Do you ever find yourself thinking that marriage is hard and wondering how to overcome struggles in your marriage? No one likes to talk about how marriage is hard, and each marriage has problems or struggles.

Ever find yourself wondering, how it is that marriages fall apart while others stay together?

I know I did. I never understood how people could go from so happy on their wedding day, to disliking each other enough to tear their families apart and separate their lives.

Well, now, I understand how they fall apart. I lived it.

I’ve also worked with my spouse to come back together from a pending legal separation to work on our marriage.

While our marriage is still not perfect, and will likely never be, I have learned a lot over the process of the past year.

My Story

In September of 2019, my husband of 7 years left me and moved out of our house. I remember coming home that day and the house felt so empty.

I had known this day was coming for months. He had told me back in June that he didn’t feel love for me anymore and that he was unhappy. At that time, I felt so blindsided.

In hindsight, I should have seen it coming.

In my mind, he didn’t even give our marriage a chance. Over the summer, he did not work on our marriage problems at all but just kept separating himself further away.

He only went to one marriage counseling and pretty much called it quits, but still taking the whole summer before he decided to leave.

During that time, I worked to try and change my behavior in positive ways, but honestly, when someone hurts you that bad, you are at your worst self.

Here’s my view on some marriage pain points and how to try and work through them before it is too late.

Common Marriage Problems and Solutions to Work Through Them

Communication

Problem: Not bringing issues up when something is bothering you and not talking about your feelings.

In my experience, my husband chose not to bring up issues when they were bothering him. He did his best to keep them to himself for pretty much our entire relationship.

Eventually, when things got stressful, all of those feelings he had been holding up inside himself came out in one fell swoop.

Every single thing that had ever bothered him in our relationship came out during those few months. It didn’t feel good for either of us.

On my end, I also developed communication problems with my husband.

When he started getting depressed in the fall of 2018, I started doing more around the house, so he could have more time to himself.

Eventually, when I did ask for help, he would huff at me, like it was the world’s largest inconvenience. After getting that type of response, I eventually stopped asking for help when I needed it.

This led to a downward spiral in our relationship.

I started becoming resentful for his lack of help around the house. The resentful feelings came out as passive-aggressive comments towards him, which made him feel bad.

Eventually, as the Gottmans’ call it, he started stonewalling me.

Solution: Speak Up (Not in Volume, but in Quality)

Bring things up when they bother you, no matter how hard it may be. Talking about issues and sharing emotions you have with your spouse is an important part of marriage.

Here are a few suggestions of what I find best to say to start a difficult conversation. “This is really hard for me to say” or “I’m not sure the best way of bringing this up, but I feel like I need to talk about it”.

Another method is to use the “I” statements that psychologists talk about. As an example: “I feel unimportant when you are on your cell phone at dinner time”.

One last tip for communication is to work toward gaining an understanding, not necessarily agreement.

Arguing with your spouse and trying to get them to switch to your side on an issue tends to get you nowhere.

In my experience, the more you try to convince someone to come to your side, the more they dig their heels in.

Gaining an understanding of why someone feels a certain way does wonders in bringing you closer together.

Lack of Connection

Problem: Not getting enough alone time with your spouse.

Lack of connection was something I knew we had problems with but just didn’t have the words for until I started reading Lee Baucom’s “How to Save Your Marriage in 3 Simple Steps”.

In his book, Lee Baucom gets into three types of connection – physical, emotional, and spiritual. If you don’t connect with your spouse, it creates a marriage problem.

In our marriage, we had stopped connecting in those ways. The resentment we each felt for each other prohibited our ability to connect on an emotional level.

As we started connecting less and less, we eventually stopped connecting physically too. There was less cuddling and gentle touches throughout the course of the day.

Some of this was enhanced by introducing a baby into our mix. We had less time to spend alone with one another, so there were fewer chances to connect.

We essentially had stopped focusing on our couplehood and started focusing on the baby.

Solution: Finding Connection

Start intentionally building in ways to find connection with your spouse. You can do this with a gentle caress of their arm as you walk by or even a squeeze of their hand.

One way that we implemented a way to connect is to touch base with each other every day on how our relationship is doing. This was at the suggestion of our therapist.

This ensures you know how each of you feels about the marriage on that day. Plus, it also gives you the opportunity to bring up any issues that you may need to communicate with your spouse.

Take just 10-15 minutes out of each day to set aside to talk to your spouse about anything, except scheduling and children issues. This ensures you are able to talk and share your hobbies and interests with one another. Sharing those types of things with one another builds a deeper connection.

Going a step further, scheduling date nights on a regular basis is a great way to ensure a connection with your spouse.

Since we have gotten back together, my spouse and I try to do a date night at least once a month, although many experts recommend once a week.

With the pandemic, this can look very different. It can be as simple as watching a movie together after the kiddos are in bed.

Other ideas would include picking up dinner from your favorite restaurant and talking or even finding a game that the two of you both enjoy.

For a while, our date nights consisted of playing Stardew Valley together in our basement after our daughter went to bed.

Finding time to be a couple together is important, especially after you have kids and you are very focused on being parents.

Losing Sight of Yourself

Problem: One or both of you doesn’t get enough “me” time to refresh.

One of the issues we had in our marriage is that we lost sight of ourselves. You don’t expect this to cause a marriage problem, but it does.

My husband, being a people-pleaser had gotten into the role of always doing what others wanted him to do. He no longer felt like there was any of his true self left. That he had lost himself into our relationship.

I got so focused on being a mother and spending all of my time with my daughter, that I too, had forgotten who I was.

I had lost touch with what I liked to do before we had a child and raising Evelyn was all I focused on.

Solution: Focus on Self-Care

The great thing about self-care is that when you finally do it, you come back feeling so much more refreshed.

I find that after I get some time to myself, I am less irritable and I am more able to focus and give them the attention they deserve.

Getting in self-care when you have children is difficult. It can put a strain on a marriage.

One way to overcome this is to talk to your spouse about what you need. Then you can work out a plan together that will benefit each of you.

The key is making sure you both are able to get time to yourself that you need to rejuvenate without being resentful for it.

This means that if you give your husband permission to play D&D for 6 hours each Sunday, you do not hold it over his head for the rest of the week.

Lee Baucom mentions in his book “How to Save Your Marriage in 3 Simple Steps” that you need to “change yourself” to improve your marriage.

He doesn’t mean that you need to change, but that you should always have a focus on personal development.

He suggests that you focus on creating your best self, or the vision of who you want to be, then take action to go do that.

Becoming the version of yourself that you always wanted to be will make you feel good about yourself. When you feel good, your spouse will also feel it, and it will become an upward spiral.

In my mind, this can be as simple as finding those simple joys and hobbies that you enjoy and bring joy into your life.

Focusing on Each Other’s Flaws

Problem: Reaffirming your negative beliefs about your spouse and their flaws.

Do you know those cute things that your spouse does? Or rather, those ones that used to be cute, but now drive you crazy?

Me too. One issue that we had in our marriage is that we got to a point where all we could do was focus on each other’s flaws.

When you get in that mindset, you continue to look for evidence that the mindset you have is true. It becomes a downward spiral in the relationship, causing a marriage problem.

From my husband’s standpoint, I had too many opinions, liked things done in an OCD-like manner, and was far too critical of everything.

From my standpoint, my husband was lazy, always on his phone, and didn’t pay enough attention to his family.

When you are in a negative mindset like that, you continue to focus on those situations and lose sight of anything good that may have been done.

Solution: Showing Appreciation

Showing appreciation can go a long way in improving a marriage.

During the incredibly resentful phase of our marriage; my husband gave me the feedback that I didn’t thank him for enough of what he did around the house.

I grumpily stormed off and each time after that when I was doing housework, I was fuming about how he never thanked me for anything I did around the house.

It was a bad cycle to be in. When we started marriage counseling showing appreciation is one of the things we talked about.

Here’s what I have found in practice: At first I felt ridiculous thanking him for emptying the dishwasher. Why should I have to thank him for doing what he should around the house? It makes him feel good, that’s why. Plus, it led to him wanting to help out more.

Now, it feels like a habit and I actually do appreciate all the small things he does around the house more.

Plus, as a bonus, he has also started thanking me for doing small things around the house too.

It’s another example of positive actions taking an upward spiral in the relationship.

If you are having a hard time breaking out of only seeing flaws in your spouse, here is what I recommend. Consciously write down 3 things each day that your spouse did right, no matter how small.

The more you practice gratitude for what they do around the house, the more it will start changing your beliefs about them. Your beliefs will focus more on the positive.

Bonus Solution: Learn your Love Languages

Other actions that you can do here are to learn each other’s Love Languages.

By knowing each other’s love languages, you can show your feelings for one another in the most effective way for your partner to receive it.

For example, my main love language is quality time. This means that for me to feel good in our relationship, it is best if my husband plans a night for us to hang out without phones interrupting.

My husband, on the other hand, has a love language of receiving gifts. He feels special if I pick him up something special while I’m out running errands, such as his favorite cookie from a bakery nearby.

Marriage Takes Work

No one ever tells you that marriage is hard. Movies and television reaffirm your beliefs that it should be easy and falling in love is simple and you will know when it is right. They rarely show life after the marriage problems arise or how to work through them.

Falling in love is the easy part. Maintaining that relationship and focusing on why you fell in love in the first place is hard, especially when things get stressful.

That’s why if you want to improve your relationship, it is important to make time for it. As Lee Baucom says, you can’t “put it on hold”.

You need to constantly be working at it.

Show that appreciation. Carve out time to care for yourselves.

Date each other.

Most of all, talk about your problems. No matter the size. It feels better to work them out before they become big issues.

Good luck out there as you work on strengthening your marriage!