How Do I Save My Marriage? (Before It Ends in Divorce)

I grew up across from a lake. About twenty-five acres, and so windy we actually called it Wind Lake. I had a little rowboat, and what I wanted more than anything was an anchor, because you cannot hold a position on a windy lake without one.

So I built one. I found some clothesline and measured out how much I'd need by standing on the shore and guessing how deep the water was. Then I grabbed a Clorox bottle, filled it with sand, and tied it to the line. I paddled out into the middle of the lake against the wind, threw my anchor overboard, and waited to feel the boat settle.

It didn't. I was still getting blown all over that lake. When I looked down into the coffee-black water, I could see the Clorox bottle hanging about five feet off the bottom, sand slowly leaking out of it. I had misjudged the depth. I had misjudged the length of the line. I had built an anchor that couldn't hold anything.

A lot of us are trying to steady a marriage with clotheslines and Clorox bottles. We cobble something together, we guess, and then we wonder why we're drifting. Hebrews 6:19 says, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." That hope is Jesus. If you have the right anchor, your marriage can take a rogue wave and hold. If you don't, it won't. I'm not going to soften that.

Nobody Gets Married Expecting Divorce

Nobody stands at an altar planning for divorce. When you say "I do," you're planning for something closer to Nirvana. You've got expectations, some of them unrealistic, and the word divorce is nowhere in your head.

Then time passes. The "I do's" turn you into "we." Genesis says two shall become one, and that's real. Everything is us. Everything is ours. But when the rogue waves hit and the difficulties come, you start taking small steps backward. You abandon the "we" and drift back toward the "I."

That drift is possible because most of us signed up for the wrong thing in the first place. We treated marriage like a contract instead of what God actually designed it to be, which is a covenant. A contract has an escape clause. A covenant doesn't.

We once put a direct question to a woman who works in marriage therapy: what is the number one issue that leads to divorce? Her answer was simple. Couples move from selflessness to selfishness. They abandon "we" and return to "I."

That's the engine underneath almost everything else. And before I go further, let me say plainly that Lisa and I are not standing above any of this. We argue. We have gotten into it over things so small I'd be embarrassed to print them. Every marriage does. The question isn't whether conflict shows up. The question is what happens to you in it.

Because from there, it runs in a pattern. Three markers, in order. Learn to spot which one you're standing in, because each has an antidote.

Marker One: Criticism (The Antidote Is Reveal)

Criticism is the first one, and it's subtle. In every conflict there's a "what" and there's a "who." The what is the issue. The who is the person. Criticism is when you leave the what and go after the who.

Instead of dealing with the actual problem, you start dismantling your spouse's character. You attack who they are rather than the thing in front of you. It feels justified in the moment. It is corrosive.

The antidote is to reveal. Name the real issue. Not the person, the issue. Then ask an honest question about it: can we actually solve this one, or is this one we're going to have to compromise on?

That question matters more than you think, because roughly sixty-nine percent of the conflicts in a marriage will never be fully resolved. Ever. The other thirty-one percent are solvable. That number scares people, but it shouldn't. It doesn't mean your marriage is broken most of the time. It means there's an entire category of things where the goal isn't winning, it's compromise. Where you look at each other and say, "Okay. This is how we're going to move forward." I've written more about that number and how to actually talk through conflict, because knowing the statistic doesn't help you if you can't have the conversation.

Marker Two: Contempt (The Antidote Is Respect)

If criticism goes unchecked, it hardens into contempt. And contempt has a posture. It's I'm up here, and you're down there. My spouse is beneath me.

Marriage creates power struggles, and they cluster around three things: power, money, and sex. Contempt takes root when you start believing you're the one holding the power and your spouse's opinion carries no real weight. You stop assigning value to anything they bring. Sometimes that shift is slow. Sometimes it isn't. And when it reaches the bedroom, it does its quietest damage, which is why romance is an environment and not an event.

The opposite of contempt is respect, and here's the distinction that unlocks it. You will not always respect how your spouse is behaving. That's honest. But you can always respect the position they hold. That person occupies a position in your life that demands respect regardless of today's behavior. Honor the position even on the day the behavior hasn't earned it. That is what dissolves contempt.

Marker Three: Cancel (The Antidote Is Reconciliation)

We live in a cancel culture. And what we've learned to do to strangers online, we are entirely capable of doing to the person sleeping next to us.

To cancel your spouse means you've reached the point where you disregard them completely. You turn your back on the relationship. You inch further and further away. You don't want a conversation with them, and here's the tell: you have time for a conversation with anybody else. No eye contact. No compassion. No caring. The relationship goes null and void. That's the anchor hanging five feet off the bottom while the boat goes wherever the wind wants to take it.

That is usually the point where somebody calls a lawyer. Divorce is just the paperwork at the end of a slide that started a long time before anybody filed anything.

The antidote is reconciliation, and this is where the anchor does its real work. Jesus is the model. If I call myself a Christ follower and I will not rush to forgive, something in me isn't adding up. Think about it honestly: what would have happened if Jesus had canceled us? If He had looked at the record and turned His back? None of us would be standing.

He didn't cancel us. He crossed the distance and made a way back. That is the standard I'm held to in my own house, and so are you.

The Transitions That Test the Anchor

Beyond those three markers, most conflict in a marriage clusters around transitional times. These are the pressure points, and they're predictable: a new baby, a move, a job change, infertility, a long illness, teenagers, an empty nest, starting a business, the loss of someone you love.

Lisa and I have walked through most of them across forty years of marriage. Some of them were ordinary. Some of them nearly took us apart. The hardest was the loss of our oldest daughter, LeeBeth, who died suddenly after a long battle with addiction and depression.

Here's what I want you to take from that, because it's the most practical thing I know about keeping a marriage intact.

After LeeBeth died, well-meaning people kept telling us, "You just can't prepare for something like this." We agreed at first. Then it dawned on us that it wasn't true.

Yes, you can.

Think of it like a savings account. You deposit and deposit and deposit, and it draws interest, and on any given day it doesn't feel like much. You deposit through time in God's Word, not out of duty but because that's where life comes from. Through prayer. Through actually belonging to a church body instead of checking a box. Through serving and giving and sowing into other people. None of it feels dramatic while you're doing it.

Then one day something hits you that you never saw coming, and you find out there's something in the account. We drew completely from ours. That is not a slogan. That is the mechanism by which two people stay standing.

Which means the honest answer to how you avoid divorce is this: make the deposits now, while the water is still calm. And look ahead at the transitions coming for you, because most of them you can see from a distance. You can be ready. The anchor can be set before the wave arrives, and if it isn't set today, it can be by tonight.

One more thing I have to say here, because it's the mistake I see most. Do not ask your spouse to be the anchor. After LeeBeth died, Lisa and I grieved differently. Some days I was doing better. Some days she was. And we had to understand that it was not her job to fix me and not my job to fix her. You cannot put divine pressure on a human being. Your spouse is not your savior. They can reflect Christ to you, and they should, but they were never built to hold the weight of your soul. Tie your line to that, and you both go under.

Put the anchor where it belongs. Then let your spouse be your spouse.

Is Your Marriage Headed for Divorce? Start Here

Maybe your marriage is in serious trouble right now. Maybe the word divorce has already been said out loud in your house. Maybe you're the one taking steps away, or maybe you're watching your spouse take them.

Hear me: it can turn around. I have watched marriages that were headed straight for a courtroom get put back together. I'm not speaking theoretically.

Here's where you start.

1. Tell your spouse the truth. Say out loud that you love them and you want this on the right track. If you're both believers, pray together, even if it's awkward. You will be amazed at what God does when you actually invite Him into the middle of it.

2. Get help. Find a counselor. Do not white-knuckle this alone because you're embarrassed. There's no medal for that.

3. Get into a small group. You need other couples around you. People who know your name and will walk with you.

4. Get into church. Not to check a box. God doesn't want something from your marriage. He wants something for your marriage, and being planted in a church body is part of the anchor. Lisa and I would not be where we are without it. That's not a pastor talking. That's a husband telling you the truth.

5. Do the work. Don't just talk about wanting to heal your marriage. Do the hard thing, together, on the days you don't feel like it. If you're past the crisis and asking what a healthy marriage is actually supposed to look like, start with what makes a godly marriage work.

The question underneath all of it is the one I asked myself out on Wind Lake, watching sand leak out of a Clorox bottle: what exactly is your anchor?

If you've never made Jesus the center of your life, you can settle that right now, right where you are. Tell Him you know you're a sinner. Turn from it. Ask Him to come in and take His rightful place at the center. That anchor is firm. It's secure. And it holds when everything else gives way.