How a Separation Can Save Your Marriage

The Facts

A separation might actually be able to save your marriage

A separation is often the first step toward a divorce.

It’s a way for many couples to begin the slow process of breaking up their marriage, the first step toward a gradual exit.

Separation doesn’t always have to mean the end though.

For many couples, separation can actually save their marriage.

Though it may seem counterintuitive, time apart can actually help couples find their way back to each other.

Here’s how separation might actually be able to save your marriage:

You Can Let Go of Your Anger

Happy couples don’t separate.

Most are pushed to the brink by fighting, stress, and anger when they finally decide to separate.

Attempting to work through problems when under this kind of stress and anger would be very difficult, if not impossible for most couples.

Separating allows couples to have the emotional and physical distance to view the situation more objectively.

They have time to cool off and let go of their anger so that they can get a fresh perspective on the situation and come back to each other with a new desire to work through their problems.

You Are Able to See Your Relationship from a New Perspective

When you aren’t fighting with your spouse everyday and becoming entangled in the web of emotions created, such as pride, anger, and ego, you are better able to view the relationship objectively.

This allows you to understand better what was working in your relationship and what wasn’t working.

Gaining an objective understanding of the state of your relationship is the first step toward understanding how to fix the problems and to build a stronger bond with your spouse.

You Have the Time to Work on Yourself

It takes two people to end a relationship, and both are responsible for the events that led to its demise.

Being apart from  your spouse can give you the distance you need to understand the role you played in your relationship’s troubled history.

Separation is a great time to get individual therapy and to do some real work on yourself – both to understand how you can heal the relationship and to understand how you can be a better partner.

This will help you to have a happier relationship and to be a happier person.

You Get to Experience Being Alone

When you are fighting with your spouse all the time and feeling unhappy with your marriage, you may fantasize about being alone or dating other people.

Separation gives you the opportunity to see what it is really like to be single or to see other people.

Often, when a couple separates, this taste of freedom actually deepens their appreciation of one another.

Absence often makes the heart grow fonder, and separation often helps couples realize how much they really do want to save their marriage.

You Can Get to Know Your Spouse Again

When you live apart from your spouse, you get the opportunity to get to know him or her again, as if for the first time.

You may have spent months apart, developing new routines and a life without your partner.

Your perspective on the marriage may have changed significantly.

When you feel ready to start talking again, you may be surprised to learn new things about your partner. You may find out things you never knew before or you may find that you’re able to laugh together again, to have interesting conversations, or just have fun together.

The time apart may give you the space to find the spark that drew you together again.

While separation can give you the space to heal your marriage, it can also help to drive you further apart if you do not approach it thoughtfully.

Make sure you are taking the time to do work on yourself and your relationship and that you aren’t out partying all the time or trying to date a lot of new people.

Go to counseling together, as well as by yourself, and take as much time as you need to resolve your issues and to get to know one another once again.

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