The Top 5 Reasons Why Your Marriage Is Failing

The Top 5 Reasons Why Your Marriage Is Failing

1. You're Cheating. Now you don't have to take this literally. It doesn't mean that you are stepping outside of the relationship to meet your sexual needs. Cheating can be emotional or social. Let me explain: If you're investing your time into everyone and everything else before you invest in your partner (which is synonymous for your marriage), then you are in essence cheating your spouse out of the time and attention that they need. It may seem hard to do but nothing falls out of that category; family, friends, work, kids, etc. Your spouse should trump all of those things. If you are putting your spouse first, they will give you the balance and support you need to tend to that work assignment, family gathering, ailing parent, or growing children. So often people put other things ahead and logically justify it however if your spouse is last on your list to address, so is your marriage. Confiding in your friends more than you do your spouse, especially about your spouse is a no-no. It's okay to seek a sounding board now and again to keep you accountable but when your friends know more of your thoughts on your marriage than your spouse does, your allegiance to your friend's support and opinions is disloyal to your marriage. Outside influence has no place inside of your marriage. If feeling isolated forces you to address the issues with your mate, that's a good thing. Sometimes you need to have nothing else before you but the issue and if that's your spouse, start facing them and address things until resolution is achieved. As for cheating from a sexual standpoint, I think we all know that this isn't going to make a marriage last. Whether your spouse finds out or not, getting away with it once is only going to lead to more trysts and eventually the entire trust and integrity of the union is a complete farce and the emptiness of your union will be all that's left after you have extracted all that was sacred for meaningless flings.  If faithfulness isn't coming easily to you, you may want to set your partner free or investigate seeking a therapist to help. At the end of the day, your job is to serve your spouse and cheating will never serve any purpose in a marriage other than to threaten its viability. 
2. You Don't Listen. Whether you are always right (which no one is), or just can't seem to see another persons point of view, failing to listen is a huge issue in any relationship. If you are building a defense against everything your partner is saying as you speak about the issues, you aren't listening to what they are telling you and therefore will be ill-equipped to know how to come to a compromise so that his or her needs are met. Assuming the role of the abused will not service your marriage. If your partner is indeed abusive, seek help. However, if you decide to assume the role as the martyr of the marriage, your selfish desire to be right at any cost (even to play victim) will never lead to healthy resolve of the problem(s) that plagues the marriage. Hearing and listening are two different things. Approach your partner with a heart of service and try to meet their needs despite how much they conflict with your own. If you are in therapy and the counselor gives you an exercise, follow it. Being obedient in marriage sounds extremely old fashioned and even degrading to some however, creating a life with someone should be a humbling experience. A large step in being humble is being obedient, not to your spouse but more so to the commitment you made when you vowed to spend your life with them. 
3. You Don't Have Intimacy. Here is the definition of intimacy: close familiarity or friendship; closeness. "the closeness between a husband and wife" closeness, togetherness, affinity, rapport, attachment, friendliness." The best word in this definition is attachment. Intimacy is the act of building an attachment to your spouse. Emotional, sexual, and spiritual connection are all ways that you can build intimacy in your relationship. If your sex life reminds you of a amoeba, chances are that your marriage lacks intimacy and therefore your sex life is suffering as a result. Want to fix it? Work on building that bond with good old fashion intimacy. Similar to how a child camps out in their mother's womb, and gazes at her as she nurses or bottle feeds, it's an attachment. An intimate bond is being built and it takes time to do it. Make time to stick to your spouse in a way that others can not understand or interfere with. Similar to how a parent will never depart from the intimate connection they share with their child, you must strive to build the same connection with your spouse. Once you have that covered, the benefits will come rolling in. 
4. You Aren't Friends. Look here, if you aren't even friends with your spouse you can forget about points 1-3. You would need to work on the friendship first. If you are a good friend, there are somethings that you just wouldn't do to your friends. Also, there are also some things that you would totally do simply because it's for a friend. Your spouse may not be your best friend, but they should be your friend. By building the bond of friendship, it will make it easier for you navigate the tough times because like any friend the two of you will stand by and support each other even if one of you is  the issues that require support. Honestly, the to hold accountable for any issue is you. Yup, I said it. That brings me to  my next point. 
5. You Aren't Responsible. It may suck but every issue in your marriage is your issue. If your spouse is a cheater, it's not your spouses problem its a marital issue which means you are responsible for resolving the issue as much as your partner. This level of accountability can be off-putting, especially when you feel like your spouse is running amok and wreaking havoc in the union while you are abiding by "the rules". However, whenever you leave an issue up to your spouse to solve on his or her own, you are now creating distance within the union. Things should be dealt with as a couple be it bills or infidelity. If you continue to work alongside your spouse the attachment will be in place and intimacy will grow even in the toughest of times. I'm not saying to hold your spouses hand and enable their infidelity, dysfunctional behaviors, or flat out bullshite but I am saying that by being responsible and sharing in the work to make things better. Simply put, sharing in the work eliminates the finger pointing and lets your partner know that repairs in the relationship aren't up to them. You have a say. The both of you are a team. 
6. You Don't Argue. There is a difference between an argument and a effing blowout. Attorneys cite arguments in the courtroom all the time. Arguing is a great way to get your point across but how you argue is determines if arguing serves a purpose. Be respectful. Don't yell, curse, make snide remarks or flat out berate your partner. The moment you do, they won't be listening to you anymore. The entire discussion just becomes a verbal sparring match between you and your spouse. Don't storm out. It doesn't matter if you are hanging up the phone, blocking texts, walking out of the room, or sleeping on the couch that night. By retreating you are telling your spouse that you would rather be alone with the issue than resolve the issue with them. You may believe that you are giving yourself time to calm down after a heated discussion but walking away in any fashion can quickly become a habit. Guess what happens then? You have the same issue within your relationship for years and it now becomes an accessory to it because it remains unresolved. Don't become intimate (attached) with dysfunctional methods of handing issues within your marriage. It only deters you from solving the issues. Instead you exacerbate them and then the resentment, anger, frustration, and fatigue begin to increase and the love, respect, and patience decrease. It's a dangerous way to poison a relationship. Argue, but effectively. Listen. Respond. State your feelings. Suggest solutions. Agree to a compromise. Apologize. Make up. Move on. 

If anyone said that marriage was easy, they likely found that rare person who fits them so perfectly that navigating life together just isn't as difficult as it is for most people. So let's talk about most people (since are the majority and all): marriage is work. How hard that work is depends on you and your spouse. If you are willing to serve your marriage than it will likely be much easier to maintain. You may say that serving your marriage to the detriment of your needs isn't fair. Well, my answer to that is this: if both partners are serving each other, who will ever feel slighted? 

Good luck. 

-The Nappy Haired Diva