No one can deny that every relationship begins in the romance stage.
This is the stage where both men and women make each other feel attractive, desirable, wanted and needed at all times.
In fact, research has shown that there is actually a set of chemicals released into your brain at the early stage of relationships.
These chemicals create a feeling of euphoria that you just can’t seem to get enough of.
This explains why people sometimes make irrational decisions in this early stage of their relationship – like getting married after knowing each other only a few months!
When these love-sick couples get married, they enter the marriage with the belief that the love, excitement and romance from their current relationship will carry into marriage.
And in some cases, it does…but usually not for very long.
After the thrill of the wedding and honeymoon is over, the couple becomes jolted into the fact that it’s nearly impossible to be spontaneous and exciting while establishing a secure home and family life.
Raising a family requires routine and predictability….now where’s the romance in that!?
That’s right!
Virtually NON-EXISTENT!
Raising children with a full time job leaves you in no state to be exciting or spontaneous.
Instead, it leaves you feeling like your life is boring and monotonous.
The unknown is now known and while you were once always on your best behavior, you both begin to show your true colors and ultimately, become much LESS forgiving of each others’ little imperfections.
This is one of the reasons why affairs take place…
People miss that ‘spark’ that they felt when they first fell in love with their spouse.
And in an effort to experience that same feeling again, they look to others to make them feel desirable and needed once again.
But eventually, most people who fall into an affair eventually realize this.
The grass is not greener
Even if your spouse decides to give up on your marriage, and stay with (or even move in with) their affair partner, they’ll still be faced with the same issue of predictability in the new relationship once the mystery of the romance stage wares off.
In fact, here’s a statistic that might surprise you…
Did you know that the percentage of second marriages that end in divorce is a whopping 60%?
Your chance of being happily married in a second marriage is even WORSE the second time around!
This statistic is driven by the fact that most people blindly walk into their second marriage without any understanding of the issues that they will face in dealing with their ex, step children, ex-in-laws and more.
Statistically, you have better odds of marital bliss in your current marriage, than a new relationship with someone else.
There’s another major factor that plays a big role in the struggles you’ll endure in a second marriage
…and it’s something you need to be really honest with yourself and take the time to think about…
If your spouse has packed their bags… are you sure that they are the only one with “baggage”?
What I mean is this…
Many people go through life and get hurt by others in the past.
They often bring this pain into their current relationship because that wound from the past never actually had a chance to heal.
If someone has been unfaithful to you in the past, today you may be struggling with issues of trust – even if your spouse has given you NO REASON to be suspicious of their faithfulness and devotion to you.
But because this person from your past hurt you so much, you are always on guard and often struggle with issues of jealousy in your marriage today.
As a result, you might come off as over protective or possessive, which pushes your spouse further away from you.
Picture this for a moment…
In your marriage, jealousy is one of the biggest problems you struggle with. It is the cause of all your arguments and the mistrust is absolutely tearing the two of you apart.
Then one day your spouse decides that they can’t take it anymore, so you decide to get a divorce.
Eventually you will meet someone and decide to get married, but you’ll STILL struggle with this issue of trust. In this case, you are stuck with what some people call baggage from your past.
And no matter who you meet, you’ll always struggle with this issue of jealousy until you decide to do something about it.
That’s why one of the first things I teach my Environment Changer students is how to first understand the source of their problems and second, create an action plan that will show them exactly how to overcome these issues indefinitely.
But what happens more often in marriage is that both men and women each have their own set of baggage that they bring into the marriage.
And what complicates things even further is that most people choose not to talk about why they are struggling with these issues today.
They refuse to admit that they have a problem which only increases the resentment between the two of you.
You see, what this all boils down to is this…
The grass is never greener on the other side because despite what you may have heard in the movies or on TV, there is no perfect person for you…or for anyone for that matter.
No two people are 100% compatible. There will always be some sort of conflict in any relationship.
Now I don’t mean to ‘rain on your parade’ here, but what I’m saying is true.
Relationships are work….and that’s a FACT.
And the sooner you understand this, the better chance you have of preventing an affair from taking place.
Here’s the point…you can go through an entire lifetime of searching for your perfect soul mate OR you can love the one you’re with and remind them why they fell in love with you in the first place in 2 easy steps.
Understand who you’re married to.
I created an affordable solution for couples on a budget called Marriage 101 where you and your spouse can create your own “rules for feeling loved” through a breakthrough tool I called the Flag Page.
And that’s how you get the relationship you’ve always wanted…the one you expected when you first married your spouse.