It’s not because of a lack of love, it’s because of a lack of something else. No, not sex.
When you look at the reality of marriage today. My best guess is that about 10%-15% of marriages are happy. Happy doesn’t mean that things are just OK.
A happy marriage means that you are still in love with and feel a deep connection and passion for your partner. That your life is enhanced is so many ways because of your marriage and you feel grateful to have that person to share your life with. After 14 years together, that’s where I am in my marriage. Do you know many people who are really happily married?
Why do so many couples struggle? There’s plenty information out there about what to do to fix your relationship. I have a free report on my website loaded with content that works fast. I constantly refer people to it who cannot afford my guidance. But, very few actually look at it. Do they connect with me hoping for the easy instantaneous miracle after 9 years of misery?
Here’s the truth: Marriage isn’t easy. Marriage can be difficult. Any long term relationship can have challenging moments. Being with another person isn’t always perfectly fun. There will be tough moments.
What do people do in those difficult moments? They are mostly doing very little. How are people responding to the challenges in their relationships? They are mostly responding poorly.
Here’s Why: The #1 Thing that people lack is not love, it’s not information, it’s COURAGE.
It takes courage to put your partner first. It takes courage to make your marriage more important than something else in your busy life. It takes courage to have heart felt understanding for your partner. It takes courage to admit you are wrong and apologize. It takes real courage to want something exceptional and have the willingness to do something all the time to make it happen.
It takes courage to step into the difficult thing and to do it even when it’s really tough and you don’t want to, and you are afraid. Maybe you are afraid of rejection, afraid of not being enough, afraid of giving and not getting anything back. Facing all of those fears and doing it anyway requires courage.
Here’s a suggestion that I gave a woman recently who is going through a tough time and is at odds with her partner:
“Maybe John is feeling off because he doesn’t know how to handle you right now and you are feeling off because you don’t know how you feel about him exactly…
If you decided that you were going to ask him to hold you for a few moments…, and know that he might want to say something you wouldn’t want to hear, and might be confused…, and still allow that to happen… knowing that it was hard to do anyway… and find something in that holding that could create a new moment. That requires courage…doing it and knowing it may not happen the way you want, and doing it anyway, because if it works it will be so worthwhile…maybe incredibly comforting…maybe re-connecting.
That’s courage in action, and your willingness to step into your courage and do that over and over again knowing it might fail, and knowing that you never fail when you are addressing fear, creates a strength that can’t be taken away.”
This is how marriages get transformed, one act of courage at a time. This is how relationships get changed. Find the courage to do something that’s difficult all the time and everything will change and it will get easier and easier to do. Right now is a great time to start.
