How To Save A Marriage On The Brink Of Divorce

If you are trying to figure out how to save a marriage on the brink of divorce, then this is the information for you.

At Marriage Helper, we have worked with 1000s upon 1000s of marriages to help situations just like yours. The majority of people who come to us are those where their spouse wants out; They want a divorce or have already filed. And we still have an incredible success rate at saving those marriages.

We have a couples workshop with a success rate of over 70% at saving marriages, even if one spouse has already filed for divorce. But we can help you even before that with what we teach. If you’re wondering how to save a marriage on the brink of divorce, I will be teaching you the three steps to follow to give your marriage the absolute best shot of being saved.

How To Save A Marriage On The Brink Of Divorce: Follow 3 Steps​

Now, keep in mind that everything we teach at Marriage Helper is research-based, time-tested, and experience-proven. What does that mean? We share information based on social science research; we don’t just share the things that worked for one person or sound good. I have to underline that because there’s so much false information out there that people say because it sounds good, or they did it and it kind of worked for them. But it’s not based on something that scales or is generalizable or transferable, which is a property of knowing that you’ve done good research.

I’m currently in the middle of my Ph.D. and doing this type of research, and I understand what to look for in doing outstanding research. And we have a team of people who are trained in that as well. So you can know that what we teach you isn’t just gimmicky or sounds good. It is research-based. It’s also time-tested. Marriage Helper has been around for 22 years, and we’ve been working with people like you to give hope to marriages that were on the brink of divorce. We love seeing marriages saved.

For over 20 years, we have continued to refine our material and the things that we teach to make it even better. It is all experience-proven because we have seen it work in the lives of thousands of people. Combined, all of those things make what we teach powerful, and we want to share it with you. We are on a mission to support, save, and strengthen marriages to last a lifetime. And at Marriage Helper, we want to see divorce stop. We want to see healthy and happy marriages grow and explode exponentially. When we have healthy marriages, we believe that we begin to see change everywhere else. So what is it that you can do to save your marriage?

Stop Push Behaviors​

You’re doing things now, even though you don’t mean to, that are inadvertently pushing your spouse away. And we have an acronym for this called “PUSH.” So these outline the four behaviors that you’re probably doing that ultimately make things worse. And here’s the thing, you have good intentions.

Likely what has happened is that your spouse has told you that they want out or are unhappy. Maybe they want to divorce, and you have reacted in a powerful, emotional way. A lot of times, it is that you started crying, pleading, begging; maybe following them out of the house to their car, trying to take their car keys back, crawling on your knees, and begging them to stay. You begged them not to leave and to stop the divorce. Your intentions are good, but that pushes your spouse further away. Here are what the PUSH behaviors are.

Number one is the “P,” which stands for pleading, begging, whining, and crying. ​

It’s okay to have emotions. And we’re not saying that you need to learn to be a statue. However, we are saying that when you are overly emotional to a spouse who already wants to be away from you, it’s only going to push them further away from you. It’s okay to cry. It is okay to have people you go to who can be a support system for you and vent to them.

However, you need to make sure you pick the right people and not share all of the dirty laundry, because people may start telling you to divorce and just let them go. And that’s not going to be helpful. But you do need people that you can go to and share those emotions with, but it doesn’t need to be your spouse right now. So you need to try and be as kind and calm and gentle towards them as possible. That’s the only way that you’re going to have a chance to get them back.

The “U” stands for unengaged on the flip side of this. ​

Sometimes people just completely unengage from their spouse when they say they want out. A lot of times, this unengaged behavior goes back to attachment styles. If someone has a dismissive attachment style, they’re more likely to do this. I won’t get into that in this video. But if you’re unengaging and now hoping that your spouse will see you stepping back, being more aloof, and feel attracted to you again, that’s not correct either. Many other people on YouTube talk about this “no contact” rule. It doesn’t work. It’s manipulative. So stop doing it. It’s going to push your spouse further away.

The “S” stands for starting unnecessary fights. ​

Again, you’re so angry that this is happening. And you feel like you can’t get your spouse to talk to you any other way. So you may start jabbing, provoking, or texting things to them. “I can’t believe you’re doing this. Why did you spend $50 at Target the other day?” You’re doing things that you know will make them angry, but you’re willing to do it because at least they’ll be talking to you. Or at least they’ll see that you’re mad, and maybe they’ll start feeling bad about what they’re doing. That doesn’t work either.

And then finally, the “H” stands for hovering, tracking, or following. ​

Again, any type of those behaviors will come across as controlling. Also, they will push your spouse further away. For example, maybe you’re trying to break into their email or social media to see who they’re talking to. Maybe you try and put a GPS tracker in their car. But, again, it’s only going to push them further away.

I’m not going as deep in this article into the whys and the psychology behind all of that. You can visit our YouTube Channel to learn more about that. But here’s the bottom line: don’t do the PUSH behaviors.

So what do you do instead?

Begin to work on yourself. ​

If you want to save a marriage on the brink of divorce, it’s important to become the best version of yourself. And Marriage Helper, we call it the PIES of attraction; physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. And that is our way of saying, “Focus on controlling yourself because you are the only person you can control.” You can’t force your spouse to stop the divorce right now; it’s only going to push them away. You can’t control what they’re doing, where they’re going, who they’re doing things with, or how much money they’re spending.

But you can control how you react to the situation and take care of yourself. Start focusing inward. Become the best that you can be physically; make sure you’re getting enough sleep, eating right, exercising, and feeling the best that you can for your age and situation in life. Intellectually, do something to get your mind off what your spouse is doing. Start focusing on things that interest you. Take up a new hobby; continue classes online. Maybe it’s finishing a bachelor’s degree. You always want to do something that will engage your mind, so you don’t just sit around and worry all the time. Ask yourself, “What can I do that evokes positive emotions within other people?” And do more of that.

Be there for your kids. So often, when you end up with children in the middle of a separation or divorce, it can be easy to isolate from the children because you’re experiencing all of this grief and feel alone. Find that support system you need emotionally to evoke positive emotions in your kids. Don’t forget; you still want to evoke positive feelings within your spouse when they come back. But that’s only going to come from you being the best that you can be.

And then spiritually, be sure that you are living in line with your beliefs and values. Don’t go searching on Tinder for a one-night stand to get back at your husband or wife for what they’re doing. Don’t start violating your beliefs to get revenge on someone else. Because ultimately, you’re going to feel crappy about yourself, and it’s still not going to make your spouse want to come back. So that’s step one. Stop doing things that push your spouse away. Step two is to start working on yourself and becoming the best you can be. So what is step three?

Acknowledge that you shouldn’t have to do this alone. ​

It is not normal for us to know how to handle these situations; how to save a marriage on the brink of divorce. We react out of fear, out of emotion, out of all of these feelings. We are overwhelmed, lonely, confused, and do not know what to do. That leads us to make some pretty poor decisions. Surround yourself with a community of people and realize that it’s okay not to know all of the answers right now. That is why we at Marriage Helper have loads of different things that you can do to engage with the community and save your marriage.

The Save My Marriage Course comes with a complete set of things that you need to do and understand to save your marriage. It also comes with a community of people who will be there for you, cheer you on, and be there for you even when things don’t go the way you expected. They will encourage you to get back up and try again. It also comes with weekly group support calls led by our Marriage Helper Certified Coaches, where you can ask your specific questions. You also hear other people’s particular questions and how the coach would encourage those people, and maybe even react differently in that situation.

We at Marriage Helper know that 80% of what we teach, our research-based principles, will apply. And that’s going to give you 80% of what you need. But the other 20% will be unique to your specific situation. That’s why we’ve created this Save My Marriage Course. With all of these built-in elements, it gives you the research-based principles you need through videos and the community support of the people in it. It also has weekly groups of support calls where you can get that unique perspective from a coach with a different perspective than you.

So when you understand that you can’t do this alone, we have a free resource for you. It is our free mini-course on how to get your spouse back. I go further in detail on all of the things that I’ve mentioned here on how to stop the PUSH behaviors and work on yourself more. I even introduce some other new concepts for you, such as how to communicate differently with your spouse through a process that we call SMART Contact. You can start learning about all of those things in our free mini-course.

So remember, stop pushing and start working on becoming the best version of yourself. You can’t do this alone. We have people who are here to help. Marriage Helper can help you. Join the free mini-course, and we would love to get you started on the path to save your marriage. We believe that there is always hope.


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