Seek professional help when you need it. If you aren’t making progress on your own in dealing with tough issues, don’t hesitate to get help from a professional counselor. Schedule some strategic sessions so the counselor can coach you through the issues. Realize that just a few short meetings can benefit you.
Rely on God’s power rather than your own. Don’t try to wrestle with your struggles on your own. Instead, invite God to work in and through you, empowering you to handle everything that comes your way. Trust that whenever you ask for His help, He will respond – day by day, and moment by moment.
Find a healthy marriage model. Look around for couples who have healthy marriages, and choose one to ask if you can build a friendship with them and study how they interact with each other. Know that observing a good example of marriage can give you: hope that marital commitment can endure for a lifetime, the expectation that commitment will endure for a lifetime, specific ways to relate to your spouse in healthy ways and build up your marriage, and ways to resolve conflicts without destroying your relationship with your spouse.
Pass on blessings to the children around you. Decide that, even though you learned some unhealthy lessons growing up yourself, you will do all you can to be a good example to your own children and others (such as nieces, nephews, neighbors, and friends of your children). Remember that children you encounter on a regular basis are constantly watching you, listening, to you, and learning from your life. In candid and age-appropriate ways, show children how to: communicate openly and honestly, be proactive and take initiative, make good choices, put the needs of others before their own, make and keep commitments, ask for and offer forgiveness, relate to and draw strength from a loving God. Ask yourself every day what kind of lessons the children around you are learning from your example, and what kind of legacy you’ll leave to future generations.
If you’ve already been divorced, know that it isn’t too late for you. Take heart that no matter what has already happened to you because of someone else’s choices, or whatever poor choices you’ve made yourself, it’s not too late to learn and grow. Know that you can start fresh today and break the cycle of divorce with any new marriage you may enter. Refuse to let the past dominate your thinking. Instead, focus on making your present and future as healthy and positive as you can. Don’t lower your standards or be satisfied with less. Believe that you can enjoy a lasting marriage if you should ever get married again.
Adapted from Breaking the Cycle of Divorce: How Your Marriage Can Succeed Even if Your Parents’ Didn’t, copyright 2006 by John Trent, Ph.D. A Focus on the Family book published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Ill., www.tyndale.com and www.family.org.
Dr. John Trent is the president of the Center for Strong Families and StrongFamilies.com, an organization that trains leaders to build and lead marriage and family programs in their communities. John speaks at conferences across the country and has authored and coauthored more than a dozen award-winning and best-selling books. John has been a featured guest on radio and television programs, such as Focus on the Family, The 700 Club, and CNN’s Sonya Live. John and his wife, Cindy, have been married for more than 25 years and have two daughters.
