The other day, I received a lengthy email in which a wife described a 15 year old marriage in which she and her husband were just "going through the motions.
"  She said that the two of them were cordial enough and that they rarely fought or were unpleasant to each other.
  However, there was no real love or passion either and had not been for quite some time.
The wife saw some of her friend's marriage, compared them to hers, and felt quite "weird" and like an outcast with an awful secret.
  She knew that what was going on in her marriage was not entirely normal or healthy.
  But both spouses were pretty clear and committed in the fact that divorce was not going to be an option for them.
  Both of them had come from divorced families and neither wanted for their children to go through the same thing.
 The email ended asking me for "advice on how to survive my loveless marriage.
"  I'll offer this in the following article.
Redefining And Then Improving Your "Loveless Marriage":  The wife's email troubled me on a few levels but what really stood out for me was that the tone of the email implied that she was convinced that her marriage was never really going to change or improve.
She had seemed to accept her fate and only wanted to "survive it" as though she had to hunker down, brace herself for something really unsavory, and count the years until it was over and she was finally free.
  This was no way to live and this was not at all fair to her.
With that said, I absolutely respect her stance that divorce was not an option.
  I had this exact same insistence when my own marriage was in real trouble.
  I certainly do not advocate leaving the marriage and I absolutely support her in wanting to stay in it.
However, there's absolutely nothing that says that she has to continue to live in the marriage that she is living in now.
  Nothing said that the marriage had to remain the same and could not drastically improve.
When I began to communicate this to the wife, she interrupted me and said: "but you don't understand.
  There is really nothing there.
  We haven't felt that way about each other for years.
"  I responded by asking her how she really felt about her husband.
  I asked her flat out if she hated him or found him distasteful in some way.
  She replied that of course she didn't.
  Specifically, she said "no, I don't hate him at all.
  I respect him.
  I like him as a person and my hat goes off to him as a father.
  But, I most certainly am not in love with him and I know that he's not in love with me.
  But, we are both in love with our children and they are the glue that will always hold us together.
" Well, at that point I knew what I had to work with and I knew that this was a long road.
  But, by no means was it impossible.
  And, there was no good reason for them to continue on this way and to remain unhappy.
  We had a long dialogue back and forth and it became increasingly clear to me that this husband and wife were, by and large, ignoring each other.
  They were merely coexisting.
  They would do things together with the kids, but never alone.
  It was unheard of, for example, for the two of them to catch a movie, play, or dinner together.
   They used to do those things before they had children.
She made it clear that the two of them had never shared a passionate relationship, but had been better than it was now.
It seemed as though kids, jobs, and stress had choked out whatever they had in the past.
  This really is quite common.
  She did not believe this because all of her friends seemed to have exciting and passionate marriages.
I told her that she had to stop comparing herself with others.
  She really had no idea what was going on in other people's homes and it did not affect her bottom line anyone.
  She needed to begin paying much more attention to what was going on inside her own home and ignore (at least for a while) what was going on outside of it.
And, I really wanted for her to see her marriage as something that could grow, adjust, and change.
  If she even entertained the fact that she did not have to just blindly accept her undesirable fate, then her attitude toward and receptiveness about the marriage was going to begin to change.
  As soon as she let go of some of her long standing beliefs and limitations, she was going to notice some changes - not only in her own attitude but eventually in his.
The two of them had been sort of wondering aimlessly along making no efforts whatsoever.
There was also a code of silence.
No one ever said a word about where they were unhappy.
  It was just the status quo that was never ever challenged.
  They needed to put this into the light so that some action could be taken.
  Nothing was going to change until this happened.
  And that is a very depressing thought that continued to feed into the very negative vibes that surrounded that household.
Thriving Instead Of Surviving In A Loveless Marriage:  I urged the wife to let go of the notion that this was something that she must "survive.
"  I wanted for her goal to be to thrive on both a personal and individual level, on a family level, and in terms of her marriage (eventually.
)  I understood that she had a long way to go to make some changes, but I also knew that both she and her husband were committed to creating a happy household for their children.
  They needed to understand that their children most certainly picked up on the lack of genuine loving feelings between them.
  They were modeling how husbands and wives interact.
  Were they comfortable with this example for their children? They agreed that they were not, but neither of them had ever considered the fact that spending time together without their kids was actually HUGELY beneficial to their kids.
  Happy and fulfilled parents who are there because they genuinely want to be there are one of the greatest gifts that you can give your children.
  It is not selfish to take some occasional time away from them to make sure that they have this.
Now in this case, it was probably unrealistic to send them for a romantic week away.
  They needed to take very small steps.
  Just having a cup of coffee together or talking a walk on a regular basis was a nice, safe place to start.
The difference was going to be their attitudes and their wish to laugh, interact, and smile rather than just sitting silent and going through the motions.
  No, they were going to be "madly in love" overnight.
  But, over time, as they focused on intimacy as well as matrimony, I felt confident that over a gradual period of time, they would not longer look at this in terms of "surviving.
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