proper treatment, nearly 80% of depressed individuals can make significant improvement. Your husband is one of the fortunate individuals who is receiving treatment for his depression. Many times, depression goes unrecognized or untreated. So to answer your questions, yes, it’s likely that in time your husband will get better—if he keeps going to counseling and follows the recommendations of the counselor and his doctor. As the depression improves, his outlook about the marriage may also shift in a more positive direction. Continue to advocate taking time for the depression to get better before making a decision about whether or not to end the marriage. Let your husband’s therapist and his doctor know your concerns about your husband’s remark that he will give the marriage a couple of months to see if the feelings return. That’s way too soon, given the circumstances. How to Change Your Bad Habits Now, to the last question you asked—and the only area that you can control yourself—how to change your ways and not return to your “old selfish ways.” You can’t change radically overnight. Lasting change happens in small increments, small changes, small corrections in direction, small adjustments made consistently over time. Make a list of the behaviors that you want to change and then prioritize them. You can’t change everything at once, so pick the two or three most important ones to start with. Then write a statement for each that expresses what you want to do as if it’s already happening. For example, if you are trying to become a less critical person, you might write: “Every day, I’m becoming more and more accepting and tolerant of others.” If trying to become more positive is a goal, you might write: “Every day, I’m seeing more and more things to be thankful and grateful for.” Write down these statements (sometimes called affirmations) and put them in different places where you will see them—in your purse, in your daily planner, on your desk, in the kitchen, on the bathroom mirror, etc. Look at them often throughout the day and visualize yourself the way you want to be. When learning new behavior and working on changing, everyone backslides a number of times before the new habits are formed. Expect this to happen and be prepared for the inner negative critical voice that will tell you that you’ll never be able to change, that you might as well stop trying, and that you’re wasting your time and energy. Don’t believe it. Just pick yourself up and get back on track. Tell yourself, “I expected that and it’s a normal part of changing. Now the important thing is not to beat myself up for regressing, but to keep moving in the direction I want to go.” If you slip and say something to your husband that you didn’t mean to say, just regroup and state “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. I’m working on changing. Let me back up and start over again.” Be gentle with yourself and take good care of yourself during this time of great stress and uncertainty. Keep the focus on working on changing yourself to be the best partner possible, and you’ll be in the best possible place to have the best chance of saving your marriage. * * * * * If you would like to submit a question to Dr. Wasson for possible inclusion in a future Internet Magazine issue, please send it to Nancy@KeepYourMarriage.com. Be sure to indicate on the subject line that this is a question for the magazine. Note: Because Dr. Wasson receives so many questions, it is impossible for her to personally respond to every question. But since many people have similar concerns, it is very likely that an answer to your question will be in one of the upcoming issues.
8. Order Information for Keep Your Marriage: What to Do When Your Spouse Says "I don't love you anymore!" —by Nancy Wasson, Ph.D., and Lee Hefner
Click here to order the following special products:
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Greetings,
and welcome to this week’s issue of the Keep Your Marriage
Internet Magazine. Lee and I are delighted to be included in
your week as we enter 2007.
