Can Relationship Repair Save Your Marriage?

Let’s remember the basic facts: women and men are basically different.

Furthermore, their desire to live together doesn’t make the differences disappear – thinking that confrontations will magically not happen is even more magic! Partners need a protocol to manage inevitable confrontations and they need to know how to do relationship repair.

Managing confrontations can be discovered in our previous book, How to Fight Fair in Your Marriage. In this article, however, we want to focus on the basics of what it takes to repair a relationship.

Relationship repair must be based on human needs. First, you must be familiar with the basic needs, and then your “repair work” must be based on that need. In a general way, you can find out which basic need is being frustrated by asking yourself what are the things he/she complains about you most frequently.

For example: the need for recognition. You can identify this need if your spouse often says that you:

Don’t pay attention; (“You never listen to me”).
Don’t appreciate him/her; (“You don’t care about the things that are important to me”).
Don’t care about their dreams; (“You don’t even remember that I would love to ___”).

What would some basic repair behaviors be?

First, you need to make it a task for yourself to respond to him/her in such a way that they feel listened to (“I hear you saying that you are tired of ___, where would you like to go instead?”).

Then, set out to address the unsatisfied need directly. To satisfy a need for recognition, find something each day to observe and appreciate, before going to sleep (“I’ve never had such a good ___”). Ask, “Where do you see us in five years?” and “Is there something else that you would like to talk about?” Don’t give logical, drawn out reasons as to explain why nothing is possible, because in this way you kill any project and dampen any enthusiasm for change there could be.

Just listen, and repeat back what the other person said, in your own words, and ask for the other person’s confirmation: “Did I understand you well?”

Do you need more tips for repairing your relationship? Of course you do!

Join us for free at “National Relationships Repair Month,” where you’ll receive access to a 4 week plan for handling conflict and reconnecting with your spouse.