Avoid Divorce - Use The Four R’s
Divorce is a messy business. If both parties are truly interested in reconciling their differences, most times a divorce can be avoided. If people are willing to compromise, they can often find solutions to problems they never thought were possible.
If your marriage is going through one of those phases that all marriages eventually go through, you will find yourself in a position where a simply apology will go a very long way in helping to resolve the issue. If enough of these smaller issues are left unrecognized, a divorce will most likely be in your future.
If you have done something you need to apologize for, use the four R’s to help develop an apology that will go a very long way. Hopefully, this strategy can help avoid a divorce or in the worst-case scenario, make a divorce a little more amicable. The four R’s for a successful apology are: recognition, regret, responsibility and remedy.
RECOGNITION
You must first recognize where you have gone wrong and what you need to apologize for. If you don’t recognize the fact it may not be OK to play golf with the boys every Saturday and Sunday morning, then you maybe a single golfer before you know it. If however, you recognize playing golf every weekend with the boys may not be in the best interest of your marriage, you may want to recognize this fact and admit it to your spouse.
REGRET
After you recognize the error of your ways and admit you were wrong to play golf all weekend long, you would be well served to express regret to your spouse because of your actions. If your spouse sees sincere regret on your part, they are more likely to accept your apology as being genuine and heart felt.
RESPONSIBILITY
If you don’t want to become a single golfer, when you apologize to your spouse, you should accept full responsibility for your actions. It is useless to blame the guys for dragging you out to the course every weekend morning. It serves no purpose to blame a stressful job and the fact you require some down time with the guys in order to help you cope. You must fess up and admit the problem was caused by you and only you can help change the outcomes.
REMEDY
Once you recognize that playing golf every weekend is not acceptable and you have demonstrated sincere regret and responsible for your actions, it is time to develop a remedy to help solve the problem.
You must communicate to your spouse how you intend to remedy or change the problem so that the behavior is not repeated in the future. You must compromise with your spouse so that both of you can agree upon an acceptable time to play golf with the boys.
Gary Kelly is co-creator of the online dating website for golfers, http://www.DateAGolfer.com and http://www.PuttingForPar.com, a golf website specializing in personalized ball markers.
