When my marriage started to fall apart all I could think was "I want my husband back".
I thought we had a wonderful marriage, but as it happens sometimes very slowly the marriage is dying and you don't even know it.
Fortunately, I decided to do something about it.
I'm hoping you can learn from my experience.
First I decided not to put the blame on either one of us.
It takes two to make a marriage work.
It didn't make sense for me to pinpoint where things went wrong by trying to find fault in my husband or myself.
That felt counterproductive.
I did seek some relationship advice and found that I was right to start working on my marriage by not seeking to blame anyone.
But I also knew that something was wrong and that I had to change myself and be an example to my husband showing him I was a good wife and that he would be crazy to leave me.
I started looking at the things that made me happy about my marriage and focused there.
I found that if I expanded on the things that made me happy I could direct my energy from the negative to the positive.
And, that had a psychological impact on me and my husband.
I found the things that I like in my husband and started appreciating him more.
My appreciation of him made him see me in a new light.
Often in a marriage we take the other person for granted.
We forget why we loved them in the first place.
Unless your husband has completely changed and there is no hope he will be the man you married again then you still have a chance to turn your marriage around.
So think of the things that make you both happy and see if you can't get you and your husband to experience those moments once more.
But make sure you make it seem like it is his idea.
Be spontaneous.
If you get excited you will get him excited again too.
Don't force it.
You have to really want to do whatever it is that brings you both joy.
If you fake it your husband will know and the phoniness will backfire on you.
Next, while you are involved in those things that the both of you love that is the time when you need to tell your husband how much you appreciate him and all he does for you.
The reason this is the time to tell him that is because 1) it will be easier and more natural for you, because you will mean it and 2) it will be easier for him to reciprocate those feelings to you.
All of a sudden in a very easy natural way you both will find that you want to stay together.
Don't set your expectations too high though.
The marriage will probably never be the same as it was when you were first married.
Having a history together sometimes makes it difficult.
However, don't look at this as a negative.
Going forward in your marriage you can actually make your marriage better than it was in the beginning.
Having a close call like almost losing my marriage made me value what I was about to lose.
It made me see that if I didn't start to work on my marriage my life was not going to be happy in the future and so "work" didn't seem like work anymore.
I looked at the "working at my marriage" part as a pleasure because it was going to make my life better.
So, I made a conscious decision that if I wanted my husband back then I had to be aware of any "cracks" in our relationship and repair them as soon as they happen.
Those preventative measures are making the difference between almost losing my marriage and having a marriage that I can make better and better each and every day.