When Your Marriage Feels One-Sided

1.  Be willing to ask your spouse tough questions and to hear hard answers.

A marriage doesn’t become one-sided overnight.  Most couples don’t even realize it until things get very difficult at home.  It begins with a breakdown in daily communication.  After awhile, things are super uncomfortable and awkward and a couple starts to feel very disconnected.  That is why we MUST keep talking to one another.  It’s also very important that we ask one another the tough questions and that we are prepared to receive some tough answers.  Questions like…

How do you think things are going in our marriage right now?

and

Is there anything I can do differently in our marriage?

and

I miss you.  Why have you had to be away from home so much lately?

and

Is there something that has happened that you want to talk about?

and

Things feel off between us.  Why do you think it feels that way?

are the kinds of questions that we need to ask our spouse if we feel like his/her commitment is in question.

Remember: when we ask these questions, we need to ask them kindly, not sharply.  We aren’t asking these questions to accuse our spouse of any wrongdoing.  Our aim is to simply address the whole truth so we can have a better understanding of how to improve our relationship. 

After we ask each question, we must also be willing to give them adequate time to answer.  We need to resist the urge to put words in his/her mouth and not interrupt when there is an awkward pause.  Let him/her get it all out–no matter how hard it might be to hear the hard truth.

For more on this, read, “3 Reasons Why Demands and Threats are Killing your Marriage.”