3 Reasons to Keep a Marriage Alive (When You Want Out) –

While I don’t believe in “staying together no matter what,” there are reasons to hang in there when you think your marriage is not fulfilling or you think you’ve grown apart or you think you are missing out on something or you find yourself dreaming of divorce or hoping your spouse will have an affair. 
 
I’m not talking about staying in marriages where there is domestic abuse, high conflict, drug usage,criminal behavior, or serial unfaithfulness. I don’t believe these marriages are worth saving. If you can work through the normal cycles of disillusionment, your marriage can probably evolve and change for the better.

Reasons to Stay Together

Just as there are right and wrong reasons to get married, there are right and wrong reasons to stay together. Here are a few of the right reasons. 

• You both want to be together and you do love one another.
• You are friends and have respect for each other.
• You can see a light at the end of the tunnel that the two of you find yourselves in now.

Reading Monique Honaman’s article, “I Just Wish He Would Have An Affair” and Iris Krasnow’s article “Help! I Hate My Husband” was sobering. 

If you can relate to the women mentioned in the article and want out of your marriage even though your husband is a good guy and faithful, I truly hope you think twice. Belief in soul mates, having a low sex marriage,  running on empty, or having your marriage stuck in a rut can all lead you to a sense of not being fulfilled and missing out on something, or not feeling happy.

Related Thoughts From Others

Couples that work through issues end up with stronger marriages and a level of happiness beyond anything they could have imagined on the day they took their wedding vows.

There is value, when choosing a long-term partner, in realizing that you will inevitably be choosing a particular set of unsolvable problems that you’ll be grappling with for the next ten, twenty, or fifty years.”
Source: Dan Wile. After the Honeymoon.  pg. 13. (get it on amazon.com)

John Gottman: “Reporters often ask me, ‘What do couples fight about mostly?’ I answer, ‘Absolutely nothing. They fight about nothing.’ Couples rarely sit down, create an agenda, and argue about specific topics, like the budget. Sometimes they do. Instead, they usually hurt each other’s feelings in very ordinary, seemingly meaningless, small moments that seem to arise from about absolutely nothing.”
Source: John M. Gottman. The Science of Trust: Emotional Attunement for Couples. pg. 202. (get it on Amazon.com)

Alisa Bowman: “Finding your Happily Ever After is a lot like tending a garden … That’s marriage. You work. You work harder. You work even harder. Some of your work pays off. Some of it doesn’t.”
Source: Alisa Bowman. “10 Steps to Happily Ever After” in Project: Happily Ever After.. pg. 238. (get it on Amazon.com)

Iris Krasnow: “You are definitely not alone. Plenty of wives feel this way. Plenty of wives think about divorce at least once a month, if not more, and manage to stay married for decades … I know from my own 24-year marriage and from the resilient women in The Secret Lives of Wives who have stuck it out for up to 60 years that marriage is ever-changing. Their own survival stories prove that periodic explosions can open up the channels to richer and stronger relationships … Acting on lust often turns out not to be true love but to be true disappointment. It takes grit and prolonged intimacy to love deeply and hate deeply and thus is the rhythm of family relationships.”
Source: Iris Krasnow. “Help! I Hate My Husband.” HuffingtonPost.com. 1/25/2012. 

Marriage is a journey, and things turn around.

Bottom Line

Please don’t give up on your marriage without first discerning the issues in your marriage that need attention. Give your marriage a spring cleaning and a chance.