Fighting for Your Marriage While Separated

MY NEW BOOK, FIGHTING FOR YOUR MARRIAGE WHILE SEPARATED, A Practical Guide for the Brokenhearted, released this week and is now available on Amazon. My own story of separation and reconciliation, along with the powerful stories of others who’ve walked this road, have prepared me to bring you this battle plan for reconciliation—stories which were born in pain, but now offer new life to struggling marriages.

What Turned Things Around?

But a curious thing happened to me the other morning.

Whenever I’m interviewed on radio or TV one of the inevitable questions I’m asked is what happened to turn things around during my three-year separation from my husband so we were able to reconcile our marriage.  That has always been a difficult question for me to answer because there wasn’t just one thing that made the difference. There were many.

But a few mornings ago as I was praying about an interview I had later that day, I suddenly realized I did have the answer! It was right in front of my eyes when I opened the first pages of my new book!  It was there in my chapter titles. Each chapter was an expansion of one of the things that had contributed to my own reconciliation story. Without realizing it, as I tried to show others how they could fight for their marriages and win, I had laid out the steps that lead to my own marriage reconciliation.

Through the years I’ve received many emails from readers of Broken Heart on Hold, asking me questions about their own marital challenges as they struggled to find reconciliation for their marriages. After finding hope, strength and encouragement for their marriages in the words of Broken Heart on Hold, they wanted to know how to take the next step. Fighting for Your Marriage while Separated provides the answers to these questions.

Fighting for Your Marriage while Separated, begins where Broken Heart on Hold left off, continuing to guide you through the labyrinths of separation, this time with practical answers to your questions and true life stories to give you hope.

Today I’m giving you a peek into the chapters so you can get a glimpse of some of the things you can put into your arsenal so you can fight for your marriage and win even if you’re separated and fighting for your marriage alone. Each chapter of Fighting for Your Marriage while Separated provides one more link to the winning strategy that brought not only my marriage back together, but many other marriages as well.

Fighting for Your Marriage while Separated

1. Reacting to Your New Situation – When a spouse first leaves, the one left behind is devastated and often caught off guard. He or she is tempted to react in reckless ways that may actually push his or her mate further away. The first chapter shows the reader how to take steps to turn rash reactions into constructive responses.

2. Sizing up Your Relationship Dynamics – Looking at the assertive versus passive natures of each spouse in their marriage relationship can provide a surprising glimpse into what brought them to the point of brokenness. This chapter shows the reader how to unravel these complex dynamics and begin moving in a positive direction toward healing.

3. Exchanging Negative Communication Patterns for Positive Ones – Our negative responses to one another form reactionary circles that take us around and around in a repetitious pattern of interaction that produces the same frustration and hurts again and again. But either spouse can interrupt this sequence of interactions and change the dynamics of the relationship. This chapter shows you how that can be done.

4. Finding Power in Positive Words –The road to restoring a marriage is paved with responses that will most likely seem unnatural in the midst of anger and deep pain. Taking a positive approach, instead of following negative instincts, can turn a marriage around. How do you actually do this?

5. Drawing on Outside Help – Those who are separated need support from others to work through the pain and find healthy answers. Knowing where to turn for help and how to recognize the difference between helpful vs. unhelpful support makes a difference. Even when choosing a counselor, it’s important to understand the difference between individual counselors and marriage counselors. Not all counselors are trained in marriage counseling, and an untrained counselor who tries to work with couples can do more harm than good. Marriage counseling is more difficult because the counselor is ministering to three separate clients at the same time and needs to know how to handle any conflict that may erupt in a counseling session. Knowing what to look for and what to avoid is important in getting the help you need.

6. Protecting Your Child’s Heart – The children of a separated couple are torn in many directions emotionally, but usually hover in the background, unnoticed. How do we help them through their loneliness and confusion without entangling them in our own pain and disappointments? One of my own daughters, who not only suffered through my three-year separation but is now a mental health counselor, sheds light on this important but often overlooked subject.

7. Stepping into the Prayer Closet – Effective prayer for our marriages encompasses much more than we think. Praying for restoration is only the beginning as we humble ourselves and allow God to sift the chaff from our hearts and lives, pray sacrificially for our spouses, and surrender everything to God.

8. Letting Go–The Hardest Prescription – The true answer to turning the marriage around starts with letting go of control and giving it all to the God who knows how to put together the broken pieces of our lives to create something beautiful. How do we do that?

9. Unwrapping the New You – To have a healthy marriage, we need two healthy individuals in that marriage. The separated person not only needs to take care of him/herself, but also let God unwrap the potential within. God uses the trials in our lives for a purpose. One of His purposes is to make us into more of the person He first designed us to be. We have a creative God who can use this time to take us on a new personal adventure of growth.

10. Turning the Prayer Closet into a War Room – Once we have humbled ourselves and completely put our trust in God, we are ready to declare war on the enemy of our marriage. We begin by entering into God’s courts with praise and then dress ourselves piece by piece in the power of the armor of God.

11. Making Tough Choices – How do we love the spouse who is tearing our marriage apart and protect ourselves as well? How do we handle a mate caught up in addictions or an affair? And what about an abusive spouse? In setting appropriate heart guards, it’s important to find that fine line between love and self-protection. An in-depth discussion with Counselor, John Tardonia, about physical abuse, a look at how to handle infidelity, and a powerful story from the trenches about addiction will help us find the answers.

12. Dating as Friends – One perplexing issue a separated couple often begins to grapple with at some point is whether or not they can be friends while separated. The surprising answer to this is that a period of friendship dating can actually be a positive step toward putting a marriage back together.

13. Knowing If It’s Time To Reconcile – Even when a prodigal spouse is ready to return, the timing may or may not be right for true reconciliation. There is a way that will successfully bring the marriage back together in a healthy forever relationship, and there’s a wrong way that may cause the marriage to break apart again. What are the signs that a separated couple is ready to get back together and rebuild a solid marriage? The story of a couple who did it both the wrong way and the right way sheds light on this subject.
    

14. Learning to Live with the Same Spouse in a New Marriage – When a couple finally gets back together, how do they ensure that their marriage has a firmer foundation than before and that bad habits won’t return? How do they create safety for each other? And when relapses do occur, how should they handle them? My husband Marv and I share a number of principles that can help the new reconciled marriage become the marriage you always wanted.

15. Coping With the “D” Word – Lurking in the separated person’s mind is a dark, dreaded fear. What if, after all the waiting, their mate still decides to file? Wherever this road leads, God has provided. You needn’t be afraid. God’s perfect love will carry you through no matter what happens. Answers to common questions about divorce are provided and helpful programs recommended.

16. Who Are You Holding For? – Although your heart has been on hold for your spouse, it is only when you truly fill your heart up with Jesus that you will find a completely healed heart. He’s the only one who will give us a perfect love. In your waiting, God has brought you something more precious than what you thought you’d lost—the sweet intimacy of a deeper relationship with Christ. Two stories with different endings show how God is not limited by our own expectations and brings the beauty of restoration to us in different ways.

Finding the Hope to Fight the Fight

If you are separated, there is hope—even if you’re fighting for your marriage alone. Our culture is filled with misconceptions. One of them comes regularly whenever I begin telling people about the many marriages I’ve seen reconcile. After a sad sigh, one person will often say, “But it takes two to want to reconcile.”

While it ultimately does take two to finally get back together, it doesn’t take two to start the process of reconciliation. One spouse, alone, who is willing to trust God, focus on Him, and surrender the marriage to God, can often bring about restoration. But he or she needs to trust God’s ways and His timing and realize God has purposes beyond their own. Yes, eventually, it does take two. But God will restore the person who waits on Him during the waiting, sometimes in unexpected ways, regardless of the eventual outcome.

So come and join the battle. Let me join you as you fight for your marriage. I want to show you principles and strategies to help you win—even if you’re separated and fighting for your marriage alone. Together, let’s look to the Commander and seek Him for direction.

Fighting for Your Marriage while Separated, A Practical Guide for the Brokenhearted