Every marriage is different, but they all have one thing in common: No matter how much you love each other, you’re bound to hit a rough patch sooner or later.
The good news is that once you figure out a way to get through the issue, your marriage will be stronger than ever.
And you can get to that other side. Read on for some great tips from real people on what they did to turn heir marriage around.
Get a Room of Your Own
“I married the loudest mammal in the universe,” Megan says of her husband, whom she’s been married to for two years. They met on Tinder and they’re blissfully in love, but there’s one problem: He snores. “I used to think I would end up on 60 Minutes at some point for suffocating him in his sleep,” she says. Their saving grace? A second bedroom.
Selfish
Michael, 42, says it’s important that couples know it’s OK to be selfish because being more fulfilled can make you happier in your marriage. “You could call me a selfish husband or call my wife a selfish wife,” says Michael, who’s been married for 12 years. “We don’t watch TV together; we watch shows on our own schedules. We don’t eat meals together; she’s often teaching yoga at dinnertime. And we don’t go to the clubs together or see the same friends,” he says. “We enjoy those things together when our interests overlap, but give one another the space to do it alone. So we’re growing while together, but not feeling ‘stuck’ together.”
Don’t Play the Blame Game
Samantha, 24, has only been married for a year, but people always say that the first year is the hardest, especially in the current economic climate. “Being younger and still at the beginning of our careers, finances are hard to navigate,” she says. “Sitting down, looking at what we spend, and on what and where we can make sacrifices, was huge. Sacrifice also means compromise, because we both had to give on things we may not have wanted to. You can’t blame the other person for any bad spends, because marriage is about the team and if you start ‘the blame game,’ you start to not take responsibility and create problems and resentments.”
Sometimes, You Just Need Space
Amanda, 30, nearly got divorced a few years ago because her in-laws were driving her crazy. “It got to the point where my mother-in-law told me that I was raised with my mother ‘bringing men into and out of my life constantly,'” she says. The constant arguing put a toll on her marriage because, as is often the case in these scenarios, they couldn’t agree on how to handle the situation.
They tried family therapy, but ultimately the thing that helped the most was just not talking to her in-laws for a few years. “Choosing to not talk for a while wasn’t shutting the door on their existence forever. It was just giving everyone time to regroup,” she says. “Eventually, everyone realized they were just raging for the sake of raging.”