Matthew Fray’s Marriage Ended—But He Wants to Save Yours. Here Are His 7 Relationship-Saving Tips

In 2013, Matthew Fray’s wife left him. This wasn’t over adultery or abuse. Fray's wife left because banal things eroded their connection. A left-out dish. An unnoticed comment. Everyday occurrences that Fray likens to paper cuts: They don't hurt enough to make someone leave in the moment, but they amount to something bigger. “It's the trend of them happening over five years, 10 years, 15 years,” he told me over Zoom. “It piles up, and it's awful.”

To cope, Fray started writing about his marriage ending. He shared raw stories and gained deep insight into all he did and didn’t do while in his relationship. “It’s so subtle and nuanced, the things that erode trust,” said Fray, who believes we often lack the tools to deeply relate to our partners. He imbues all his misgivings and learnings in his book This Is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships. Each chapter offers a hammer that cracks open the thin layer of complacency on which we all coast. (Yep, we all coast on it.)

This Is How Your Marriage Ends is a map to seeing our blind spots. The book and Fray's insightful lessons he offered during our conversation show us that just as we can unintentionally overlook and harm, we have an even greater capacity to learn from our mistakes—and to do better.

7 Lessons for Saving Your Marriage, from Matthew Fray

#1: Know that Trivial Small Things Can Harm

Fray never thought he was a bad husband. He didn’t cheat or do other blatantly harmful actions. “I thought I wasn’t capable of harming this relationship because of how convinced I was in my decency,” he says. But even though he wasn’t doing “vile things,” he was still hurting his wife by overlooking the meaningful connection she craved. Now with his book and work as a relationship coach, Fray is “advocating for the people who try to not cause harm but accidentally do so.”

#2: Never Take Your Partner for Granted

“We breathe more than 23,000 times a day, but we rarely notice,” says Fray who uses this analogy to describe the sacredness of our relationships. Too often we overlook the tender, sensitive, critical bond with the person we promise to love, he believes. Our relationships are “as important as breathing, in an emotional sense,” he continues, “yet we become blind to the everyday-ness of it all—and it’s awful that we do that.”

#3: Don’t Fall into the Cynical Trap

Whenever Fray’s wife pushed back or told him something was wrong, he didn’t listen. Fray thought she was being cynical, and that he was totally fine, he says. “When you think somebody's cynical, you excuse yourself from ever having to truly listen and validate and care because you don't honor the experience of the pain that somebody's feeling.”

#4: Always Aim to “Move the Dots Closer”

Fray imagines a horizontal line with two data points: one dot represents you, the other your romantic partner. The line is symbolic of the distance between you two. “Like breathing, it's so easy to get distracted” and to drift away from your partner, he says. This could mean watching TV in separate rooms or going without a one-on-one conversation for weeks. The goal, he says, is to move your dots closer by choosing words and actions and communication that will support connection and empathy. By doing so, you build trust and opportunities for intimacy rather than default to habits of getting hung up over who left a dirty dish in the sink, he says.

#5: Let Your Partner Know You’re Thinking of Them

We’re often apart from our partners during the day. “That’s a whole period where my relationship partner is left inside their head to question the degree to which I care about them,” says Fray. To remedy this, Fray says to let your partner know you’re thinking of them. This can be as simple as sending a kind message or two throughout the day, “just to communicate, I care.”

#6: Know Your Partner. Well.

How well do you know the person you’re committed to in life? Do you know their triggers? Their emotional responses to things? Their fears? “I think we're literally in the dark about the very real, very true experiences other people have,” says Fray. “And I think a big part of this work is getting serious about knowing what that other person's lived experience is like.” Fray says it is critical to be “vigilantly considerate” of the person you love. Ask questions. Consider their thoughts and how your actions—big and small—impact them. “I need to be able to predict with some sense of accuracy, how this thing that I'm about to do will result in this human feeling,” he says. “If I'm to be a trusted support system and equal partner, I better be in tune with them.”

#7: Remember: Every Moment Is an Opportunity for Repair

All we have is the present. To honor that, and your relationship, don’t default to habits of arguing about a “stupid dish,” says Fray. Think about how you can do better and make your partner feel seen and heard. Think: What can I do or say at this moment that will mathematically result in our dots moving closer together, Fray suggests. “It's so simple. And it’s really powerful.”

Matthew Fray is a relationship coach and author. You can order his book, This Is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships, here; and you can learn more about Fray at matthewfray.com.