Hi, I'm Paul Friedman. I founded The Marriage Foundation and the topic we're
covering today is How To Fix Your Marriage Without Counseling. So actually,
that's a pretty easy one for me because I began my marriage healing career as a
divorce mediator so I've seen it all. People would come to me and after they
went through counseling almost 100% of the time their marriage was done and
that's where I got the idea. There's got to be a better path, and there is. So
you've come to the right place. First thing we have to do is ask a very simple
question, why did you get married in the first place? And I have a very simple
answer for you, you wanted to be happier. Most people don't think about that when
asked that question but that's the bottom line. You wanted to be happier.
Are you happier now? Obviously not, if you're looking for answers to fix your
marriage then you realize your marriage is not functioning. Now I have to ask
you another silly question, why isn't your marriage functioning? Well
look, your marriage isn't a ride at some theme park. You didn't just get into a
train or a plane and expect to be taken somewhere, or did you? Well, it doesn't
work that way. Your marriage is a living thing that is controlled 100% by
two people, you and your spouse. And one of you has tremendous power when the
other person is lacks so you can't go, "Yeah, well my husband isn't doing his
part, or my wife isn't doing her part." You can't do that, it's not how it works,
that's not the dynamics of marriage. So understand this before we get further
along, your marriage is not functioning meaning it's not happy and getting
happier, and the reason why is because you're not doing your part,
I'm gonna be blunt. Now you're gonna go, "Oh, I'd do everything I can. I cook, I
clean, I take care of the kids or conversely, I worked my butt off, I bring
home a paycheck, I don't hang out with other women, I'm a good man, I'm a
Christian, I'm with this some of that." But you're not educated in marriage and
that's the biggest problem that I have seen. Everyone thinks they already know
how to be married but they don't. You didn't even know the answer to the
question of, why you got married? You were going to come up with some other reason
rather than "I want to be happier." Now I'm gonna create a comparison. You wanted to
drive a car. You didn't just get into a car and start driving. You learned about
cars, you learned about roads, you learned about driving conditions. There were all
these things you needed to learn but you didn't do that with your marriage; it's
not too late. You have to get marriage education, you have to know and it
entails quite a number of parts. Now look I cover all this in both of my books
Breaking the Cycle and Lessons for a Happy Marriage. I haven't seen other
books that approach it the way I do, I try to make it simple. There's you in the
marriage, your psychology, your emotions, your mind, your heart, your soul, and then
there's your spouses but they're of a different gender, generally speaking so
you have to learn about genders. You have to learn about psychology, you have to
learn about communication, you have to learn about what's expected of you, what
is your role. You have to learn how your mind works so you can get it under
control. You have to learn about decency, humility; there's all of these aspects.
The good news is it's not so hard to learn these things. You can learn them
and you don't have to know them all 100%. The problem is you don't
even know them 5% right now. Now if you start reading in the book
you're gonna go, "Oh, I knew that I knew it." But you're not doing it because you
don't know how critical it is so you have to know the importance of each
aspect. Well, it has to be clear in your head of what you need to do to have a happy
marriage. Good news is this, a happy marriage
produces happiness like you've never had before. It's the most amazing thing for
you should be walking around in joy literally. And if you're not, it's only
because you don't know how to do it. Now that's not true for all marriages and
you're gonna be thinking, "Yeah, it's not true for mine. He's cheating on me or
it's not true for mine, she's not giving me any sex." It's true for every marriage
except for the ones that have gone too far like if he's cheating on you. Then
you need to do more than just learn. You do have to learn, there's no getting
around that but first you have to get grounded, You have to learn about
yourself first. Usually, when people don't know much about marriage they could
learn about marriage in their fight, they don't have to learn that much about
themselves. But when their mind is starting to get where it's like super
angry all the time, resentful, and discourage a lot of those people need to
get grounded. They need to understand their mind, how to control their emotions,
how to mitigate their instinctive reactions, all of these things are
important. But for most of you honestly, who are watching this video just the
education is enough, Start there if you can. Now, a lot of our clients at The
Marriage Foundation, the husband's moved out and people go, "Well, how do I fix that
marriage?" Well, if your husband hasn't moved out it's honestly not a problem.
You could still fix your marriage. He married you, he loves you
but he's frustrated so that's about it. You can do this, we've seen it thousands
of times a year so you can do this too. That's it and if you think you got some
benefit and someone else could get something then share this, like it
That's always good for our social media reputation and if you have
a comment or you just want to interact with me personally. Go ahead and use the
comment box. All right. It's very nice to offer my services to you and you could
always write into our counselors too. You know, they'll give you an answer it's
free. Take advantage of that. Love and blessings to you, love and blessings to
your spouse, and love and blessings to your family. Take care.