I can’t think of many things that hurt more emotionally than the break up of a long term relationship. And if your relationship is on the rocks you’ve probably already found yourself begging your friends to, “Help me save my relationship! I’m so scared it’s over.”

There you were. Two people madly in love. You spent a few wild and passionate years together, but now something isn’t right. Either there’s a lack of trust, or you’re suffering financial issues, maybe one of you has a higher sex drive than the other , or maybe you’re just at that stage where you’ve had children and the passion is waning. It happens sometimes right?

So what do you do? How can you turn your relationship around without resorting to counselling? What if your partner doesn’t want to save the relationship? Maybe he’s already decided it’s over. The first thing you really need to do is to establish where the problems are. I don’t mean start throwing the blame at each other, or pointing the finger. That just pours gas on the flames and makes everything worse.

I’m also not talking about problems like, “He leaves the seat up in the bathroom” or “She expects me to talk for hours when I get home from work and all I want to do is have a beer and relax.”

Those are petty problems. I’m not saying they’re not important, but they’re normally a side-effect of whatever real issues you have going on. Don’t get into a bikering match or you may as well pack your things and call it a day.  Try to understand what the root of the problem is. When did you disconnect with each other? Was there an incident which started everything off? What would you like to be different in your relationship? Until you can isolate what the real problems are, you can’t start fixing them. The next thing you need to do is work through the exercise I give you in the video below.

Save Your Relationship By Starting Again

Of course, I don’t mean you literally start all over again, but the quickest way to rekindle a dying relationship is to go back to where it all began. Remember all the things that made you fall in love with each other. Remember all the amazing qualities you found attractive in each other before all the fighting and resentment began. Talk about it together. Start dating each other again, and start falling in love again. So many people get comfortable in relationships and stop making an effort.

They get caught up in work or paying the bills and they forget how to love. It’s time to start connecting with each other again before it’s too late. Not all relationships can be saved this way, but follow the exercise in the video below and you’ll at least have half a chance at turning things around. I’d love to hear your experiences on this subject, and I’d also love to hear from anyone who has tried this and had good results.