After I first developed my system for helping married couples I put an ad in the local paper that said, "I can save your marriage." I got a tremendous response and began meeting with two or three couples a day. Most of the couples I was seeing were coming to me because they had tried everything else. Even though I did not have the normal credentials, meaning I am not a psychologist, they were desperate. My sessions were 2 hours long because I remembered well when my wife and I went to a psychologist and spent less than an hour with them I always left thinking there was way too much left unsaid. In retrospect, had we stayed longer we would have realized we weren’t getting any help. So I wanted to make sure people who came to me were getting what they were paying for. I made it clear that for any reason they thought reasonable they would not have to pay me. In two years there was only one man who chose not to pay me. But he was not sincere from the beginning and was only trying to appease his wife who he knew he was going to leave anyway. She had cheated on him and his cultural upbringing could never get past the humiliation he felt. Other than that one couple, everyone I worked with knew what to do to save their own marriage.

No one can save your marriage for you; you have to do it yourself. But what a mean statement that would be if you did not know how! Within 20 minutes of our meeting every single couple was back on track. I’m not saying they were there after 20 minutes! But they had agreed to leave the past behind, a past that was muddled with all sorts of improper behaviors. They agreed to train themselves according to how you’re supposed to behave in a marriage. It isn’t that hard. In fact, it’s downright simple. I didn’t say easy because retraining yourself, especially after many years, is not always the easiest thing to do... But the effort of retraining yourself is almost nothing compared to the pain of continuing on in a painful marriage, or the greater pain of getting a divorce.

There was a time when people thought the world was flat. If you were foolish enough to explain the math that describes the earth as a globe you might have been put into prison. Fortunately these days people don’t normally put you into prison for having radical new ideas. So I was fairly safe when I introduced the idea that a happy marriage is much more normal than a bad marriage. Normal meaning natural; I’m not saying that most people are currently enjoying a happy marriage. But it is normal to have a happy marriage as long as you’re following what I would call the physics of marriage. There are natural laws for everything. If you walk to the edge of a cliff and take one more step you will experience the natural law of gravity. If you walk up to your spouse and tell them they are stupid you will experience the natural law of a negative response for a negative comment.

The first step in saving a marriage is learning about the pitfalls, the behaviors that destroy most marriages. The next step is learning how a marriage is constructed, what a marriage actually is and consists of and what it is meant to do. Like anything else, if you learn more than just the surface rules you will be far better off. In marriage it’s exactly the same. Not only do you need to know how to communicate (just as an example - communication is not the only problem with troubled marriages) properly but you also need to know why and what proper marital communication is, why proper communication is important, and which communication to use in the various situations that arise..

It is almost certain your marriage can be saved. I have met with people who were literally going to the court to get a divorce on Friday, two days after seeing me, but were very happily married by Monday. It is absolutely amazing! But I use the analogy of trying to pound a nail in with a screwdriver and then being handed a hammer. My point is not how amazing it is that their marriage was saved. My point is it would be amazing if their marriage was not saved once they knew what they were supposed to do.

Don’t give up! I’ve seen way too many people succeed. I know where the great risks are in which few couples probably won’t succeed. But I’m not going to tell you because even out of that group there have been successes. I can’t read anyone’s mind and I don’t know the deep dark secrets within each one’s soul, so to point out the odds of the very, very small groups of people who don’t make it would be crazy on my part because it would discourage you. But know this: the chances of you being in that group are very small. The percentage of couples I couldn’t help with the manual was less than 2%. So hang in there, understand that there is hope and tell the person you are married to, "I love you."