Most mistakes will have little to no long term effect on your marriage IF you follow these tips when they occur:
How to Handle Mistakes in Marriage
Don’t stick your head in the sand and hope for the best.
Acknowledging the mistake is the right thing to do. Take responsibility, apologize, make things right.
Identify the Mistake
To learn from your mistake, identify it and seek to understand the root cause.
Often times, our loving spouse (though it might not
seem that way at the time :) brings the mistake to our attention.
But instead of feeling threatened, challenge yourself to do a bit of soul searching to learn and grow from the experience; become a better spouse.
Admit the Mistake
Tell the truth. Hiding and blaming will only make things worse.
If you’ve ever had someone refuse to admit fault when they so clearly
wronged you, you know how hurtful it can be.
You don’t want your spouse getting stuck on knowing you’re hiding something because this blocks the relationship from healing and moving forward.
As long as your marriage is built on trust, you should feel safe enough to admit your wrongs to your spouse.
Also, admitting that your wrong goes a long way to defuse your partner’s
anger.
Accept the Consequences
Mistakes have consequences.
Just because you deserve to
be forgiven doesn’t necessarily release you from facing the consequences of your actions.
For instance, if you’ve done something to break your husband’s or wife’s trust, he or she may subject you to greater scrutiny the next time a similar situation arises.
Apologize
Apologizing effectively is a skill that every spouse must learn for a healthy relationship.
This
involves taking full responsibility for your actions without making excuses or making it seem as if the situation was out of your control.
It also involves making amends and not repeating the same
mistake.
Make Amends
Making amends can be as simple as returning to the store for a forgotten item or as complex as having to rebuild broken trust in your marriage.
If there is anything you can do to make things right, do it.
Do Not Repeat
All the above steps are critical in the process of ensuring the mistake won’t be
repeated.
You’ll think twice about repeating a mistake for which you have suffered the consequences and had to go out of your way to rectify the situation.
Remembering the pain and hurt you put your spouse through also helps to prevent the mistake from being repeated.
The last thing you want after working hard to regain your partner’s trust is to break it and then seeing them hurt all over
again.
When you handle mistakes in your marriage correctly, you’re able to heal and save the most important relationship in your life.
Until next time, this is Mike Tucker and the Mad About Marriage Crew and we want YOU to be mad about marriage.
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