November 28, 2025 • 12 mins
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Can your marriage be saved after an affair, separation, or even after divorce papers have been filed? Is there a point where a relationship is truly "too far gone"?
In this video, Kimberly from Marriage Helper reveals the shocking truth about which marriages actually won't be saved. The answer might surprise you—it has nothing to do with how much time has passed, the severity of the infidelity, or legal proceedings. Instead, it comes down to three specific roadblocks that stop reconciliation in its tracks.
If you are wondering, "Is there hope for my marriage?" this video is a must-watch. Kimberly shares insights on why complaining, making excuses, and letting fear paralyze you are the real reasons marriages fail—and exactly how you can start doing something different today.
In this video, we cover:
The psychological danger of focusing on the negative.
Why making excuses creates a barrier to intimacy.
How to overcome the fear that "nothing will work."
Why affairs and separation do NOT mean your marriage is over.
👇 NEXT STEPS & RESOURCES 👇
🛑 APPLY FOR HELP: Ready to stop making excuses and start saving your relationship? We help thousands of couples in crisis every year. Click here to submit an application and schedule a call with our team to see if we are the right fit for you: https://bit.ly/4adNFmA
🧠 WATCH NEXT: Kimberly mentioned that mindset is everything. Watch this video next: "5 Mindset Shifts You Need to Save Your Marriage"
https://bit.ly/3LWA8G7
If you're struggling in your marriage, don’t wait. Get our FREE resource: The 7 Steps to Rescue Your Marriage 👉 https://marriagehelper.com/free
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
So, what if your husband or wife has had an
(00:02):
affair or you're currentlyseparated in your marriage, or
maybe even divorce has beenfiled?
Can your marriage be saved?
Here's the thing.
In today's video, I'm going tobe talking about which marriages
won't be saved.
And honestly, the answer maysurprise you.
And if we haven't met before,hey, my name is Kimberly, and
(00:23):
I've been working with MarriageHelper for over 14 years and
helping couples and people insituations a lot like yours,
where you're wondering, can Isave my marriage or is this too
far gone?
Now, in today's video, as Isaid, I'm going to be talking
about how do you know if yourmarriage can be saved by telling
(00:44):
you about the kinds ofsituations that I have seen over
14 years, but also what ourentire team here at Marriage
Helper has seen over the past 30years in the thousands of
situations that we've beenworking with.
And these are the types ofmarriages that can't be saved,
that aren't saved.
So you're going to want tolisten in, you're going to want
(01:05):
to lean in, maybe even takenotes, because this is important
to know.
So here's the first type ofsituation that just isn't going
to be saved.
It's if you just want tocomplain.
Now I know that's likely notwhat you were expecting me to
say, but I want you to thinkabout it.
When you are looking for thenegative all of the time in your
(01:25):
spouse, in your marriage, inyour relationship, then what
ends up happening is you alwayssee the negative.
I think about my son.
I've been noticing this so much.
He's in third grade and he'sbeen coming home from school at
the beginning of the schoolyear.
He was coming home every day andjust saying, I had a bad day
today.
And the very next day, he wouldsay it again.
(01:47):
And he was just focusing on thenegatives.
It was a new school.
He didn't have the same friendsthat he had had from the year
before.
But even though it's always hardand there are always things that
might go wrong in a school day,the fact that he was so focused
on the negative led him toconsistently only be focused on
(02:08):
the negative.
And he would come home and hekind of got in this groove where
he just wanted to complain.
Now, I see this all of the timein people's marriages.
The person that comes to me,even who even wants to save
their marriage, they can't seeanything but the bad.
I know that is how I felt when Iwas going through my marriage
crisis over 10 years ago.
(02:30):
I just wanted to complain.
I felt like if my husband wouldchange, if he would just do the
things I wanted him to do, thenwe would be fine.
Everything would be better.
But the more that I focused onthe bad, the more I saw the bad.
You will see what you expect tosee.
That is a principle that is truein psychology and in life.
(02:53):
So if you are just wanting tocomplain, then you're never
going to see the good.
And ultimately your marriagewon't be saved because you will
only be focusing on the bad.
You'll keep finding the thingsto complain about and you'll
keep staying stuck in the rutthat you're currently in.
Now, I know that maybe, maybesome of you have already even
stopped watching this video atthis point because I'm not
(03:15):
saying what you want to hear.
But here is the thing, y'all.
The thing is, this is the truthof the matter.
So much about saving ourmarriage has to do with the
mindset we bring into it.
Honestly, that may be one of thebiggest parts of saving your
marriage is the mindset that youhave.
Now, listen, I have two morepoints that I want to get to you
(03:36):
that are really important, but Idid another YouTube video on the
five mindset shifts that youneed to have in order to save
your marriage.
We're gonna put that in the shownotes.
That should be the next videothat you watch.
Here's the second situation Isee that your marriage may not
be saved if you're experiencingthis.
And that's this you makeexcuses.
I was talking to a guy justyesterday who was talking about
(03:58):
how he had had an affair, how hewas trying to win his wife's
trust back.
But honestly, he just couldn'tdo anything right now because
they were trying to move, theywere trying to get all of these
other things done in their lifeand in their marriage.
And ultimately what I heard wasexcuses.
There were all of the reasons inthe world to not do something
(04:19):
now, because the pain of whatyou fear you might experience as
you go through what needs to bedone to try and save your
marriage, to some people, justtruly isn't worth it.
That's a hard truth for many ofus to think about.
Are you just so dreading thepain, the emotional turmoil that
(04:40):
it might take in order to saveyour marriage?
And have you made that such abig monster in your mind that
it's keeping you stuck?
Well, here's the thing.
I have had people ask me beforeor even just say to me before,
they say, Kimberly, I just don'tknow that I want to go through
the Marriage Helper program, togo to the three-day workshop
because I'm so scared that it'sgoing to bring up past pain and
(05:03):
I just don't want to livethrough it again.
Well, here's the great thingthat you need to understand.
We at Marriage Helper don'tfocus on your past pain.
We focus on your future hope.
We focus on how you can look tothe future and start doing
things differently now withouthashing up unnecessary trauma
and things that happened in thepast that bring a lot of things
(05:23):
to the surface that aren'tultimately that like it happens
a lot of time in counseling andtherapy, those things end up
bringing up way more problemsthat aren't dealt with well and
end up causing way moreproblems.
So that's not what we do.
We say, yes, there's things thatfrom the past that need to be
forgiven and dealt with and notdone again, but we're not gonna
(05:43):
live there.
We're gonna live in the futureand of how things can be better
moving forward.
And so what you'll find when youcome through the process that we
take you through at MarriageHelper is that it is
hope-filled.
It is life-giving, it isactually change-based in the
fact that it actually leadsbehaviors to change and the
future to look different thanthe past looked for you.
(06:05):
You'll find that it's actuallynot as painful as you think that
it will be to go through theprocess.
But the other truth that I knowis this that people don't
actually make change until thepain of staying where they are
is more than what they can bear.
And that leads me to pointnumber three.
The marriage that isn't going tobe saved is the one who doesn't
(06:26):
do anything.
There was a couple of years agowhere I had this really weird
nose thing going on.
Anytime I breathed in through mynose, it it there was so much
pain and irritation that I wouldcry.
And it was so frustrating.
I know it's like a really weirdthing to think about, but it was
something that you do sonormally, just breathing in,
(06:48):
something that should be easy,just became extremely painful.
And I was really scared, numberone, that it was always going to
be this way and that I was nevergonna be able to breathe
normally through my nose again.
So ultimately what I ended updoing was going to the doctor,
and the doctor gave me this packof this steroid pack.
And ultimately, the second thingI was scared of that was that I
(07:11):
would take this pack and itwouldn't work.
So I just left it on my kitchencounter for two days without
taking it, just thinking, if Ican do some home remedies, if I
can just wait it out, then maybethings are gonna get better,
which didn't make any logicalsense.
I remember calling my dad andtalking him through this
(07:32):
process.
And he said, Kimberly, why don'tyou just take the medicine?
That's exactly what it's therefor.
And I said, Because my ultimatefear is what if I take it and it
still doesn't work?
And then I've tried everything,and then I'll know that there's
no hope for me to be able tobreathe normally through my nose
(07:52):
again.
Y'all, I know that sounds crazy,but think about it.
How often is that true for ourmarriage as well?
We don't go to counseling, wedon't do that thing, or maybe we
did that thing in the past.
We did counseling before, itdidn't work.
We did another program that saidthat it was going to save our
marriage and wasted a bunch ofmoney doing it and it didn't
work.
And now you are hopeless becauseyou've tried all of these other
(08:14):
things in the past that saidthey would, but they didn't.
And you're dejected, you'redesperate, you're unsure who to
even trust at this point, kindof like I was with that steroid
pack.
But here was what ended uphappening.
Finally, I said, you know what?
What do I actually have to lose?
And the answer was nothing.
(08:36):
And I took the first pill andthen the second, and within a
day, I could breathe again.
And guess what?
It didn't come back.
It actually worked.
But I had to get to the pointwhere the pain of what I was
experiencing in the moment wasgreater than the fear I had
(08:56):
about what to do next.
And ultimately, I think that'swhere several of you are as
well.
Maybe you are in the point andthe place right now where you're
saying, I'm just still scared.
Like my fear is greater than mydesire for my life to be
different.
And nothing's gonna change aslong as you stay in that fear.
(09:16):
As long as you stay still, andas long as you stop doing
anything and don't do anything,things aren't gonna get better.
Things wouldn't have gottenbetter for me until I started to
do something about it.
And the same is true for you aswell.
So you may be surprised that Ididn't say if your spouse is
(09:37):
still in an affair, or if you'reseparated, or if your spouse has
filed for divorce, or if youhaven't had intimacy with each
other for the past five years.
None of those things I saidbecause I have seen situations
that other people, othercounseling therapy options,
other companies would have said,there is no hope for you.
(09:59):
I've seen those marriages saved.
So I believe there's nothingbeyond hope.
I believe there's nothing beyondrepair and that any marriage can
be saved.
But honestly, honestly, thenumber one thing that has to
happen for any marriage to besaved, including yours, is you
(10:19):
have to start doing somethingdifferent.
So what is that?
Do you know what you need to donext?
You probably don't.
Otherwise, you would havealready done it and you wouldn't
be in this situation right now.
Again, that same person that Iwas talking to just yesterday
who said, We just don't have theability right now.
(10:39):
We're trying to move.
He said, I know what I need todo.
I just need to be consistent.
So I said, consistent in what?
And he said, honestly,consistent in just answering my
wife's questions about theaffair that I had every single
day.
And I was able to say, listen,that's the wrong thing to be
consistent in.
You're causing more damage,doing the things that you think
(11:00):
you should be doing, and it'smaking your recovery process
even worse.
You're not doing the rightthings, and so you're not going
to get the right results.
Maybe you should letprofessionals like what we do at
Marriage Helper help guide youthrough the right things to do
so that you don't cause morepain, so that you don't cause
more turmoil, and so that youcan actually see your marriage
(11:20):
be saved and better than everbefore.
We work with 100 clients a monthand we would love for you to be
one of them.
We have an application processbecause we want to make sure
that what we do is the best fitfor you and that you are a great
fit for us.
If you are actually ready tostart doing something different,
submit your application.
You'll see the link in the shownotes below.
(11:43):
We would love to see if we couldpossibly work with you and help
make your marriage better thanit's ever been, no matter what
has happened.
As long as you are willing, wehave a beginning place for you
where you can start and you canbegin to see real results.
When you submit thatapplication, you're going to
answer some questions.
And then it's going to ask youto schedule a time to speak with
(12:04):
someone on our team so that theycan listen to you, hear you out,
and help you see how we can helpfor you to see if it's a good
fit for you.
But here's what I know if youdon't do anything, nothing will
change.
So be sure to submit thatapplication if you're ready and
watch the next video on the fivemindset shifts that you need to
(12:26):
save your marriage.
So, what if your husband or wife has had an
(00:02):
affair or you're currentlyseparated in your marriage, or
maybe even divorce has beenfiled?
Can your marriage be saved?
Here's the thing.
In today's video, I'm going tobe talking about which marriages
won't be saved.
And honestly, the answer maysurprise you.
And if we haven't met before,hey, my name is Kimberly, and
(00:23):
I've been working with MarriageHelper for over 14 years and
helping couples and people insituations a lot like yours,
where you're wondering, can Isave my marriage or is this too
far gone?
Now, in today's video, as Isaid, I'm going to be talking
about how do you know if yourmarriage can be saved by telling
(00:44):
you about the kinds ofsituations that I have seen over
14 years, but also what ourentire team here at Marriage
Helper has seen over the past 30years in the thousands of
situations that we've beenworking with.
And these are the types ofmarriages that can't be saved,
that aren't saved.
So you're going to want tolisten in, you're going to want
(01:05):
to lean in, maybe even takenotes, because this is important
to know.
So here's the first type ofsituation that just isn't going
to be saved.
It's if you just want tocomplain.
Now I know that's likely notwhat you were expecting me to
say, but I want you to thinkabout it.
When you are looking for thenegative all of the time in your
(01:25):
spouse, in your marriage, inyour relationship, then what
ends up happening is you alwayssee the negative.
I think about my son.
I've been noticing this so much.
He's in third grade and he'sbeen coming home from school at
the beginning of the schoolyear.
He was coming home every day andjust saying, I had a bad day
today.
And the very next day, he wouldsay it again.
(01:47):
And he was just focusing on thenegatives.
It was a new school.
He didn't have the same friendsthat he had had from the year
before.
But even though it's always hardand there are always things that
might go wrong in a school day,the fact that he was so focused
on the negative led him toconsistently only be focused on
(02:08):
the negative.
And he would come home and hekind of got in this groove where
he just wanted to complain.
Now, I see this all of the timein people's marriages.
The person that comes to me,even who even wants to save
their marriage, they can't seeanything but the bad.
I know that is how I felt when Iwas going through my marriage
crisis over 10 years ago.
(02:30):
I just wanted to complain.
I felt like if my husband wouldchange, if he would just do the
things I wanted him to do, thenwe would be fine.
Everything would be better.
But the more that I focused onthe bad, the more I saw the bad.
You will see what you expect tosee.
That is a principle that is truein psychology and in life.
(02:53):
So if you are just wanting tocomplain, then you're never
going to see the good.
And ultimately your marriagewon't be saved because you will
only be focusing on the bad.
You'll keep finding the thingsto complain about and you'll
keep staying stuck in the rutthat you're currently in.
Now, I know that maybe, maybesome of you have already even
stopped watching this video atthis point because I'm not
(03:15):
saying what you want to hear.
But here is the thing, y'all.
The thing is, this is the truthof the matter.
So much about saving ourmarriage has to do with the
mindset we bring into it.
Honestly, that may be one of thebiggest parts of saving your
marriage is the mindset that youhave.
Now, listen, I have two morepoints that I want to get to you
(03:36):
that are really important, but Idid another YouTube video on the
five mindset shifts that youneed to have in order to save
your marriage.
We're gonna put that in the shownotes.
That should be the next videothat you watch.
Here's the second situation Isee that your marriage may not
be saved if you're experiencingthis.
And that's this you makeexcuses.
I was talking to a guy justyesterday who was talking about
(03:58):
how he had had an affair, how hewas trying to win his wife's
trust back.
But honestly, he just couldn'tdo anything right now because
they were trying to move, theywere trying to get all of these
other things done in their lifeand in their marriage.
And ultimately what I heard wasexcuses.
There were all of the reasons inthe world to not do something
(04:19):
now, because the pain of whatyou fear you might experience as
you go through what needs to bedone to try and save your
marriage, to some people, justtruly isn't worth it.
That's a hard truth for many ofus to think about.
Are you just so dreading thepain, the emotional turmoil that
(04:40):
it might take in order to saveyour marriage?
And have you made that such abig monster in your mind that
it's keeping you stuck?
Well, here's the thing.
I have had people ask me beforeor even just say to me before,
they say, Kimberly, I just don'tknow that I want to go through
the Marriage Helper program, togo to the three-day workshop
because I'm so scared that it'sgoing to bring up past pain and
(05:03):
I just don't want to livethrough it again.
Well, here's the great thingthat you need to understand.
We at Marriage Helper don'tfocus on your past pain.
We focus on your future hope.
We focus on how you can look tothe future and start doing
things differently now withouthashing up unnecessary trauma
and things that happened in thepast that bring a lot of things
(05:23):
to the surface that aren'tultimately that like it happens
a lot of time in counseling andtherapy, those things end up
bringing up way more problemsthat aren't dealt with well and
end up causing way moreproblems.
So that's not what we do.
We say, yes, there's things thatfrom the past that need to be
forgiven and dealt with and notdone again, but we're not gonna
(05:43):
live there.
We're gonna live in the futureand of how things can be better
moving forward.
And so what you'll find when youcome through the process that we
take you through at MarriageHelper is that it is
hope-filled.
It is life-giving, it isactually change-based in the
fact that it actually leadsbehaviors to change and the
future to look different thanthe past looked for you.
(06:05):
You'll find that it's actuallynot as painful as you think that
it will be to go through theprocess.
But the other truth that I knowis this that people don't
actually make change until thepain of staying where they are
is more than what they can bear.
And that leads me to pointnumber three.
The marriage that isn't going tobe saved is the one who doesn't
(06:26):
do anything.
There was a couple of years agowhere I had this really weird
nose thing going on.
Anytime I breathed in through mynose, it it there was so much
pain and irritation that I wouldcry.
And it was so frustrating.
I know it's like a really weirdthing to think about, but it was
something that you do sonormally, just breathing in,
(06:48):
something that should be easy,just became extremely painful.
And I was really scared, numberone, that it was always going to
be this way and that I was nevergonna be able to breathe
normally through my nose again.
So ultimately what I ended updoing was going to the doctor,
and the doctor gave me this packof this steroid pack.
And ultimately, the second thingI was scared of that was that I
(07:11):
would take this pack and itwouldn't work.
So I just left it on my kitchencounter for two days without
taking it, just thinking, if Ican do some home remedies, if I
can just wait it out, then maybethings are gonna get better,
which didn't make any logicalsense.
I remember calling my dad andtalking him through this
(07:32):
process.
And he said, Kimberly, why don'tyou just take the medicine?
That's exactly what it's therefor.
And I said, Because my ultimatefear is what if I take it and it
still doesn't work?
And then I've tried everything,and then I'll know that there's
no hope for me to be able tobreathe normally through my nose
(07:52):
again.
Y'all, I know that sounds crazy,but think about it.
How often is that true for ourmarriage as well?
We don't go to counseling, wedon't do that thing, or maybe we
did that thing in the past.
We did counseling before, itdidn't work.
We did another program that saidthat it was going to save our
marriage and wasted a bunch ofmoney doing it and it didn't
work.
And now you are hopeless becauseyou've tried all of these other
(08:14):
things in the past that saidthey would, but they didn't.
And you're dejected, you'redesperate, you're unsure who to
even trust at this point, kindof like I was with that steroid
pack.
But here was what ended uphappening.
Finally, I said, you know what?
What do I actually have to lose?
And the answer was nothing.
(08:36):
And I took the first pill andthen the second, and within a
day, I could breathe again.
And guess what?
It didn't come back.
It actually worked.
But I had to get to the pointwhere the pain of what I was
experiencing in the moment wasgreater than the fear I had
(08:56):
about what to do next.
And ultimately, I think that'swhere several of you are as
well.
Maybe you are in the point andthe place right now where you're
saying, I'm just still scared.
Like my fear is greater than mydesire for my life to be
different.
And nothing's gonna change aslong as you stay in that fear.
(09:16):
As long as you stay still, andas long as you stop doing
anything and don't do anything,things aren't gonna get better.
Things wouldn't have gottenbetter for me until I started to
do something about it.
And the same is true for you aswell.
So you may be surprised that Ididn't say if your spouse is
(09:37):
still in an affair, or if you'reseparated, or if your spouse has
filed for divorce, or if youhaven't had intimacy with each
other for the past five years.
None of those things I saidbecause I have seen situations
that other people, othercounseling therapy options,
other companies would have said,there is no hope for you.
(09:59):
I've seen those marriages saved.
So I believe there's nothingbeyond hope.
I believe there's nothing beyondrepair and that any marriage can
be saved.
But honestly, honestly, thenumber one thing that has to
happen for any marriage to besaved, including yours, is you
(10:19):
have to start doing somethingdifferent.
So what is that?
Do you know what you need to donext?
You probably don't.
Otherwise, you would havealready done it and you wouldn't
be in this situation right now.
Again, that same person that Iwas talking to just yesterday
who said, We just don't have theability right now.
(10:39):
We're trying to move.
He said, I know what I need todo.
I just need to be consistent.
So I said, consistent in what?
And he said, honestly,consistent in just answering my
wife's questions about theaffair that I had every single
day.
And I was able to say, listen,that's the wrong thing to be
consistent in.
You're causing more damage,doing the things that you think
(11:00):
you should be doing, and it'smaking your recovery process
even worse.
You're not doing the rightthings, and so you're not going
to get the right results.
Maybe you should letprofessionals like what we do at
Marriage Helper help guide youthrough the right things to do
so that you don't cause morepain, so that you don't cause
more turmoil, and so that youcan actually see your marriage
(11:20):
be saved and better than everbefore.
We work with 100 clients a monthand we would love for you to be
one of them.
We have an application processbecause we want to make sure
that what we do is the best fitfor you and that you are a great
fit for us.
If you are actually ready tostart doing something different,
submit your application.
You'll see the link in the shownotes below.
(11:43):
We would love to see if we couldpossibly work with you and help
make your marriage better thanit's ever been, no matter what
has happened.
As long as you are willing, wehave a beginning place for you
where you can start and you canbegin to see real results.
When you submit thatapplication, you're going to
answer some questions.
And then it's going to ask youto schedule a time to speak with
(12:04):
someone on our team so that theycan listen to you, hear you out,
and help you see how we can helpfor you to see if it's a good
fit for you.
But here's what I know if youdon't do anything, nothing will
change.
So be sure to submit thatapplication if you're ready and
watch the next video on the fivemindset shifts that you need to
(12:26):
save your marriage.
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