Ep50 How to Save Your Marriage With this Quiz

💬 Show Notes

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In episode 50 of the Better Relationships Podcast, Dr. Dar Hawks, The Relationship Healer, explores the crucial steps to assess and save your marriage or relationship using a comprehensive quiz. 

Modern couples face numerous challenges, from balancing work and family life to addressing emotional and physical intimacy issues. Dr. Dar emphasizes the importance of evaluating the state of your relationship to identify core issues and determine the best path forward. 

By taking a structured quiz, you can gain insights into key areas such as communication patterns, emotional connection, and conflict resolution strategies. This episode provides practical advice on how to use the quiz as a starting point to address challenges and explore potential solutions tailored to your unique situation.
Dr. Dar also delves into the significance of effective communication, emotional intimacy, and trust in building a thriving relationship. She offers tips on active listening, compromise, and seeking professional help when needed. 

Additionally, the episode highlights common relationship problems, such as a lack of quality time together and shifts in values and priorities, and provides strategies to address them.

Take the first step towards improving your relationship by taking Dr. Dar's healthy relationship check-in quiz at couplesquiz.drdarhawks.com. Whether you're looking to save your marriage from divorce, enhance an already strong relationship, or resolve conflicts, this episode offers valuable insights and practical steps to create a healthier, more fulfilling partnership.

Welcome to the Better Relationships Podcast where Dr. Dar Hawks shares relationship tips and advice to help you be seen, heard, understood, and supported in your relationships.  Taking on tough topics and giving you hope, inspiration, and ideas to experiment with, Dr. Dar Hawks is passionate about creating healthier, happier, and harmonious relationships... 
Because when you are happy in your relationship, the world becomes a better place for all of us.

Welcome to the Better Relationships Podcast where Dr. Dar Hawks shares relationship tips and advice to help you be seen, heard, understood, and supported in your relationships.  Taking on tough topics and giving you hope, inspiration, and ideas to experiment with, Dr. Dar Hawks is passionate about creating healthier, happier, and harmonious relationships... 
Because when you are happy in your relationship, the world becomes a better place for all of us.

Transcript

>> Dr. Dar Hawks: 1:00

Today I'm covering the topic of whether or not your relationship or marriage can be saved by using a quiz that serves as an assessment to help you gain clarity around what's really going on in your relationship. Welcome to episode 51 of the Better Relationships podcast. I'm Doctor Dhar, the relationship healerhood, and today I want to talk about how to save your marriage or your relationship by doing relationship check ins and starting with the quiz. Marriages today do face many challenges. From balancing work and family life to dealing with emotional and physical intimacy issues, modern couples often encounter obstacles that constrain their relationship, which leads to questions like can I make? Which leads to questions like can my marriage be saved? Or how can I fix my marriage and relationship? Evaluating the state of your marriage and relationship becomes essential in being able to identify the true underlying issues and how to determine the best path forward. Taking proactive steps to assess your mar taking proactive steps to assess your marital health and relationship health can make a significant difference. Oftentimes, when an individual in a relationship is concerned about whether their relationship can be saved or not, they are thinking about things in their head. There's so much going on over a period of time, whether it's months or years, where things have been progressively getting worse in their relationship, but it becomes this muddled mess in their head. M cut that out. And so when trying to make sense of what's really going on in the relationship, what the core issues are, much less how to resolve them, sometimes makes things worse when you're trying to work with your partner on talking about your relationship and talking about ways to make things better. So, a comprehensive quiz or assessment that walks you through the different areas in a relationship and your feelings around those areas and things that you can think about in a practical, concrete way that will help you come up with examples in your relationship will be a valuable tool for you to assess and start and create a starting point for you if you're struggling to save your relationship. By answering these targeted questions, you will gain insights into key areas such as communication patterns, emotional connection, conflict resolution strategies, finance, areas of financial safety, whether or not you feel financially safe or emotionally safe or spiritually safe, mentally or physically safe when you feel uncertain about how to save your marriage alone or how to save your marriage from divorce, this quiz provides a structured approach to understanding your relationship strengths and challenges. It encourages honest self reflection, which is essential for you to make informed decisions about whether to seek professional help or work with your partner towards improvement. When I've worked with couples over the last two decades, it becomes really clear very early on that the complaints and criticisms and judgments are showing up for the other partner or for each other as just that. And when criticism, complaining and criticizing, and when complaining, criticizing and judging is hyper present in the relationship, being able to listen to each other, being able to hear and understand each other becomes difficult, if not impossible. By the time your relationship gets to the point where you're criticizing, complaining, or judging yourself or your partner, that is also a key time to, take a comprehensive assessment to help you get your thoughts clear, to become more emotionally neutral, to be able to get your mind and heart in balance so that you can see things clearly and shift from a perspective of these are problems and I'm critical about them, or I'm complaining about them, or I'm judging them to a place of here's what's really going on for me. Here's how it's impacted our relationship. Share with me how it's impacting you. What would you like to have instead? This is what I would like to have instead. And then find ways to meet in the middle if what you're really wanting is vastly different from each other's wants. So start your journey towards a healthier relationship. Bye. So I'm going to invite you in this podcast to start your journey towards a healthier relationship by taking my quiz. Use it as an initial step in addressing challenges and exploring potential solutions tailored to your unique situation. You can go take that quiz at couplesquiz dot drdarhawks.com. that's couplesquiz, Dr. Dar harks.com, or feel free to continue listening to the rest of this podcast to determine whether this quiz or assessment is for you. Understanding relationship dynamics effective communication is the cornerstone of a thriving marriage. It prevents misunderstandings and creates emotional intimacy, allowing both you and your partner to share your thoughts, feelings, and needs openly and honestly. When you communicate effectively, you create a safe space where you both can feel heard and valued. This significantly reduces conflicts and builds a deeper connection with your partner. The key aspects of effective communication include active listening, paying attention to your partner without interrupting really hearing the words, and not paying attention to the tone of voice or facial expressions while they're sharing the words are really the only thing we can count on and ensure that you're understanding how those words are defined by your partner versus you. Ask open ended questions. Encourage deeper conversations beyond questions that require an answer of a, yes or no. Pay attention to the nonverbal cues. Be aware of the body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice. Now, I mentioned listening without paying attention to nonverbal cues. However, I do want you to notice the nonverbal cues, but ask questions about them instead of making interpretations or assumptions about what you think your partner is saying or communicating via their facial expression or body language. Or just let it go and pay attention to the words because the words are what matters. Because the words are, what matter emotional intimacy involves sharing your innermost thoughts and feelings with your partner. To create a deep sense of closeness. It is essential for relationship satisfaction as it builds a strong emotional connection that really can weather anything life throws at you. Prioritizing emotional intimacy does mean regularly spending quality time together and participating in meaningful conversations. Here are some ways to enhance emotional intimacy. Have daily check ins. These are brief moments to share highs and lows of the day. Shared activities participate in hobbies or interests together participate in your partners and have your partner participate in yours in, kind of an equal exchange. Express appreciation daily regularly acknowledge and appreciate each other's efforts and qualities. Trust is also fundamental to any healthy relationship. It is built over time through consistent actions that demonstrate reliability, honesty, and transparency. However, trust can be fragile. Once broken, it requires effort from both of you to rebuild it. It also requires agreeing or making an agreement with each other that you're both working on building trust. And neither of you are going to bring up the past where the trust was broken, because continuously bringing up the past will not create a healthy way of rebuilding trust going forward. Sure, you have memories. Sure, the past experiences of trust being broken are painful, but bringing them up consistently in your relationship when you're working on rebuilding trust is not going to help rebuild it. Here are some practical tips for fostering trustworthiness. Transparency be open about your intentions and actions. Accountability take responsibility for your mistakes and clean them up, and then change your behaviors going forward and demonstrate that you are transforming them. Consistency follow through on your promises and commitments when you're asking questions of yourself like how do I know if my marriage can be saved? Or can I fix it? Focusing on these core elements, communication, intimacy, and trust, is essential. Addressing these areas can provide a clearer picture of the relationship's potential for improvement. Here are two main common relationship problems that I've noticed and how to address them over the years that I've worked with couples. You've got to identify relationship problems early on so that you can help prevent long term distress. Couples often wait way too long to address the little things, and then they combine into this big ball of this big thing that then creates behaviors that cause trauma to the relationship or cause both partners to wake up, shake up, and really look at each other. And then, create the need to save the relationship when things could have been done much sooner to create a healthier relationship. It's easy to avoid talking about the things that are bothering you, but it's important to talk about them in a healthy way. So the first common relationship problem is a lack of quality time together. I find that busy schedules and daily responsibilities make it challenging for couples to spend meaningful time together. That leads to feelings of neglect and disconnection over time. It's really important to prioritize yourself for quality time to yourself and alone time, and also prioritize time with your partner. When you've got a family and children, it's important for you to model the behaviors that your relationship is important and you prioritize time together regularly. And I don't just mean, you know, one day a week for date night. I mean demonstrating that you have quality time carved out with your partner every day. That demonstrates to your children that your relationship and marriage is a priority, and you're letting them know, hey, between this hour and this hour, your, your partner, how do I say this? I'm going to say it this way. During this hour and this hour, your father and I are going to go and spend some quality time together and make sure it's the same time every night, if you can, and ensure that your children have activities that they can do during that hour or however long you want to spend together. Maybe it's 90 minutes. I find that couples don't prioritize time together. It's almost like, oh, we got married. We've been in a relationship for these many years and it's on autopilot and we'll be fine. But that's not the case. If you can't prioritize time every single day, then do your best for at least two to three times a week and definitely both days on the weekend. The impact, the, second cut that. The second common relationship problem that I find is a shift in values and priorities. When core values, long term goals, or priorities change, it can create friction, and this might involve disagreements about finances, parenting styles, career aspirations, parental grandparent involvement, or meddling in your relationship from your community. Unfortunately, couples that get together and get married or get into a long term relationship, they falsely believe that the values and things that brought them together are going to stay consistent for their lifetime. But the truth is, human beings evolve and grow, and because of that, we have to maintain the growth of our relationship as individuals and together as a couple. The impact of unresolved conflicts can be significant. Persistent disagreements without resolution can erode trust, increase resentment, diminish emotional intimacy as well, and diminished and diminish emotional intimacy. Learning effective conflict resolution skills and frankly, communication skills is crucial for maintaining a healthy relationship. I have found that most couples, the individuals, have learned how to communicate really well as individuals and with their families and at work. But when it comes to being in an intimate, close barrier soul relationship, many couples really don't know how to communicate in that kind of relationship. They still communicate as an individual and as a single person and may not experience, and express empathy as well. So learning intimacy or emotional communication techniques is really important to create a healthy relationship and to be able to talk about things that are bothering you. Here are three ways to practice and engage in effective communication skills. Active listening focus on understanding your partner's perspective without interrupting. Reflect back what you hear to ensure clarity and show empathy. And if your partner says no, that's not what I said, listen again or say, please share with me because clearly I didn't hear it in the way that you intended, and then reflect back again. The second one is compromise. Finding common middle ground where you both feel your needs are being addressed is key. I find that most of the time, couples that I've worked with try to push the other partner. cut that, it was a cough. Oftentimes when I've worked with couples over the last. Oftentimes when I've worked with couples, I find that one partner or the other partner cut that cough is pushing for the other partner to do it their way. And that creates conflict because you're pushing the other partner to do things your way or your partner is doing that to you. That creates conflict. That's why finding the middle ground where you both get some of your needs and wants met versus just one partner or the other, is a really healthy conflict resolution technique and skill that can be learned. Be willing to make concessions and prioritize the relationship over winning. Thirdly, seek professional help. Seeking professional coaching or counseling can provide a neutral space for you to discuss your issues. A professional coach can offer tools and strategies tailored specifically to your unique situation and provide the listening space to hear you both in what you're saying, but also pick up on what's underneath what you're saying and help facilitate and mediate a dialogue for the two of you to arrive at a mutually beneficial solution without conflict. Getting worse effective conflict resolution techniques requires intentional effort from both of you. Practicing these skills can foster and create a more harmonious and resilient relationship. Now I want to ask you, are you still wondering? Can your marriage or relationship be saved? And I invite you to take my quiz to find out. My healthy relationship check in quiz is designed to provide a detailed evaluation of your relationship and marital health. It assesses multiple dimensions of your relationship, such as communication pattern. It examines how effectively you and your partner communicate, including frequency, clarity, and emotional tone. Emotional connection. It evaluates the depth it evaluates the depth of your emotional intimacy, shared experiences, and mutual support. It also, looks at problem solving abilities. How do you handle conflicts? How do you make decisions together? And how do you navigate challenges? The statements in the quiz are crafted and designed by me to give you insights into give you insights into key areas. Communication do you feel heard when you express your feelings to your partner? Or how often do you have meaningful conversations? Emotional intimacy do you feel emotionally connected to your partner? Or how often do you share personal thoughts and feelings? Conflict resolution how do you usually resolve disagreements? Or do conflicts often remain unresolved? Taking this healthy relationship check in quiz serves several purposes. It's a self assessment. It will help you understand and get really clear where your marriage and relationship stands by identifying the strengths and challenges. It'll provide you guidance. It offers a structure it will provide you with guidance. It offers a structured way to reflect on important aspects of your relationship that might need attention. It gives you a starting point. Instead of sitting continuously in concern, complaints, criticisms, judgment, or not feeling safe or really being worried about rejection or your marriage ending and wondering what's going to happen to you, use this quiz as a starting point. It acts as an initial step for you if you're looking for professional help or looking to improve your relationship on your own, or just get a little bit of clarity and peace of mind to help you start communicating with your partner about where you feel you both need to work on your relationship. Understanding these elements can be crucial in determining what steps to take next. Engaging with the quiz provides engaging with the quiz will provide you a clearer picture of what areas may need more focus and which aspects are already strong. It, will reorient you also on things that are actually going well in your relationship. I find that when couples have problems and they're worried about whether their relationship can be saved or not, they are so hyper focused on the problems the that they completely dismiss the good. Whether it's a little or a lot in their relationship, this knowledge can be empowering. It can give you a roadmap for potential improvements and highlight areas where professional coaching and guidance could also be helpful to you. Exploring how each question relates to your real life scenarios will help you ground the assessment into practical terms and make it easier for you to recognize patterns and behaviors that are contributing to your dissatisfaction or distress. This quiz is not just an evaluation tool, but also a catalyst for meaningful dialogue between you and your partner. Meaningful dialogue between you and your partner here are some factors influence here are some factors that influence marital and relationship success beyond your quiz results. While quizzes and assessments provide a valuable starting point, several key elements contribute to a successful marriage and relationship beyond what any assessment can measure. Mutual respect forms the foundation of any healthy marriage and relationship of any healthy marriage and relationship partners who value each other's opinions, feelings and individuality create a nurturing and safe environment. Having shared values are critical, whether it's beliefs about family, parenting, career goals, or personal ethics and morality. Alignment in these areas supports a cohesive partnership. Lack of compatibility when it comes to values and belief systems can really cause havoc in a relationship. Couples that thrive together often display high levels of adaptability. Life is full of unexpected challenges and changes. Being able to adapt without letting stress harm the relationship is crucial, as is providing support to each other. Emotional support involves being there for your partner through thick and thin, and vice versa. This means listening actively, offering empathy and providing comfort during tough times, and also chipping in when you can and when your partner just is not able to. Mutual support is also equally important. Working towards shared aspirations allows you both to navigate challenges together, which then builds long term happiness and satisfaction. Building a lasting relationship goes beyond solving immediate issues. It involves investing in deeper aspects that create a resilient and fulfilling partnership. Here's some next step here are some next steps after taking the quiz, do you want to seek professional help or work together with your partner towards improvement? Once you've assessed your marital and relationship health through my quiz, it's time to consider your next steps. The results can serve as a critical turning point in deciding whether to seek professional coaching for your marriage and relationship or whether you want to work directly with your partner on your own. Professional coaching is a forward moving, results producing option when communication has broken down. If you and your partner struggle to communicate effectively, a relationship communication coach like myself can provide tools and strategies to improve this fundamental aspect. When trust issues are prevalent, rebuilding trust requires structured guidance. A professional coach can offer a neutral perspective and practical steps and give you exercises to build trust over the short term. When repeated conflicts remain unresolved, persistent problems often need persistent problems often need an external mediator to help navigate and resolve deeply ingrained issues. Couples coaching is designed to address specific challenges within your relationship and communication and relationship communication coaches like myself specialize in helping couples understand their dynamics, enhance emotional intimacy, develop effective communication and conflict resolution skills, and help draw you closer together and not divide you. As I mentioned before, coaching is a, very forward moving, results oriented process and it does not focus on the past in order to identify what's broken, what's wrong, or how to fix either of you. It's about creating structure and looking at what is working in your relationship and what can work in order to resolve what's going on between you. If you decide to work on your relationship together without immediate professional intervention, focusing on your individual strengths and areas, needing attention is crucial. Here are some strategies. Active listening make a conscious effort to listen to each other without interrupting or dismissing what your partner is saying. This builds understanding and shows respect for each other's perspectives and shows respect for each other's perspectives. Quality time prioritize spending time together doing activities that you both enjoy. This will strengthen your bond and create and bring in some positive experiences. Compromise be willing to give and receive find that middle ground on contentious issues to prevent resentment from building up. Transparency be open about feelings, fears and expectations. Transparency builds trust and reduces misunderstandings. Finding the right timing communicating about your relationship and things that are bothering you needs to happen during quality time together, not in the middle of the day or not interrupting each other. I'm a big fan of creating five to ten minutes each day for relationship check ins, where you check in with each other and talk about the things that concerned you that day. And then you can work together as a team and create mutual effort and dedication towards resolution. You might find it helpful to set specific goals and regularly revisit them as well so that you ensure that both of you are on the same page. These daily these daily check ins, along with the steps that I mentioned, whether through professional help or personal effort, can pave the way to restoring your marriage and relationship. I can also offer you if you choose to do things yourself, I can also offer you this if you choose to improve your relationship on your own, is for you to get my better relationships toolkit there are many, many, many chapters in this toolkit that you can work through on your own and then with your partner. It truly is a toolkit, a workbook, an exercise journal, and m includes the best of my techniques that I've used over the last 20 years in working with couples in my save your relationship and marriage. Immersive where I move in with couples to help save their marriage. In this toolkit, you will get the best of my techniques, so I invite you to get your copy of the toolkit at, toolkit dot drdarhawks.com. taking action towards a healthier relationship starts now. I invite you to take the first step towards improving your marriage. It can be challenging, but it is crucial. The insights you will gain from my quiz will provide a clear starting point for making positive changes. Whether you need to save your marriage from divorce, infidelity, or enhance an already strong relationship, or you have conflict that you're not able to resolve, or you have conflicts that you're not able to resolve, taking action is key. Consider these steps. Seek professional coaching guidance if the quiz results indicate significant issues or a few areas that you want to improve, professional coaching can offer the support and strategies needed to heal your relationship. And very quickly, might I add, implement positive changes. Use the relationship insights from the quiz and get the relationships toolkit to learn how to have better communication, rebuild trust, and deepen emotional intimacy with your partner. Spend time daily in self reflection, sometimes improving. Sometimes improving a marriage and relationship starts with individual self growth. Reflect on your personal contributions to the relationship dynamics and make necessary adjustments. And make necessary adjustments. Remember, a successful relationship requires ongoing effort, nurturing and commitment. By taking proactive states, by taking proactive steps based on your quiz results, you can address concerns and work towards a, healthier, more fulfilling partnership. Go ahead and take the quiz now. And you can do that at and you can do that at Couplesquiz dot drdarhawks.com thank you for listening. If you are having issues in your relationship and you don't feel like you have anyone to talk to, you're embarrassed or hurt or even feeling some shame, or you're blaming your partner, or anything that's causing issues in your relationship, please know I am here for you. You can trust me. I will not share anything that you share with me with anyone else. And I am committed to you finding peace, harmony and resolving whatever's going on in your relationship. You can contact me by going to my website@drdarhawks.com, and click on the contact link on the far right of the page. And I look forward to connecting with you via, a discovery session with me or in the next podcast.