Right out of the gate, let’s get real:
If you’re anything like me, I came into my marriage with a lot of baggage & preconceived notions. I caused a lot of destruction and remember getting on my knees just surrendering because I was done with where we were. Out of that pain and desperation came a willingness to take personal responsibility.
This may look different for you because we’re not the same, nor are we married to the same person, but these are How I started to Heal our Marriage in 4 Steps:
Disclaimer:
- This is NOT the in all be all.
- This does take time.
- And, this isn’t for the abusive marriage. If you are in that style of marriage, please seek help immediately HERE
1) Heal Your Shit
I know, from personal experience that this is a tough one to face. Believe me.
That being said, I found it to be the key foundational cornerstone to healing a marriage. Taking personal responsibility for the baggage YOU came into the marriage with (i.e. sexism, old ideas, resentment and hate for the opposite sex, victim of molestation/rape, domestic violence, society programming, survival techniques, ect..) and healing from that will change your attitude, view, and perception of not only your spouse but you as well.
We’re advised to “Love your neighbor as yourself”, but what if we’re all clogged up with shame, guilt, abandonment, hate, and resentment for ourselves? It makes it kinda tough to love ourselves let alone our spouse.
How do I do this? Seek wise counsel. I have found a lot of freedom & healing with Kingdom Mom Coaching in addition to working a Recovery Program for Alcoholism.
BONUS: we have a free TRUE You Empowered Guide that you can get HERE that is focused on finding who YOU are as the unique individual you are!!
This DOES take time, effort, energy, but I encourage you to give one of these a try or seek out a way that works for you.
NOW, if I haven’t lost you already…..
2) Pray
Prayer is extremely powerful in the fact that changing our spouse is out of our hands. No nagging, manipulating, pushing, or condemning will make a positive difference; in fact, it will do the exact opposite.
My issue was that I wasn’t sure WHAT exactly to pray about (creativity isn’t my strong suit), so I needed outside help. I purchased the 31 Prayers For My Marriage book and went to war in prayer daily for my husband.
This was powerful for me because as I read & spoke these prayers out loud something not only started transforming in my husband but also in me.
3) Date Your Spouse Girl!!!!
Having one-on-one time with your spouse is completely under-rated, which is why dating each other is extremely important!
Dr. Gary Chapman, Author of The 5 Love Languages, shares about how we have that butterfly love feeling for the first couple of years, but then it’s natural for us to need more intentional love; sadly by this point, other things have become a higher priority over the marriage. We end up no longer dating and thinking we have nothing to talk about anymore.
Here are a few of our fav go-to’s that really made an impact for us:
- Happily (Formally known as DateBox) – these are super fun, creative, simple, inexpensive, and can be designed specifically to you as a unique couple!
- My turn, Your turn date routine – We came up with this idea from the 5 Love Language book about how each one of us are different and need our own tank filled. So we created this date routine with a few rules to go off of, and honestly, it was a BIG success!
- Rules:
- Go back and forth assigning who (Hubby or Wife) gets to pick the date activity for that particular date
- the other spouse is NOT allowed to say “no” to what the other spouse picks
- DO IT and have fun
- Rules:
- Simplicity wins – when all else fails, sitting at a lake shore with to-go coffee is one of my most memorable memories. Dates really don’t need to be super fancy; honestly, when you do fancy ones all the time the pizzazz isn’t there anymore.
HERE is actually a blog post with Sober Date Ideas for you to check out
4) Talk
Whether it’s a conflict needing to be discussed or chatting about dreams – talk. Conflict needs to be resolved. I had a marriage mentor who shared that conflict = conversation where contention = resentment/bitterness/division.
It was really eye opening and honestly, talking about conflict made such a positive change in our marriage. All that gunk needs to get out. If you need to do that with a counselor/mediator, then do it!
You two know what will work best for you in your marriage; in fact, you will probably need to talk about having a talk about the conflict. We did! At one point in our marriage we set up a “3 Day Rule”; it went something like this:
Me: I want to have a conversation about ……
Hubby: Okay, so on this day we’ll talk about it after dinner…
Me: yes! pray and think on this topic & then let’s chat about it
this worked out well for us in the beginning because it gave us both time to process how we felt on that topic without insight or leading of the other person.
Also, here is a pretty badass list I found on conversation topics to have with your spouse from Crated with Love here.
I hope these ideas helped and gave you some hope in healing for your marriage! It really does and will take time, but being intentional and being willing to do things differently vs. repeating the same madness should make a difference in your heart.
P.S. We have a free Sober Mom Support group you can access HERE where we hit all these like topics & more; not to mention the 24/7/365 day support for Motherhood in Sobriety.
Keep rocking on,
Leona. xx
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