Should I Give Up or Fight for My Marriage?

Your marriage is in trouble. I’m so very sorry for your pain. I know it hurts. I’ve been there. Those who haven’t been through this don’t understand the deep ache you feel when the person you love doesn’t seem to love you, or the deep agony you feel when they tell you that they don’t love you, or the torture in your soul when they tell you they love someone else. They don’t grasp the sense of utter helplessness you feel when there isn’t another person, and you, no matter how hard you try, can’t figure out what the actual problem is. You don’t know why your spouse wants to be somewhere other than with you, and you don’t know how to fix it, but you want to fight for your marriage.

If you know that the reason that your mate wants out is because of what you’ve done, you can’t undo it, but you wish more than anything that you could, and it rips into the very core of your heart. People can’t comprehend the sense of overwhelming frustration when you do everything you know how to do, and things get no better. They seem to get worse and worse. If any of these describe how you feel, I again say to you that I’m so very sorry that things are as they are.

I know that pain. I never want to feel it again, just as you never want to go through anything like this again. So, what do you do?

Your marriage is in trouble, but your spouse isn’t willing to work it out. 

Well, you can do what half the people in America do and give up. Quit. Divorce. Let your mate go do whatever it is that they think they want to do, especially if they’re saying things like, “Well, if you loved me, you’d let me go.”

Of course, you can let them go. You can let the marriage end, or you can end it yourself. You can move on in the hope that you’ll do better in your subsequent marriage, if you have a next marriage, or you can fight. Or, you can be one of the strong who doesn’t give up easily even though you face a challenging situation. A part of you wants peace, wants this to be over to feel good inside again. You are tired of being hurt by your spouse who wants out for whatever reason, or even because they think they want to be with someone else.

Despite all this, you can be the person who doesn’t give up on this person that you’ve loved and still love.

You can be a person who will fight for your marriage. 

Now, you’re probably thinking, “Fight? Fight how? My marriage is in a meltdown, and my mate doesn’t want to be with me. What do you mean fight? Why? For what?” Well, I don’t blame you for thinking that way. 

We’ve worked with thousands of couples, and in most of those situations, at least one spouse is asking, “Why keep hurting when I can just end this and maybe find a path to healing?” If you decide to do that, it is certainly your right. As one who’s been through it, I understand the need to regain some control over your life. I also understand the hope of finding a path to peace inside your head and your heart.

But quitting, giving up, is that really you? Or are you a person who reaches inside and finds strength you didn’t know you had when you need to face threats to your love and to this life with the person you love? Are you tougher and stronger than people around you realize? A person who loves so deeply that you won’t let your family end without a fight. Even in your hurt, and sometimes feelings of hopelessness, you’re determined to seek hope. 

If that’s you, the warrior who doesn’t give up, whose love is so strong that you won’t let it be taken from you, then know that no matter how hopeless it seems, there is hope, real hope.

Yes, even if your spouse is telling you that there’s no hope, that if you loved them, you’d let them go. Maybe your mate’s so mean to you that you wonder who this person is and what happened to the person that you love. 

Right now isn’t the time to take advice from your spouse.

People who want out may feel strong emotions, say and do mean things, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be like this forever. If the person you love is still in there somewhere, there is a way to rescue them and restore the marriage.

Now, I know, there are a lot of people out there who will tell you that your mate will never change and that you should give up, get rid of this jerk who’s hurting you so badly, that you’re worth more than this, and that you don’t deserve this. Well, for that part, I wholeheartedly agree. You are worth more than this, and you don’t deserve this kind of pain. But remember that most people who urge you to give up to end a marriage give that kind of advice because they love you, and they can’t stand to see you hurt. They’re mad at your mate for causing you pain.

They aren’t bad people, they do love you, but their advice can be terrible because it’s focused on relieving your hurt right now, not on what the future could be. Or maybe some people urge you to end it because they’ve been through some pain of their own. So now they’re projecting their emotions onto your situation, wanting you to hurt the person hurting you so that in some weird way, they feel a sort of satisfaction because they still want to hurt the person who hurt them.

No, I’m not attacking them. I’m saying that if you’re a fighter, if you aren’t a quitter, then no matter how much they love you, no matter how forcefully they push their advice on you, no matter how much they encourage you to end your marriage, don’t let them sway you from doing what is important to you. If fighting for your marriage is what you feel inside is the right thing to do, even if you’re worried that the union might not work out in the long run, then be true to yourself, true to who you are, and fight.

If you do fight, be careful who you talk to for advice.

I mean, the world’s full of people, even people you don’t know, who want to give you advice about just what you should do to fix your marriage. But the vast majority of them don’t have a clue, and their misguided advice, no matter how well-meaning, may destroy your marriage rather than save it.

In our experience with thousands, we’ve discovered that sometimes it’s even your marriage counselor who tells you to give up. Well, while your therapist may be right, please know that in our work with marriages in crisis, we’ve witnessed hundreds of couples working things out after they stopped seeing the counselor who suggested they divorce. 

That’s frustrating. People close to you tell you to end the marriage and let it go. Other people, even strangers, tell you just what to do to save your marriage, but giving you advice that would be like walking off of a cliff if you followed.

Please hear this. 

If you are a fighter for what’s important to you, there is help, good help, powerful help, practical help. For 25 years, we’ve had fantastic success helping people in marriage crisis, most often with couples where one spouse wants to save the marriage because of their love, what they believe, and because of who they are, while the other spouse wants out. 

We’re used to this scenario. We not only know this pain, we understand it, and we’ve had the privilege of helping thousands figure a way past this marital mess and to find a path to being in love with each other again. Yes, even those who said they were not in love with their spouses any longer, and even those who wanted out because they felt deeply in love with someone else.

We Can Help

No, we don’t do magic. Also, we don’t do the work to save your marriage. If you’re saying, “I want to fight for my marriage,” You do the work. We can’t do it for you. But just as we’ve done for thousands, we will guide you through a proven process that, as we say, if anything works, this will. It’s your choice. Give up, or stand up. Let your marriage end, or fight for it. If you choose to fight, we’ll stand alongside you and help in every way we can. 

Well, I won’t lie to you and guarantee success, but over the decades that we’ve been working with marriages in trouble, three out of four of those couples worked through their situations and made their marriages good again. Yes, even couples where one wants to salvage the marriage, and the other doesn’t.

Now, when you call, you’ll talk to one of our client representatives who will guide you to which of our resources would be best for you. It’s not a hotline; they aren’t counselors. They listen to understand your problem, and then they direct you to the right help, and they care, genuinely care. So if you’re a fighter, contact us here to speak with someone.

Despite the pain we know you are going through, you can be the person who doesn’t give up. You can be the person who fights for your marriage.

For more information on how to fight for your marriage, click here.

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