A Miracle A Day

This is the first article of a new feature of A Miracle A Day… every Friday I'll write an article to answer a reader's question.  This first time, I'm answering a question that has been asked of me a few times, most recently the day after I asked for questions for this article.

Question:
I have been married for a few years, and we have children together.  During the time we've been married, my husband had an affair.  We were separated, but not divorced, and he called me to apologize and say he wanted to try again.  After we got back together, he cheated on me again.  Since then, he has admitted to it, and told me he wanted to save our marriage.  He's been a good husband since then, and I really love him, but it's very hard to trust him.  His cheating on me has also decimated my self-worth, so that even though he tells me he loves me and that I'm beautiful, I have a hard time believing him.  I want to save my marriage… what can I do?

Answer: 
Your spouse is the one person that you should be able to trust over all others, so when they hurt you badly, and then do so again, it's more devastating than nearly any other pain.  That leaves you with a lot of internal hurt that you're going to need to heal before your relationship can really be strong again, although there's no reason you can't start working on it while still working through your pain.

The first thing that you need to do is to start working on making yourself stronger.  You can start this process by finding a way to have a little time to yourself (no kids and no husband… maybe at night after they all are asleep) where you can take a step back, let things go, and be able to start from a place of more peace.  Once you've done that, you really need to figure out who you are, and who you want to be… a good place to start would be this article.

This lets you start working toward a good relationship from a place of strength, knowing who you are and who you want to be, being more whole.  A stronger knowledge and sense of self will help you to see your self, your husband, your relationship, and how those three things work together more clearly, ensuring that you have a strong foundation.

Now that you have started working on your self, you are ready to start working on your relationship.  The first thing you need to do is make sure that both of you really want to save your marriage… building a relationship on only one end makes it unbalanced, and it will collapse.  Still, with that being said, someone has to go first… and since you're obviously interested in saving your marriage enough to be reading this article, that probably means you.

The process starts with a serious, deep conversation.  In order to have such a conversation, you need to be relatively certain you won't be interrupted, which generally means finding a babysitter for the children, but it can work after they all go to bed, too.  In this conversation, you need to let it all come out… how you feel, why you feel that way, what you want, what you're scared of, and what you dream of.  This can't be one-sided, though… you both have to participate, or little will come of it.

After you have this conversation, you should both have a better idea of where you stand.  All of the problems should be out in the open, and each person should have somewhat of an idea of the amount of effort it is going to take to move forward and rebuild your relationship.

If you are both ready and willing to do what it takes, what you have to do is essentially start a new relationship.  That means getting to know each other all over again, building trust slowly, dating, etc., just like you were meeting for the first time.

As you are rebuilding your relationship, you need to deal with issues as they come up.  You can't put it off, or bury it, or tell yourself it doesn't matter… both of you have to take the time to actually deal with each and every issue that comes up between you.

At the same time, you need to make sure that you're not being petty, just looking for negative things to bring up.  Your focus should be on the things you have in common, the positive things, the things that you love about each other… that doesn't mean ignore negative things, because you do need to deal with even small issues as they come up so that they don't pile up, but don't go hunting for them.

The above doesn't just apply to the rebuilding phase of your relationship, either… if you want to save your marriage, and keep it strong over the long haul, you need to continue to deal with issues as they come up and focus on the shared and positive things for the rest of your lives. 

In addition to dealing with issues in the relationship as they come up, you need to help each other deal with issues that have nothing to do with your relationship, whatever mental wounds you have from your past, whether it's before or after you got together.  Doing that helps to build trust, bring down walls, and get rid of background "pressure" that adds to the impact of small issues that arise day to day (like the straw that broke the camel's back… if you have enough weight of "other" issues piled up on you, even small things can push you close to the breaking point).

Essentially, to save your marriage, you need to give up your old relationship, and the habits you formed in and around it, and build a new one.  That doesn't mean forget about the old one, though… it means that you should learn from it, figure out what went wrong, and use that knowledge to make your new relationship stronger and more secure.

Saving your marriage, rebuilding your relationship… all of this starts with, and depends on, you working on yourself.  That doesn't mean trying to become the perfect wife (or husband), it means figuring out who you are, what your passions are, and learning to trust yourself.  It also means freeing up your mental, spiritual, and emotional resources used up in avoiding pain from old mental wounds by facing them head-on.  Those resources then become available for more active pursuits, like, for instance, building a relationship.  A relationship requires commitment, energy, and attention from both sides… if all of your energy and attention is going to deal with your past issues, you'll have none left to spend on your current relationships.

That's the beginning… you're now on your way.  You might also want to read some of the following articles, for more details on some of the things mentioned above:

http://www.amiracleaday.com/articles/2008/01/03/passions-hopes-and-dreams-making-the-impossible-possible
http://www.amiracleaday.com/articles/2007/12/17/change-your-framing-change-your-life
http://www.amiracleaday.com/articles/2007/12/10/building-your-relationship-one-piece-at-a-time-sharing-hopes-and-fears
http://www.amiracleaday.com/articles/2007/12/05/dont-let-your-mental-wounds-bleed-you-dry
http://www.amiracleaday.com/articles/2007/11/28/relationship-how-to-rebuilding-trust-in-your-marriage
http://www.amiracleaday.com/articles/2007/11/19/internal-quiet-where-emotional-healing-starts

If you want to submit a question for next week, or just ask me a question in general, feel free to email me at jasonivers at yahoo dot com or leave it in the comments on this article.

Any marriage that lasts long enough is almost certain, at some point, to have something happen which strains, and possibly even breaks, the trust that is vital to its continued existence.

It could be something that seems small to one person, and not to the other, like spending a significant amount of money without discussing it, or it could be something that both know is big, like cheating.   Whatever it is, once that trust is strained, it takes work to repair.  If it's broken, it can take a lot of work.

The good news is that if you love each other, and are both really willing to work on it (not just with words, but with real action, time, energy, and attention), trust can be restored.  If it has been broken, not just strained, however, it may take a very long time to get back to where it was.

So, what do you do if you have already reached this point?  How do you start to work on rebuilding the trust?

I can't tell you every detail, because it is unique to your situation, but I can give you a general process that can help you to start setting things right.  So here goes for my first (first officially titled, at least) Relationship How To.

Rebuilding Trust In Your Marriage

1. Give Up Being Right
   

   Any time trust is strained in a relationship, at least one person will have an "I was in the right" belief.  They may even be correct.

   It doesn't really matter whether you actually were in the right or not, clinging onto this belief will get in the way of rebuilding trust.  It doesn't matter who was right and who was wrong… it's in the past, and if you want to rebuild the trust, you need to get rid of this limiting belief.

2. Let Go Of Blame
   

   Chances are pretty good there is a lot of blame flying around when trust is strained.  Some of it may be blaming each other, some of it may be blaming yourself… it doesn't really matter.  The blame game is a lose-lose situation… you can't really move ahead until you start letting go of blaming your significant other and yourself.

3. Talk About It
   

   After you let go of being right, and holding blame, or at least make a good start at it, then you need to talk about the trust, and all of the things that strained in on both sides… not just the one thing that caused a blow out.  You really need to let it out, here… holding back anything is going to make it much harder to rebuild trust in your marriage.

4. Make A List Of Each Person's Needs
   

   You both need to sit down again, after step three, and tell each other what you need in the relationship, including both things that you are not getting as well as things that you are getting.  Including both pieces can help keep this from becoming confrontational, with each person going "Oh yeah, well you don't do that."

   Make sure the list is written down somewhere, preferrably with each person having a copy they can (and do) look at frequently.

5. Re-Dedicate Yourselves To Each Other
   

   Now is the time to move from clearing the air to actually starting to rebuild your trust.  You need to give each other a new commitment, a commitment to love each other, to work on being there for each other, to keep each other first in mind, first in heart.

   And this does mean explicitly, in words… if you put it in writing or say it in front of one or more witnesses, that's even better.

6. Re-Dedicate Yourselves To The Relationship
   

   Once you have dedicated yourselves to each other once again, you also need to make a commitment to your relationship.  This is a commitment to not just be friends, or get along, but to really be husband and wife.  There's a lot of work involved, with some planning needed, as well as investments of time, energy, and attention.

   It's easy to slip into just being friends… it takes much less work to be a friend than a spouse.  Don't let your relationship fall into this rut.

7. Go Back To Dating Each Other
   

   Your relationship has been strained, along with your trust.  The best way to rebuild both is to go back to "dating" each other.  That means going back to thinking about each other all the time, planning dates regularly, etc.  Get to know each other again.

   Going back to square one can help you to build trust the same way you originally did… from scratch.

8. Keep Your Priorities Straight
   

   This is another place where it is easy to slip into bad old habits.  You need to review your priorities regularly… and make sure your actions follow them.  Your spouse should be your number one priority… if they are not, it's going to be difficult to build your trust back up.

   In fact, it would have been very difficult to build it in the first place… falling in love (and the feelings that go with it) causes you to think about your significant all the time, keeping them your number one real priority, regardless of what you say it is.

9. Have Relationship "Reviews"
   

   Once your relationship is starting to build back up, and your trust with it, you should have regular "reviews" of the status of your relationship.  This should involve talking about what's good and what's bad, what needs are and are not being met, how you feel about each other and the relationship, and anything else that comes to mind that involves the relationship.  It's also a good idea to discuss how far along in the recovery process you each feel you have come.

   This is actually something that all relationships could use, not just ones that have had a problem.  Reviews can help keep your relationship stay on the path you want.

10. Give It Time
    

    The last thing you need to do is to give it time.  Building trust isn't a fast process, and rebuilding trust is even slower.  You shouldn't expect your relationship to be back to its peak in a week… or even a month.  You should be thinking in terms of months for strained trust, and years when it has been broken.

    In this, as in life in general, don't focus on how far you have left to go… always look at how far you've come.

So, there is a general plan for rebuilding trust in a relationship where it has been strained or broken.  It requires commitment, time, and energy from both partners in order to succeed… the effort can't be one-sided, even if it was one person who broke the trust… that's part of letting go of blame.

Effort from both partners are essential, as is the understanding that it's not quick.  If either of you expect it to be, you're likely to fail, as you won't be prepared to give it the time and effort it needs.  Allow it to go at it's own pace… be patient.

The reward is worth the effort. 

Your anniversary is coming up, and you don’t know what to do to make it special.  You want it to be different, not the same old dinner and a movie, something creative, but just can’t come up with any ideas.

For some reason, it is traditional that the man plan the anniversary events, although it’s certainly in the man’s interest to consult his significant other, too.  This can be a lot of pressure, especially since you’re expected to be creative at the same time.

If you’re a man with an anniversary coming up, and you have trouble being creative, today is your lucky day… in celebration of my own anniversary (today is my fourth), I’m going to provide a list of unusual and fun ideas for you to use on yours.

So here it is, 10 fun and different ways to celebrate your anniversary:

1. Return To The Location Of Your First Date

   This doesn’t require much other explanation.  Returning to the spot where you first had a romantic moment together celebrates everything that has happened since.

2. Start A Memory Album

   You can go purchase an album, and add a few pictures… some from this anniversary, some from previous anniversaries, if you have them.  The anniversary pictures are just to get you started… add to it every week, and it will bring you closer all year.

3. Create A Time Capsule

   This can be a lot of fun… make a time capsule for the two of you to open 5 or 10 years down the road.  Also, you can each write (or write one together) letters to your future selves… you can put them in the letters in the time capsule, or you can just do the letters, if you’d rather.

4. Renew Your Vows

   You may have heard of this one, and think it doesn’t qualify as unusual… but as you’re unlikely to be doing it very often, it will be unusual for you.  You can do it as publicly or privately as you like… just the two of you repeating them as you look into each other’s eyes, or in front of a preacher, friends, and family.  Either way, it will bring you back to the time of your original vows, likely helping you forget or let go of anything that has gotten between you since.

5. Have A Weekend Away

   Have an entire weekend away, just to yourselves.  Find someone to watch the kids, if you have them, and refuse to take any calls except from that person.  Don’t go near any computers, either… this is a little less time for the rest of the world, a little more for the two of you.

6. Make Something Together

   Making something together is fun, and if it’s something that will last, it will serve as a reminder of that joy for years to come.  It can be as big, or little, as you like.  One place that is fun, which I mentioned before, is Color Me Mine, which is a place where you can paint pottery which then gets fired.  It’s an easy way to have something that is yours without having to spend the whole day making it.

7. Make Reservations (And Have Something Waiting)

   Making reservations for dinner isn’t unusual… it’s a pretty standard part of celebrating an anniversary.  If you arrange beforehand to have something else waiting there, though… that’s something to remember.  It can be small… it’s the surprise that will make the memory, not so much the gift itself.

8. Ten Envelopes

   Take ten envelopes, and write on each one something like “For When You’re Lonely”, “For When You’re Sad”, etc.  Then put something in each one appropriate to that… a lot of the contents can be pictures, as it’s usually fairly easy to find pictures that are suitable, and it will bring up memories of the two of you together.

9. A Personalized Charm Bracelet

   I made one of these for my wife a couple of years ago.  It’s a set of charms that link to one another, and each one has something of significance on it… my wife’s, for instance, has pictures of us and our kids, our birthstones, a couple of words that have special significance to us, etc.

10. Photo Montage

    Creating a photo montage is essentially a chance to highlight any past occasions and memories that you choose, allowing you to set whatever mood you want… fun, closeness, or whatever else.  It can be small pictures printed on a piece of paper folded in half like a card, or full-sized pictures on a piece of posterboard, it’s up to you.  The bigger one probably has more impact, but the smaller one is easier to keep and look back at later.

There you go, ten different ideas for things to make your next anniversary special.  You can choose one or more of them… some of them can even be fun to do as a tradition.

Enjoy your anniversary… I’m going to enjoy mine.

PS – This post is pre-written… I’m not taking time away from my wife on our anniversary.

You have a good relationship going… you love each other, spend time with each other, maybe you've even gotten married.  After a while, though, you notice that you're not getting any closer.  You seem to have hit a plateau.

Or maybe you're just getting started in a new relationship, and you really like the other person, but things just seem to keep cropping up… one or the other of you keeps doing little things that seem to stop the relationship's growth right when it's getting started.

What do these two things have in common?  They are both things caused by something that no one likes to talk about in their own relationship… insecurity.

Everyone needs to have a sense of safety and security, a place that they can rest when life gets too chaotic.  The greatest provider of those feelings is a good relationship with your significant other… good relationships with friends and family can help, but just don't have the same magnitude.

Now you come to the catch 22, though… your relationship can't move past a certain point if you are insecure, but you need that relationship to provide your security.  What do you do?

The first thing you have to do is take action… without action, nothing will change.  That being said, here are a few steps that can help you get started.

How To Deal With Insecurity In Relationships:

1. Find Out The Source
   

   There are several ways to find the source of your insecurity, but the two biggest and most effective ways are writing it out and talking it out.

   Writing It Out:  Get a pen and a piece of paper, or your computer and a word processor, and just start writing about what you've been thinking about, in a free flow of words and thoughts.  Expand on anything that touches that insecure nerve inside you.  It may take two minutes if you barely have it buried, or an hour if it's deeper.

   Talking It Out:  Talk to someone that you can trust, at least mostly, like a close friend or a family member (or there could be one person who fits both descriptions).  You start out like you do in writing it… tell them what's been bothering you lately.  The advantage and disadvantage of this form is that they can ask questions, which may cause you to probe deeper inside, or may distract you from the true source.

   Either way you take, you're going to know it when you hit the true source of your insecurity… and it may be quite a revelation.

2. Tell Your Significant Other
   

   Now that you know what the source of your insecurity is, you have to take the next step and tell your significant other.  This is probably the hardest part of the whole process, because you're already insecure, or you wouldn't be doing it in the first place.

   No matter how uncomfortable it is, though, and regardless of whether you think you can deal with it on your own, this step is vital.  That's part of a relationship, you need to share anything that has a bearing on the relationship, and insecurity does have a major impact.

   Telling them also helps to cement it in your mind, and makes your commitment to dealing with it stronger.

3. Make A Plan
   

   Now that you've found the source, and talked to your partner about it, it's time to make a plan for dealing with your insecurity.  This is the time to get into specifics about what you're going to do to take care of the specific issues.

   It may be very easy, something that can be done in a day… or it may be a difficult process that takes years.  Either way, your plan needs specific actions and a time table for those actions.  Without both of those things you are much less likely to stick with the plan, and much less likely to succeed.

4. Take Action On Your Plan
   

   Now you have a plan… time to take the first action on it.  Even the very first action is often a major relief of all the issues stirred up by insecurity.  Each additional step takes away more and more of insecurity's power over your life and relationship.

5. Review And Update Your Plan
   

   This is a step that many people forget… your original plan may no longer be the best plan once you start moving forward.  You may even find that it's hurting your progress more than it's helping it.

   If that's the case, change it.  If it's off badly enough, throw away your old plan and create a new one from scratch.

   Once you've got a plan that seems likely to work, whether it's the original one or a completely new one, repeat step four.  Then, after a while, repeat this step.  Keep up the cycle of steps four and five until you're done, and the insecurity is a thing of the past.

You can follow this process with more than one insecurity at a time… but you should have a separate plan for each major source.  Many times, though, if you spend enough time on step one, you'll find that there is one root thing behind seemingly unrelated insecurities. 

The process of dealing with insecurity is often not fast… the insecurity may be coming from something years, or even decades, in your past.  If you're still reading this article, however, you've already taken the first step:  admitting to yourself that the problem exists.  Now you just need to take the next step, number one above.

The funny thing about how our minds work is that you don't necessarily even have to make much progress on dealing with the insecurity long term to start feeling the effects of being on the path to dealing with it.  Just having talked about it, and especially having some sort of plan to go forward with, is often enough to take the majority of insecurity's sting away.

If anyone has any further ideas for things to help with what is, truly, a major problem, please share them in the comments. 

It is important in any relationship for both people to feel loved.  That isn’t too hard to figure out or remember.

What isn’t quite so obvious, or easy to remember, is that your spouse needs different things to feel loved than you do.  How you show your wife that you love her is different than how you show your husband that you love him.

I’ve already written about how to show your husband you love him (see link above), and now it’s time to write about the wives (and girlfriends, for those of you who aren’t yet married).  It’s only fair, after all… both sides of a relationship need to work to show the other person they love them.

How to use this list:  This is not a list of specific actions.  It is more of a set of general guidelines and principles.  You will have to find your own ways of doing each of the points, other than one or two examples.

So, on to the meat of the article, how to show your wife you love her:

How strong is your relationship?  Is it absolutely, positively unshakable?

If so, do you know why?  If not, do you know what the problem is?

This article has seven “pillars” of a strong relationship… if all seven are standing firm, your relationship will be strong and reliable.  If one of them falls, the relationship gets a little more shaky, as the others have to pick up the added burden of support.

The pillars all support each other, as well.  That means that as one falls, the others are weaker, and more likely to fall themselves.  This can cause a domino effect, where a relationship that has been relatively good completely falls apart in an amazingly short time.

The good news is that a pillar can be repaired, but it requires a lot of time and effort for most of them, so if you notice one of them starting to become unstable in your relationship, fix it before it falls completely.

So now, here it is, what you’ve been waiting for, the seven pillars of a strong relationship (or how to make your relationship unshakable):

1. Honesty

   Honesty is important in every aspect of life, including relationships.  If you are not honest with your partner, then you are intentionally erecting internal walls that keep them away from who you really are.  Keeping your partner at a distance is not conducive to a strong relationship (see #6).

   There is someone it is even more important to be honest with than your partner, however, and that someone is probably someone you’re very used to deceiving… you.  If you aren’t honest with yourself, about who you are, what you want, where you are going… you can’t possibly be honest with your partner.  So be honest with yourself first.

2. Trust

   Nothing makes a relationship shaky faster than broken trust.  Trust is (relatively) easily given the first time, but once broken, is very difficult to repair.

   The trust referred to here isn’t just about your partner being able to believe what you say.  It’s about them being able to trust you completely… trust you to not hurt them, trust you to be committed to them, trust you with everything from the smallest detail up to and including trusting you with their life.

   It isn’t just big things that break someone’s trust, either.  Little things can chip away at it until it’s so fragile that the slightest burden shatters it.

3. Respect

   If you want a solid relationship, respect is an essential part.  You need to respect your partner’s needs and wants, their weaknesses and strengths, their dreams and goals.  You need to respect who they are.  Don’t try to make them be like you… don’t treat them like they are wrong any time they differ from you.  Very little in the world is black and white, wrong and right… understand that and accept that their differences don’t need “fixed”.

   It’s also important to remember that you need to truly respect them, not just make a show of it in front of them.  If you truly respect them, then you won’t disrespect them to your friends or family, or anyone else.  Doing so, even if they never find out, only weakens your respect for them further, and doesn’t help your commitment, either.

4. Communication

   No list of things which are important to a relationship could possibly be complete without listing communication.  Communication is a part of so much of the rest of a relationship… it’s hard to trust someone who won’t communicate with you, it’s hard to have intimacy, attention nearly always includes a communication component… virtually every aspect of a relationship is touched by communication.

   That’s why it’s important to know how to communicate well and effectively.  A big part of this is body language… become aware of your body language, and make certain that it reflects the actual words that come out of your mouth… in other words, don’t be thinking about what you’re going to do tomorrow (which will affect your body language) while you’re talking to your partner about something important right now.

   It’s also important that you understand that listening is as big a part of communication as what you express yourself.  Don’t make conversations a competition, don’t try to “fix” everything your partner tells you (Men, pay special attention to that one), and don’t be just waiting for them to stop talking so you can speak.

   What you should do in communication is focus on things that you have in common… that’s what brings you together.  Focusing your communication on things that you don’t share makes it harder for your partner to relate to you, which is certainly not going to help with strengthening the relationship.

5. Attention

   I’ve mentioned attention a few times before, in previous articles… attention is the means by which you give something or someone importance in your life.  Everyone knows this instinctively, although being consciously aware of it is much more rare.

   This means that when you give your partner and your relationship attention, they will notice and respond.  When you give them less, they will notice that, too.  Indiscriminate, undirected attention can become oppressive, however.  You need to give them your attention in ways that show that you are thinking about them, not about you.

   Giving your partner attention doesn’t necessarily even involve time with them.  It can be picking out something that they will like and getting it for them, or making them something, or planning a trip that they will enjoy, etc.  Giving them attention simply means spending time and energy on them, even if most of that time and energy isn’t actually with them.

6. Intimacy

   Many relationships have drifted from a husband/wife relationship to a friends relationship because of a lack of intimacy.  This doesn’t just mean sexual intimacy, although that is important, too… it means dropping the walls you have inside of you and letting your partner deeper than the surface level that you keep up to protect yourself from being hurt.

   It means trusting them enough to let them in to where they can hurt you.  The more intimacy (by this definition) your relationship has, the stronger it will be… provided that the intimacy is mutual.  When only one person allows the other past their walls, it is very hard, and very tiring, on the other person.  It also starts affecting many of the other pillars, as the person who does open their walls will start to wonder why the other doesn’t (trust), whether the other person cares (attention, respect), and if they can continue to count on the other person (trust, commitment).

   Letting down your walls with your partner can be very hard, especially the ones deep inside, the ones that you don’t even let down for yourself… but your relationship can only be as strong as your intimacy allows.

7. Commitment

   Commitment… everyone needs it for a good, strong, deep relationship.  Many people will deny that they do, but that’s only at the surface… if they’re honest with themselves, they will admit that they need commitment for the relationship to move past a certain point.

   The commitment I am talking about here doesn’t have to be marriage.  It simply means that you can rely on the other person to be there, to put effort into your relationship, to keep you near the top of their list of priorities.  In the US, at least, and every other culture that I know of, this is most strongly expressed and embodied in marriage… it’s a sign of commitment that everyone can recognize.

   On the other hand, just because you are married doesn’t mean that you have commitment.  People get married for bad reasons, or forget to maintain their commitment, or other things may happen (lack of intimacy and communication can weaken commitment, marriage or no marriage).

   Regardless of whether you’re married or not, commitment is important.

Each pillar is related to at least two others.  With some of them it’s not too hard to see how they are related… it’s very difficult to have trust without honesty, for example.  Others are a little less obvious, like the fact that a lack of attention to your partner weakens your commitment to them.

When you think about the relationships between the pillars, it makes it easy to see why it’s important to regularly ensure the strength of all of them.  The crumbling of one pillar can easily pull one of the related pillars down with it, and even if it stops there, that’s knocking out two of the seven pillars… that’s a lot of shakiness and instability to have suddenly injected into a relationship.

I don’t think you can say that any one pillar is more important than the rest, but it is easier to focus on a few and strengthen them, which then strengthens the pillars to which the few are related, eventually strengthening the whole relationship.

So go ahead, pick a few to focus on, but don’t ignore any of them.  An unshakably strong relationship will be your reward.