16 Marriage Saving Tips

1. Remember the fun activities of your early dating and do them again, often
2. Share your wishes beginning with “I would love it if”
3. Take time to underline the good stuff and appreciate it together
4. Cut in half your attempts to change your spouse and instead change yourself
5. If you slip into “you always” and “you never” language, recognize that you are flooded or overloaded and will not be creative in finding a solution
6. Do not sweep conflicts under the carpet but revisit them with a problem solving perspective
7. Agree to time outs and unilateral cease-fires to head off an escalation of hurt that will be hard to forget in the morning
8. Plan when you will reconnect to resolve an argument
9. Revisit yesterday’s argument seeking neither to be reactive nor get into the same fight again
10. Agree to back off if you start to pick up the fight again
11. Express responsibility for what you did to fuel the fight
12. Be confessional about what you feel about your partner’s actions rather than attacking his/her permanent flaws
13. With seemingly irresolvable arguments, take time to listen to your partner’s underlying longing
14. Decide one thing that you each could do differently if this argument resurfaces
15. Commit to be together as a couple rather than being right
16. Share visions of future excitement regularly