K. Ryan - One Week to Save Your Marriage

One Week to Save Your Marriage

This book is Copyright 2013 by K. Ryan

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any other means: electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the author.

This book is supplied for informational purposes only and, as experienced in the subject matter as the author is, the material herein does not constitute professional advice.

This book is sold with the understanding that the publisher and the contributors are not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional advice. If legal or other professional advice is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

The reader is advised to consult with appropriate and qualified professionals with regards to making a decision regarding the subject matter of this book.

The author does not accept any responsibility for any liabilities resulting from reading this book.

I ntroduction

In the United States and worldwide, approximately 42% of marriages end in divorce each year.

Couples between the ages of 25 and 39 account for almost 60% of divorces.

The three most common reasons for divorce are a lack of commitment from one or both partners, a lot of conflicts and arguments, and infidelity.

What starts out as a union of love, trust and respect somehow gets eroded as the years pass by. Couples believe they cannot get their marriages back to the way they used to be, give up on each other, and file for divorce.

It's important that couples learn how to communicate with each other, how to regain trust and respect, and how to turn their marriages back into the marriages they had when they were newlyweds.

One Week to Save Your Marriage is specifically geared to women who feel unhappy, unappreciated and unloved in their marriages.

Each day, there is a specific chapter with questions, ideas and exercises. Take time to read the chapter thoroughly, ask yourself those questions, and do each of the exercises.

You may also want to keep a journal of each day as you progress through the book. Write down what attitude changes you noticed in yourself and your partner, what the results of the exercises that you did were, and ways you intend to deal with these specific issues in the future.

An unhappy marriage today doesn't mean it can't be turned into a happy and healthy relationship again.

This guidebook will help you change your attitude and perceptions and allow you to learn more about the male partner in your life.

We encourage you to seek counseling in addition to reading this book with a marriage or family therapist or your pastor.

If you are in a physically or emotionally violent and abusive relationship, you need to get out of that situation as quickly as you can.

Chapter 1 - Unlearn Your Preconceptions about Love

Often times, we react to our relationship the way our mother reacted to the relationship with our father or how our grandmother reacted to our grandfather.

This reactionary way gets passed down from generation to generation. And, thats not always a good thing.

Its important for women to learn to release these ingrained patterns of thoughts and behaviors in order for their relationships to survive.

Stop questioning everything and stop reacting to your significant other the way your mother or grandfather reacted to their mates. Its important to embrace new ways of thinking and see love as an ongoing process.

If you dont take control of your life, someone else will. Its important that women are in control of their own happiness and lives; no one else.

Dont get married or go into a relationship expecting your partner to change. You can only change yourself. Your partner will react to the positive changes he sees in you.

You can never force someone to change and you dont want to. You only have control over yourself.

Every relationship has a good and a bad side. A relationship is never all good or all bad. Issues in relationships should never come as a surprise to anyone. But issues dont mean that the relationship needs to be discarded and not worked on.

Men and women sometimes think that conflict should never be a part of their relationship. When conflict occurs, couples began to talk about divorce as they fear their relationship will never work.

Arguments occur in the best of relationships; to think otherwise will actually lead your relationship to failure.

Its very important how the couple views conflict. If they can see conflict as a positive in their relationship and understand how it leads to growth, they will understand how relationships have to have conflict to survive.

For example, we as individuals have conflicts within us. We cant run away from ourselves; we figure out what went wrong, why we are feeling conflicted, and we fix it and turn it around.

Thus, we have turned a negative into a positive and achieved growth within ourselves as we fixed what we didnt like.

If a couple goes into marriage thinking there should not be any conflict or arguments, they are setting themselves up for failure. Once conflict occurs, couples will be unprepared to handle it and will think their relationship has reached a point of no return.

Its more important how you view your relationship, not what is going on inside the relationship.

So, What is Love?

Love is unconditional but marriages often fall short of this. Love turns into ifs and has conditions attached to it. Ill love you if you take me to dinner tonight. Ill love you if you stop working overtime so much.

You need to love your partner no matter what; you love your spouse because he is yours.

A person will only change and grow when they are sure they are loved for who they are and not who you hope they will be.

We are tested many times in love. For example, your spouse tells you he has gotten a promotion and its in another state. How do you react? Do you tell him you will never move then give him the cold shoulder?

If that is your reaction, your spouse will not feel that you love him. He wants you to love him no matter what. He wants to hear you say you will love him no matter where you have to move to. You need to be attached to your husband as a person, not a house, address, city or state.

If your husband believes you dont really love him for who he is but what he thinks you imagine him to be, your marriage will become difficult and tough, and problems will creep in.

There should never be strings or conditions on your love for your husband; love should be a gift given freely to your spouse.

Think about the love you give to your spouse. Does it have a lot of conditions? If so, what ways can you begin to change this?

Noone is Perfect

Every person has faults and virtues including yourself and your spouse. Each person has both strengths and weaknesses.

The faults you believe your husband has is very subjective, its from your point of view only. What one person perceives as a fault, another person sees as a virtue.

For example, one wife might be upset with her husband because he likes to talk a lot. She sees this as a fault. Another wife, whose husband never talks, would love to have a more talkative spouse. She sees talkativeness as a virtue.

And, if you believe that divorcing your husband and finding someone else with more virtues than faults is easy, youll be sorely disappointed. This man will also have both faults and virtues.

The longer you are married, the more bad habits you will discover. Breaking up with your partner in hopes of finding someone without any faults will leave you single and alone the rest of your life. This man simply doesnt exist.