What if My Spouse Won’t Go Get Help?

Conflict in marriage is complicated! It’s hard enough if only one person wanted to change, but when you need two people to be involved in the change it makes it even more difficult. The idea of getting help in your marriage for some may seem critical while for others it may seem extreme or unnecessary. The truth is that improving a marriage can be done in so many different ways today, that it really need not become a new source of conflict. You don’t need to argue about getting help, so instead of arguing, here are four things you can do to improve your relationship even if your spouse doesn’t want to.

1. Remember That Therapy Is Not The Only Way

   - Try coaching not therapy - Many men don’t relate to a world where you sit down and openly explore their feelings but they do relate to a coaching model. So suggest relationship coaching instead.

   - Go online - You live in the 21st century, there are many ways to get the knowledge your marriage needs to get better.

   - Learn from other ways - Podcasts, Matt’s Minutes, YouTube Videos, Studio 5, Books, etc.

   - Make the Learning A Retreat - Go on a cruise or trip with a marriage or relationship expert.

   - Go to your spiritual leader.

   - Make it fun.

2. Go Get Help By Yourself

   - “Two heads are better than one but one head is better than none.”

   - If your house had a problem that needed constant care like an air conditioner that keeps shutting down, it would be best if both you and your spouse knew how to fix it. But if they won’t go learn, wouldn’t it still be better to go learn what you can to make conditions better?

   - Just because your partner doesn’t want help doesn’t mean that you can't get help.

   - 75% of the clients that start my program by themselves end up having their spouses come with them.

   - Choose a counselor that is pro marriage.

   - Get help on how to communicate with your partner.

   - Find a specialist who has a record of helping you eventually get your spouse interested in coming.

   - Don’t go and bash or gang up on your spouse without them present.

   - Be loyal to them and don’t trust a counselor that is telling you to end a marriage instead of helping you to first change the system and strengthen yourself.

   - Gather tools and skills that you can take back and actually implement and be different in your marriage.

   - When getting help, you should be feeling more empowered, responding to your spouse in healthier ways, and being a happier person. You should feel like you are at your best self, even if the relationship seems to be slipping.

3. Choose Not to Be Offended

   - If there are obvious relationship issues that have been going on for a while and they don’t want to get help, then don’t be offended by that.

   - Remember their insecurities and fears are more a reference to who they are than who you are.

   - They are not choosing to ignore the relationship because they are healthy, but because they are hurting.

   - Once you’re offended you can possibly become more offensive instead.

   - Everybody is completely at different levels of maturity and ability, so if they are more relationally challenged, then we will neither be offended by their immobility nor follow their lead.

   - Remember that if you are noticing the need for help, then you have the higher obligation to do something about it.

   - Despite what they say to you, getting help does not mean you love them less or want them to change. It simply means that we need growth and love to both be a part of our long-term plan.

   - You must have growth or you don’t really have love.

4. Learn to Lead with Love

   - “Don’t ever follow the lead of the most relationally challenged person.”

   - You must learn to become your best self and love your spouse regardless. That doesn’t mean you have to stay but you need to love and care.

   - The better we get at leading our own relationships and understanding our own insecurities, the stronger and happier we feel with others.

   - Many times when you are healthier, it forces your partner to either get healthier or to slide the other way. Your behavior affects them.

   - You don’t have to hate someone to leave them. So see what happens in your marriage when you are your best self and actually feeling more love for the other.

   - Lead doesn’t mean you always have to stay married. If you’re going to make your most important decision to leave a spouse, you had better be doing it on the healthiest principles you can. Not just a reactive, tit for tat approach.