Over two hundred and seventy sad, unhappy people type "how to save marriage" into a search engine every day. That is only one of countless phrases people use to find an answer to their marriage problems, to seek a way to make their lives a little better. Nearly three hundred desperately unhappy people every day need to find out how to save marriage. I was one of those poor souls who used this term a few years ago when it seemed that my world was crashing down around my ears, and not just my world but my husbands and my childrens because an unhappy marriage affects everybody that is in it. I am happy to report that I am now very happily married with three beautiful, happy successful children and I have a marriage that is strong with a man who loves me, the same man that I married twenty years ago and the same man that I very nearly divorced a few years back. How we got from happily ever after to the steps of a divorce court is unfortunately an all too common story. After years of marriage, children and two stressful careers my husband and I gradually and unnoticeably grew away from each other. We still operated as a family, took holidays together and shared a social life with friends and family but we were essentially two individuals together. The passion and excitement of our early days of marriage had gone the way of most things and now we shared a home and our boys but little else. I had an affair. It was exciting, made my head spin, my pulse race, everything that my marriage did not. My husband took little notice of what I did anyway and my boys were young and at school so I began a relationship with a guy who worked in another department at work. Nobody would get hurt, it was just a little fun so why not? As I read those words now I cannot believe that it was me who thought them. How they would haunt me. The affair, as is usual with these things ended with the other guy dropping me without so much as a goodbye or a "sorry but this isn't working." I now had a failing marriage and a sordid affair to contend with, could life be anymore miserable? Unfortunately the answer was yes, it could. During the affair I saved some of the texts my lover had sent me, I would read them over again because I liked the way they made me feel, that for that time I was special.The inevitable happened and my husband found them. I watched helpless as someones world imploded before my very eyes, someone that I had loved and shared half my life with just seemed to shrink inside. Naturally the rage, anger and recriminations started soon after and it seemed that was that. Divorce, single parenthood and loneliness loomed on the horizon. I had destroyed my life, my husbands life and mostly my childrens lives, and for what? At about three o'clock in the morning after another endless evening of questions, reproaches and accusations I found myself at my computer. I typed "how to save marriage" I obviously wasn't alone as the results streamed onto the screen. Why are so many people suffering a failing marriage?, is it because we expect it to be easy?, do we expect too much from our partners? or is it just a consequence of a throwaway society? In all other aspects of our lives we want success, we want to win so why is it that we are so prepared to give up on our marriage. I have a good strong marriage now and I am damn sure I will not let it slip again, with advice, care and a willingness to try you can save marriage. Believe me when I say it's worth the effort.
About the Author
Sarah Jane Reynolds is a freelance author and mother of three boys. After living in a failing marriage she had an affair. The work that she and her husband put into saving their relationship has given her a personal view in to how a marriage works
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