In every interaction with your spouse, you will move toward, move away or move against.

The choice you make in how your interaction with your spouse is a critical key indicator to the success of your marriage.  John Gottman’s research indicates that divorced spouses reported that they ignored, or turned away from, their spouse’s attempts to connect between 50 and 82 percent of attempts, while couples who made it ignored their spouse’s attempts to connect only between 14 and 19 percent of the time.

Three Choices of Interaction With Your Spouse

We had a great time as the guests on a conference call with marriage ministers and marriage counselors from all across the globe. One pastor asked the question, “What are the few things I can tell couples that will get their stale marriages moving in the right direction?”

We believe that every can take action now, immediately, to make their marriage better, stronger, and closer. Here is how we answered the question and what we recommend every couple do to move toward each other and the marriage they deeply desire.

Ways To Move Toward Your Spouse

One study several years ago found that people who report they are Christians are just as likely to divorce as those who didn’t. Headlines online and in print read that you are just as likely to divorce if you are a Christian than if you are not. 

Church is great for your marriage!

However, a deeper look into the matter by several other studies found that those couples who regularly attend church together are 46% less likely to get divorced compared to only 10% less likely if they occasionally go to church together.

Further, studies have found that couples not going to church at all are twice as likely to get divorced as those who attend church regularly together. So practicing Christianity, as evidenced by attending church services regularly, is much more powerful in keeping your marriage together than just believing Jesus is your Savior.

Why church is great for your marriage!

Marriage is hard. Especially when you have family cycle points, like adding a new member to the family, major medical issues, sending a child off to college, watching a child marry or divorce, or experiencing losing a family member.

Most of the couples who end up in a full day Marriage Intensive with us to try to save their marriage, are couples who let life get in the way of their relationship. Soon after marriage they began focusing on budgets, home making, parenting, chores, etc. and much less on each other.

After a couple of years, the only conversations they have with each other are about home logistics or issues and the number of positive interactions are overwhelmed by a pattern of negative ones. In that environment, it is usually not long before one or both begin seeking what should only be within the marriage from someone outside of the marriage.

Here are some signs that your marriage will last.

One of the most surprising findings of our work with thousands of couples over the years is that it only takes one spouse to change a marriage. One spouse can go outside of the marriage for something they have not created and developed in their marriage sabotaging any hope for their future together. One spouse can meet with a divorce industry attorney and file in courage. One spouse alone can end the marriage.

You have incredible power to create the change in your marriage you desire.

For every situation in a relationship there are usually three truths. The three truths are always different from each other. There is his truth, her truth, and the truth.

The Truth about the situation is simply what happened. It consists of the specifics. That includes everything observed through our five senses: what we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. Nothing else! The truth does not include what we thought or felt about the situation. It does not include how we interpreted the situation. It includes what might be observable through a camera and microphone, not the motives behind what is seen and heard. The truth consists solely of the data, and the data alone.