A famous comedian once said, “Marriage is an institution…like Alcatraz.” While a little offensive and a whole lot funny, this statement can ring true for people who are feeling trapped in their marriage. If you feel this way about your marriage, self-help is certainly one option for you to improve the relationship you have.

Just how important is it for couples to be able to breathe and grow in a marriage? According to the e-course ‘Saving Your Marriage Today’, feeling suffocated and trapped is one of the top reasons many marriages end in divorce. Do not let this happen to your relationship. Know that the moment you feel a little boxed in by your marriage, self-help can help you break the chains and leave the box, so to speak. Here are two tips that can help you breathe and grow in your marriage.

1. Go away, go alone.
Plan a trip for one to some place that you have not been to. Spend some time with yourself, meditate, reflect on your life, read a good book, or just sleep in until noon. As simple as “me time” may sound, it’s actually a good marriage self help strategy because it lets you reconnect with yourself and sort out your feelings and thoughts.

2. Set aside money for the family and some for yourself.
The true test of love is NOT having a joint account. Many marriages experience discord because of financial matters. For this reason, it’s a good idea to keep joint account for payments on which you will both have to cough up cash for – the children’s tuition, for example, or the mortgage. Otherwise, keep your bank account healthy, wealthy, and single.

Remember, when you said your vows, you promised to love, honor, and cherish your spouse. However, you did not say you will do it every minute of the day. So take a break from being married to another person every now and then so you can be married with yourself. After all, if hardworking staff need a holiday, so does a relationship.

Being in a rocky relationship can drive one nuts.

“Where has the love gone?”

“What happened to the great start we had as a couple?”

These are just some of the questions that’s lingering at the back of one’s head when facing the prospects of a breakup. And if you’re wondering how to save relationship from breakup and what are the steps one needs to take, I’m here to help.

I’ve been rattled by a shaky relationship before…BUT with the help of some VERY useful tips on how to save relationship from breakup, I was able to transform that rocky relationship into a passionate and loving marriage.

What are these tips that helped me?

Here they are:

Tip 1 on How to Save a Relationship From Breakup

Accept and acknowledge the reasons why your relationship is on shaky ground.

If you found out that it’s because of your indifference, insensitivity, etc., then accept it! Or better yet, sincerely apologize for it. Making excuses or reasoning out for the faults you did is not going to help your situation even a bit. Just like when you’re fixing a car, a computer, or anything that’s not working properly, you need to find out the reason why it’s broken and act on it.

Tip 2 on How to Save a Relationship from Breakup

Be calm and rational when talking to your partner.

When a relationship is going through a rough time, all sorts of emotions are flying around and it’s very tempting and easy to say something that would hurt your partner. It’s very challenging and hard to keep your cool ounder such situations…BUT you have to! Letting your emotions take over your thoughts and actions is a surefire way to add more injury to the already-ailing relationship.

Tip 3 on How to Save a Relationship from Breakup

Take it nice and slow.

Rushing to get your relationship back to what it was before is a sure way to make your relationship an easy target for a new set of problems. Talk the time to have a serious and rational conversation with your partner about what happened and what steps the two of you can take to make sure that you won’t face the same problems again.

I’ve heard that question, from men and women alike, more times than I care to count. Saving a failing relationship is like figuring out how you can save yourself from a sinking boat.

It’s risky…the wrong steps could land you on the wrong side of the boat and you’ll sink with it. On this case, taking the wrong actions on how to save my relationship can and WILL ruin your chances of piecing things together.

BUT here’s the good news for you: the right steps on how to save my relationship can be found RIGHT HERE! You don’t have to look further for help.

Not to mention they’re guaranteed to work – my ailing marriage along with my friends’ relationships were saved by these logical steps you can start applying today.

Check them out NOW!

How To Save My Relationship – Tip Number 1

Take action NOW!

I’ve seen people who’re looking for ways to rebuild everything BUT don’t take the necessary action when they’ve found the golden nuggets of wisdom they need.

Get this – passive reading cannot save a relationship no matter what. I’d advise you grab a pen and paper to list down the steps and tips I’ll outline here. Ponder on them and take action.

How To Save My Relationship – Tip Number 2

Dealing with a failing relationship is confusing…think about it, you’re dealing with the ever-unstable emotional facet of a human being.

My advice? Back off for a moment and give each other some breathing space. Letting those emotions take the best of you can lead to impulsive actions. And guess what – you’ll end up doing more harm than good.

Cursing, bringing up past faults, ending an otherwise salvageable relationship – that’s just a handful of what you could end up doing if you don’t calm yourself down.

How To Save My Relationship – Tip Number 3

Have a critical look at yourself and at the events that led to the break up.

It may be a bitter pill to swallow as you may realize that some facets of your personality dealt some damage to the relationship. BUT if you truly want to fix things, you’ll shove your pride to the side and start working on those changes.

Otherwise, you won’t be making any difference to the current situation and will just make it worse.

How To Save My Relationship [http://breakup2makeup.com/save_relationship] – Tip Number 4

Last BUT not the least, have a heart-to-heart talk with your partner. Confide the realizations you’ve made…the things you’ve contemplated about. Keep in mind that you NEED to communicate, and by that I mean you should know when to talk and when to listen.

It is never uncommon for people involved in a broken relationship to make an attempt at rebuilding that relationship. Not only rebuild but make it better and stronger that it was before. Although there are no single absolute strategy to making relationships work, there is however a proven method to rebuild a relationship and give that relationship a foundation for long term success.

As with rebuilding anything it will always take a certain amount of patience. This means it is paramount that a cool level head be used in carrying out any strategy to rekindle any ailing relationship. This holds true whether you want to mend your relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, son or daughter or maybe just a best friend. Making up the right way requires patience and a little knowledge.

You should never feel like you it is your responsibility to figure out what went wrong. This requires you to dwell on the negative and really uses up a lot of energy and can cause an unhealthy thought process. So let focus on the future and remember to always play things cool. You will need that energy to focus on what is right and success of your relationship in the future.

The first thing to keep in mind when you want a proven method to rebuild a relationship is to not focus on the relationship at all. Keep yourself occupied with something more productive, this is great way to get all the emotions out of the way. Often emotions can do more damage than good once a relationship has gone sour. Spend some time taking care of yourself. Make some new friends, start a new exercise routine or just look for some community activities to participate in. All of these are very productive and will play a big part in you rebuilding your relationship in a positive manner.

Allow yourself plenty of time to make some changes in your life. This is very important because this builds great self esteem and will give you renewed confidence. Those two things will always be part of any proven method to rebuild a relationship. Confidence always demands respect on its own and respect will always attract positive attention.

Once you have gotten a level head and are ready to play things cool it is time to get to work on your relationship. Remember there are more things you can do wrong than right in any relationship so avoid over analyzing your situation. Sometimes just allowing things to play themselves out is the best solution. Never try to force a relationship back together, so keep communication lines open but no over used. This means try to keep all talk small and polite. You never want to be rude. Maturity will always win out in any situation. You may not see it, but it does.

So keep in mind that confidence, maturity and a good self esteem are all part of the best proven method to rebuild a relationship. Practice these and stay focused and you will be well on your way to building a stronger and more productive relationship.

Many people search on my website because their relationship has run into difficulties and they are looking for help or ideas. The truth is that sustaining a successful romantic relationship is one of the hardest things we will ever do in life. After falling in love and the ‘honeymoon’ period, we all have to work on our relationships. This is because relationships bring up our deepest fears and insecurities. We can even think of relationship problems as our best opportunity to heal our personal issues – that is why we have come together with our partner.

I could offer you some temporary fixes to an ailing relationship, but if we are really going to save it and turn it into a lifetime partnership we must learn how to work on the negative issues that come up between us and a partner. To save a relationship and make it sustainable into the future we must be willing to heal the core issues that have caused it to run into difficulties in the first place.

Unexpressed Fear and Needs

All relationship problems arise from a breakdown in the loving connection between two people. There will always be some negative emotions that have not been expressed in the relationship – it is the fear associated with these, usually unconscious, feelings that destroys the relationship. The unexpressed feelings cause us to separate from our partner because we do not want them to see our negative side in case they reject us. Ironically, this is exactly what our protective strategy brings about!

Out of our fear comes our needs and these create demands on our partners. If there is a problem in a relationship, one or more significant need is NOT being met. Interestingly this will be the same need that your partner also feels is lacking in the relationship. By identifying your unmet needs you can give this same thing to your partner and they will automatically begin to give this same thing back to you. It is even better if you can talk about your fears and needs with your partner in an emotionally mature way. Honest and heartfelt communication is the best way to save a relationship. It can take courage to express your feelings but this is the way forward in a relationship problem. Sometimes it takes time and the help of a third party to do this, so you might consider some counselling. As you communicate about your unmet needs and fears you will find that your partner shares them and any problems will then fall away.

Arguments and Rows

Relationship fights are about who is going to meet the needs of the other person. Given that they are always shared by both partners, you can see how futile this is. To end an argument and prevent others occurring you must be willing to stop the fight over needs and think about what you could give to the relationship to make it better. Such leadership only comes when we recognise the cause of the fights and gain sufficient emotional maturity not to be triggered into anger and attack.

Judgements

Our judgements about our partners are really our self-judgements. We project out the parts of ourselves that we do not like on the people around us. What are you judging in your partner? What annoys you about them? Perhaps they are always busy at work and you don’t feel they value you. If so, how much do you value yourself and how much quality time do you give to yourself. By working on your own self-esteem (see my website for more ideas) you will become more attractive to your partner. After all, they fell in love with you because of the positive qualities they saw in you – find these again in yourself, embody them with all your senses and start giving them once again.

Spirituality

If you have a spiritual or religious belief you can ask for help and guidance from God (or however you know a divine or spiritual presence in your life). At the core of all relationship problems is a loss of faith in our own spirit and divine, loving connections. In fact we are afraid of this much connection – afraid of a spiritual oneness where there is just love for ourselves, everybody and everything. It seems that we create our relationship problems to avoid accepting our true loving destinies. Any spiritual practice will help with re-connecting with our spirit and help us to find peace and love in our romantic relationships.

Love

I assume you first got together with your partner because you felt so much love for them. At that time you both put aside your fears and needs and discovered unconditional love. Being human means that those fears often return but we can heal them best with a partner providing we are willing and brave enough to go into those areas of pain in our mind that we have hidden away. We avoid expressing our pain because we don’t want our partner to see what we perceive as a weakness – we fear they will reject us and leave us, and yet if we don’t express them the relationship is at great risk. Therefore a willingness to open our hearts and just become more authentic will always reveal the truth in a relationship and allow both partners to grow and take their lives forward.

So what is it that is holding your relationship back? Now is the time to grasp the nettle and open your heart. Feel into your own pain and hidden insecurities and realise that these are also in your partner, but probably cleverly hidden by compensatory behaviour. Your partner needs your help and you currently have more emotional awareness. They need your forgiveness for any failings and your emotional courage to inspire them to heal their own insecurities. Pour your love, appreciation and gratitude onto your partner and re-discover all those things that you adored about them in the beginning.