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What Happened After I Saved My Marriage

Kathy Murray, Laura Doyle Certified Master Relationship Coach

Before I learned about the 6 Intimacy SkillsTM, my marriage was headed for divorce.

I blamed my husband for everything, never taking responsibility for my own happiness or cleaning up my side of the street, dismissing my own acts of rage and disrespect. I was controlling, critical and lacked self-care.

I didn’t like who I had become, and obviously he didn’t either.

My husband often resorted to watching TV and snuggling with our pets as I’d rage at him for ignoring my needs. I was unhappy and criticized his choices, such as how he parented. I’d cry, fight, yell and pout to get my way. There were cold wars for days, sometimes weeks.

I had a lot to learn.

Trouble was, I didn’t know any of that. What I did know was that my husband was no longer attracted to me and that I needed help. So after reading the book The Surrendered Wife, I emailed Laura Doyle and begged her to help me save my marriage.

That was in 2001, and I’ve never left her side.

One of the first things I learned was that the Intimacy Skills empower me to be a more dignified woman, wife and mother. They’re not really about changing my husband, although he responded to me much more affectionately after I started practicing them.

As much as I welcomed these changes, they weren’t all smooth sailing.

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My Marriage Is in Trouble

How I Jumped Off the Fence and Into Love
Teresa, Laura Doyle Relationship Coach

I had been married for 20+ years to my third husband when I first discovered the 6 Intimacy Skills™. My first two marriages had ended in divorce. I did not want my third marriage to fail too.

The year before finding Laura Doyle’s books, I had moved out of our home for twelve months, uncertain whether my husband and I would reconcile or divorce.

I felt emotionally exhausted, particularly by the arguments, blame, criticism, distance, hurt feelings and lack of emotional trust and respect between us. Our marriage felt like so much hard work for both of us.

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5 Common Mistakes Women Make to Get Their Man’s Time and Affection

How to Get the Consideration You Want the Way You Want It

Wouldn’t it be a wonderful world if marriage came with an easy-to-follow instruction manual?

Who’s with me?

But since it doesn’t, you bumble along trying out relationship advice you got at the hair salon, from well-meaning friends and even strangers at bars.

They say things like “Never go to bed angry.”

Sounds wise, right? But another way to say that is “Stay up and fight,” which doesn’t seem like such a great idea after all.

There’s a lot of bad relationship advice floating around disguised as “common sense.” Maybe that’s why so many marriages are falling apart.

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My Husband Is Emotionally Distant

How I Got My White Picket Fence After All
Rachel Hanna, Laura Doyle Certified Coach

All of my life, I had my eye on the prize: being married to my one true soulmate.

I imagined us laughing together on the couch and gazing into each other’s eyes, deeply in love. I imagined a love of such closeness and comfort that we could have a blast together at the grocery store. I also imagined accomplishing big dreams together–white picket fence and all.

I yearned and prayed my heart out to meet him, a focused mission I made my top priority as I became a young woman.

Then I met him, and I knew right away.

He was sensitive, gentle, brilliant, and shared the same dreams as me. From the time we met, he felt familiar and comfortable, like a brother, and also the man I knew I would forever love more and more deeply.

When we got married, I naively said we would be different from other couples. I expected smooth sailing from day one because we were gentle souls aimed for kindness and sweetness towards each other.

Despite that good foundation, within a few weeks the challenges began.

He had taken a job with long, late hours, which didn’t match my vision of the evenings we would spend together as newlyweds. I complained, telling him it was wrong to work so late when we were newly married since we should be cuddling and laughing all evening, as true soulmates do.

It wasn’t long before he was withdrawn and distant.

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You’ve been working really hard on your relationship. At least it feels like hard work because it’s so draining and takes up so much time and energy.

The bad news is you were probably working on fixing the wrong things.

The good news is that, no matter how bad it seems now, it’s not too late to save the relationship—and get the fulfilling one you set out to have when you first fell in love.

That’s true even if you’re separated, there’s been an affair, or the divorce has already started.

Here’s what you can do to restore the peace, passion and connection you once shared:

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My Husband Avoids Me

How I Attracted Him Back–and Became My Best Self

Amy Beth Kauffman, Laura Doyle Relationship Coach

I met my husband 27 years ago, the day I moved to a new apartment. We ran into each other by chance in the lobby as he was leaving a friend’s place. He then turned around to come back upstairs with his friend and me to hang out longer.

A month later, he drove over to my apartment to ask me out on a date, and we have been together ever since.

I married him for many reasons: He was smart, gentle, stable, reliable, generous, compassionate, hard-working, and he has amazing green eyes! I thought the world of him.

He was attentive to me, planned dates for us–everything from lunch to vacation–and we were fortunate to have the family of our dreams. It was a fairytale.

Until it wasn’t.

We decided that I would put my career on the back burner to be a stay-at-home mom. It made sense financially and emotionally. Motherhood was wonderfully exhausting, but I was lonely for my husband.

While I waited at home for his attention, he was becoming a superstar at work. He received promotion after promotion, which I was proud of and yet, I began to feel less important and less worthy than I was.

I unfairly expected him to fulfill all my needs for attention, affirmation and affection.

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My Marriage Is Miserable

How I Stopped the Fighting

Sonya, Laura Doyle Certified Coach
“Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.” —Proverbs 21:9 (NIV)

I met my husband in college, and disrespect started early—even before we got married.

He said he’d always dreamed his bride would come down the aisle followed by a long white train. I found a gown with a short train. He didn’t see until our wedding day that I had completely disregarded his wishes.

Six months into marriage, I complained bitterly to my mom and sister that I couldn’t see any advantage to being married.

I worked and he was in school, which created an awkward dynamic. He was spending my money, going golfing with his friends, or settling into a book or playing computer games at home, and I was lonely a lot. My expectations for a happy, fun, never-alone relationship were not being met.

I was miserable and told him so.

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My Husband Disappoints Me All the Time

5 Ways to Inspire Him to Be a Better Man

Being constantly disappointed in your marriage can wear you down and make you hopeless about the future.

Maybe your husband disappoints you when it comes to celebrations–he forgets your anniversary, gets you a present that has nothing to do with what you like, or acts like it’s just another Wednesday.

Or, let’s say he complains when you’re sick because you aren’t doing the things you normally do. The demoralizing message is that you’re not that important except for what you contribute, not to mention his lack of compassion when you just want to be taken care of!

Or he may be a disappointment in a bigger sense, like not showing up to be the dad your kids deserve.

Either way, you don’t have to just suck it up and continue to hurt endlessly.

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My Husband Abandoned Me Then Became the Man of My Dreams

Mari-Jean Anderson, Laura Doyle Certified Coach

I have always believed in marriage.

I just couldn’t make it work.

First married for two years at 18 and again at 35, this time for only a year, I could not figure out how to be in love for very long.

In 2003, at age 53, I found myself falling in love once again, this time with Clark, a confirmed bachelor who had dated a number of women I knew. Ever optimistic, we married in 2004.

It didn’t take long for things to fall apart.

Although we married in November, Clark didn’t move in with me until after January. I would spend night after night by myself in my house, a new bride alone in her bed.

I was ashamed to tell my friends that my husband preferred the short commute from his old home to his office rather than making the drive to be with me at night. I felt angry and neglected.

I was determined to write a better ending to the story.

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