Your marriage has trust as its basis. However, broken trust can damage a marriage beyond repair without professional intervention and hard work. What can you do to restore your marriage? From going to couple therapy in Toronto to learning how to truly connect to your spouse, you can help mend your relationship.
1. Don’t Do It Alone
In today’s web-saturated society many couples feel that they just need to Google “how to fix my marriage” and find all the answers. The truth of the matter is that your relationship deserves the help of a professional who trained as a psychotherapy, sex therapy, and relationship therapy. You can find healing with couple therapy in Toronto. Your therapist will act as a mediator and guide to help you build trust, improve communication, and ultimately help address the issues that brought you to this point in your life.
2. Rekindle the Romance
Over time relationships suffer from a roller coaster of emotions. The fiery passions from early in our relationship may wax and wane as work, responsibilities, children, and bills take away our attention. Too often couples forget to prioritize each other. Instead work, stress, after-school activities, hobbies, and even exercise take the place of our spouse. This leaves room for emotional attachments with members of the opposite sex outside of your marriage or even affairs. How can you rekindle the romance? Try these simple date ideas:
- Surprise your spouse with babysitting and night out on the town
- Find a hobby you both enjoy together like the cinema or camping and make a point of engaging in the hobby once a week
- If possible, be sure your bedroom is clutter free, kid-free, and private to help facilitate togetherness and connectivity
- Plan a weekend getaway where you only focus on each other
- Take weekly walks, just the two of you, and talk
- On cold nights, cuddle together and enjoy a hot cup of cocoa. Just enjoy the physical closeness
- Make a life list of goals for this year and the next five years to help focus
- Encourage each other to compliment each other at least three times a day
- Try something new and exciting together like salsa dancing classes
- Cancel activities that take you away from each other like unnecessary after school activities, business meetings, and social gatherings. Instead, for the next few months, just focus on spending as much time together as possible doing things you both enjoy.
- Don’t forget the importance of physical intimacy. Connect physically with each other regularly. If this is difficult, you may need to speak with our sex therapists about overcoming challenges in the bedroom
3. Reevaluate Your Social Circle
You might want to look at the makeup of your social circle. Are your friends or family recently divorced or single? Take the time to develop friendships with married couples in healthy relationships. Why? You can find that marriage is easier in community. Find an older couple for mentorship. By surrounding yourself with friends that have committed to marriage, no matter the difficulties, you can find help and hope for your own marriage.
4. Be Realistic and Honest
Many couples enter marriage believing they can change their spouse. However, that rarely happens. Instead, resentment builds over time, cracking the foundations of marriage. With the help of a marriage counselor, be honest and vulnerable with each other. Discuss your expectations for the marriage. Discuss the situations that led to the break in trust. Your therapist can help mediate strong feelings and make the experience positive and fruitful for both of you.
Follow these simple suggestions, along with professional marriage therapy, and you may find that you and your spouse can rekindle the romance. Enjoy the journey together.
