It’s amazing how fast time flies bye, isn’t it?

So maybe you’ve been married for six months or 60 years, and when you think about your partner (or look at your partner) there just isn’t the physical attraction that used to be there. There isn’t the emotional connection there used to be. We have slid apart, and nothing seems optimistic in regards to having the love we had before.

First, let me share this outrageously important information. As we age, relationship shift, mature, grow, or fade away. However, trying to re-create the intense love that we had when we first met our partner may be an absolute waste of time.

Instead? Follow the four keys below on how to turn your marriage around now.

1. Stop fantasizing about the fact that all of your friends have fantastic, perfect marriages. It’s not true. According to our work of almost 30 years in the world of relationships, only about 20% of marriages in the United States are healthy. That means 80% are not healthy.

You may be falling into the majority here, which isn’t necessarily a good thing, but the great news is you can turn it around if you quit comparing your family and relationship, imagining that everyone else has it so much better than you do.

2. Write down on a daily basis the things about your partner that you still appreciate, even though you feel you have fallen out of love. The list maybe quite small, but here’s something interesting: when I give my clients this exercise to do at home, the first few days of attempting to find things that they still appreciate, like or even love about their partner is a struggle. But as they persist, they start to return to sessions with me filled with astonishment that their partner still has some good traits even though the marriage might be failing.

As you take just five minutes a day, to write down one or two or five traits about your husband or wife that are positive, a shift begins to happen within the relationship.

3. You’ve got to let go of every resentment you hold against your partner if you expect any improvement to happen at all! For 30 years couples have contacted me, asking me to teach them the art of communication in love so that they can save their marriage, so that they can save their relationship.

So many people have been misled into thinking that the problem in our relationships is our communication skills or lack of. But the real problem? It’s resentments.

When we have resentments against our partner, I don’t care how intensely you’d like to save the marriage, it’s just not going to happen. You’ve got to let go of the resentment you have against your partner that may have happened 30 years ago or three months ago. Most people find this impossible to do on their own, so to turn your marriage around, reach out to a counselor or a life coach and ask them to help you learn how you can let go of your resentments against your partner starting today.

It may take several weeks or even months to let these resentments go, but it’s the only way your marriage has a chance of being turned around into something healthy and fulfilling once again.

4. Create one day a week—even one hour during that day—to get together with your spouse and do something new, different, exciting. It might be going to one of those "paint with wine" courses… Or it could be a sporting event once a week… It could be bowling once a week… It could be taking dance lessons once a week… Important point: There’s got to be some type of involvement on both of your parts, as a couple, doing new things that could actually add a lot of energy to the marriage.

Now, if you’re not willing to do any of the above or all of the above exercises in order to save your marriage, I would highly recommend working with the counselor and coming to the conclusion if you even want to stay in the relationship at all.

It’s an absolute waste of your life, and your partners life, if you’re not willing to do the work to turn your relationship around, but rather, sit in the hell you’ve created and continue to blame, be a victim and all the other things we do when we’re unhappy in life.

I would rather see couples break up and divorce, then to stay in crappy marriages and relationships. Know, however, that whatever shortcomings you personally have when leaving your current marriage are the same ones you'll bring into any future relationships unless worked on. Unfortunately, most people don’t have the strength or the integrity to leave a marriage when it’s dead, they’d rather sit in it, sit in the cesspool that they’ve created, then be strong enough to stand up and say it’s time to move on or do the work to fix it.

Get off the fence; 2019 will either be the year you do the work and resurrect your marriage; or the year you admit the marriage has failed and move on peacefully into the future.

David Essel's work is highly endorsed by individuals like the late Wayne Dyer, and celebrity Jenny McCarthy who says, "David Essel is the new leader of the positive thinking movement." His 10th book, another number one bestseller is called "Focus! Slay your goals, the proven guide to huge success, a powerful attitude and profound love." For more visit: www.davidessel.com