Staying Together Out of Fear

While nearly half of all marriages end in divorce, a greater difficulty lies in the number of marriages that stagnate because the people in them don’t know how to make them better. So many people remain in joyless marriages because they are too scared to do anything about it, and this essentially comes down to being afraid to speak their minds. Nowadays, people seem to forget that marriages that work are hard work! It takes effort to keep things alive in a relationship. The thing that is most likely to prevent us from changing anything in our lives is fear.
Why Are You Scared?
People are often too scared to share their true feelings with the person closest to them. That could be the fear of breaking up their relationship, losing material goods, or what would happen to their children. If we allow fear to govern our lives, we cannot move forwards and develop as people.Fear comes in many guises: from fearing the split itself, and the fall out during and after a divorce; the fear of being alone; or avoiding having to face up to the fact that there are problems in your marriage, such as a lack of respect, passion or intimacy. If you stay together under these circumstances, resigned to your fate, then it is very likely that you are letting fear govern the decisions you make. These kinds of people never consider divorce but are certain that they will never be able to improve things themselves. If you allow yourself to live within this mind-trap, you will never be able to make any changes.
The Fear Fallacy
If you find yourself stuck in your marriage in this way, the first and most important thing to do is address your fears, head on. If you are able to confront what scares you about divorce, you can choose whether or not to stay in your marriage. Once you realise that you are staying out of choice rather than fear, you can begin to work on your marriage. Conversely, if you are able to conquer your fear of divorce you may then be able to find the strength to leave your marriage.It is important to realise that the way that you perceive your partner is governed by your own emotions. One of the strongest emotions is anger. If you are trapped by fear in your marriage, your anger is likely to be the driving emotion when it comes to interaction with your partner. If you are able to unblock the fear that traps you, you remove the hopelessness that fuels that anger.