It’s never easy to keep a relationship strong and happy, but it certainly gets tougher when you have children.
Many couples find that they start to argue after having kids, owing to a varying combination of everyday stresses - from lack of sleep, to financial problems, mental health troubles and more.
Even a healthy marriage can struggle after having children, simply because it's difficult to spend time together. Date night becomes a rarity, and even small moments of physical affection are hard to come by.
Over time we find ourselves wondering how to stop fighting, or even wondering when to leave a relationship when we have children.
Rising divorce rates have led to the creation of several online marriage programmes, as couples seek support for their marriage problems without having to pay for costly couples therapy and marriage counseling.
But which one will help you save your marriage and how do you know what to look for?
We’ve reviewed three of the leading marriage programmes available online - Save My Marriage Today, Mend The Marriage, and Save The Marriage - and we’re going to compare them so you know which one is best for you and your circumstances.
Table Of Contents
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What are marriage programmes?
Marriage programmes are digital, self-guided versions of marriage counseling or couples therapy.
They usually offer an e-book and various worksheets containing the theory and practical advice that can make all the difference in your bid to save your marriage.
Marriage programmes are often designed to encourage open and honest communication, help rebuild trust and emotional connection to help you make your marriage work.
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, roughly 4-5 million people get married every year in the US and as many as half of those will end in divorce. And in the UK, official figures suggest around 42% of marriages will end in divorce, which inevitably has further repercussions when there are children involved.
The reality is that even a healthy relationship or successful marriage can become extremely difficult, and requires time and hard work to maintain a close connection.
Lara Besbrode, founder of The Matchmaker UK, explains: “Remember that building a strong and healthy relationship takes time and effort from both partners. Be patient and kind with each other as you work through challenges and prioritise creating a loving and supportive environment for your children.”
These programmes focus on the key areas of building (and maintaining a strong relationship), including effective communication, spending quality time together, being open about your feelings, setting mutual goals, what to do if you don't think you love your partner anymore, and how important your partner's love language is.
The programmes - in summary
Best for
personal growth
Save My Marriage Today
Best for
parents
Mend The Marriage
Best for
one-sided
Save The Marriage
Save My Marriage Today
Save My Marriage Today is a programme that focuses on you. Written by relationship experts Amy Waterman and Andrew Rusbath, the course is designed to focus on self awareness and address issues with yourself in order to help you change in order to improve your relationship.
This may be best programme to save your marriage when only you think it's worth saving. It shows an intentional effort on your part to address the issues your partner has with the marriage, acknowledging their feelings and ensure they feel heard.
Check out our in-depth review of the Save My Marriage Today programme here.
Mend The Marriage
Mend The Marriage, created by one of the world’s leading relationship experts Brad Browning, operates on a similar premise of focusing on self-improvement and change in order to work towards a happy marriage once again.
While plenty of the programme is (understandably) fairly generic, one of the ‘additional materials’ does focus specifically on parents, meaning you can apply both the general and circumstantial advice to your relationship.
Check out our in-depth review of the Mend The Marriage programme here.
Save The Marriage
Developed by Dr Lee Baucon - a marriage therapist of more than two decades, Save The Marriage also focuses on self-improvement but is a little more geared towards relationships where one partner wants to separate but you don’t. The ‘if you don’t change, we’re over’ type scenarios…
Check out our in-depth review of the Save The Marriage programme here.
Head-to-head
All products and services reviewed by the DaddiLife team or members of the DaddiLife community use our scoring system. Here’s how each of these marriage programmes fared in a quick head-to-head.
For more information on our scoring system can be found here.
Overall score
20.5/25
22/25
21.5/25
Effectiveness
Ease of use
Value for money
Key features
Online buzz
Effectiveness
No troubled marriage is the same as another. Everyone’s relationship and situation is different, so it’s almost impossible to compare these programmes to each other objectively. It’s a subjective experience depending on circumstances. So, given that each programme delivered noticeable change and improvement in their relationship, we’ve focused this section on what each programme is best for.
Mend The Marriage came out on top, scoring full marks. This was largely due to the profound impact it had on changing mindset and behaviours, considering the other person in the relationship. There’s also a bit more emphasis on completing the course together, or at least sharing ideas.
Save My Marriage Today offers totally new ways of looking at your marriage and relationship, regardless of what stage you’re at. It focuses on the idea that in order to improve your marriage, you first need to improve yourself.
Save The Marriage is by no means an ineffective programme. Despite the lowest mark, it still scored four points. It works particularly well if only one of you wants to continue the relationship, but that perhaps makes it a little more niche.
Ease of Use
Mend The Marriage came out on top in terms of user experience, scoring a full 5 stars compared to Save My Marriage Today’s 4 and Save The Marriage’s 4.5.
Mend The Marriage is simple and effective from start to finish, including the e-book, worksheets and additional materials. Save The Marriage’s user experience is good, it just doesn’t feel quite as seamless as Mend The Marriage. Despite scoring the lowest, Save My Marriage Today is a good user experience on the whole - however, Robin did experience some issues with sign-up.
Value for Money
Like ‘Effectiveness’, value is subjective depending on individual circumstances.
At the time of writing, both Save My Marriage Today and Mend The Marriage cost $49.95 (roughly £40), while Save The Marriage is a little bit cheaper at $47 (roughly £37.50).
When you consider that in-person relationship counselling can cost around £50 per hour and typically lasts at least six sessions, all of these programmes provide great value for money. However, compared with each other Save My Marriage Today and Mend The Marriage carry a bit more weight than Save The Marriage.
Key features
By and large, the format of these programmes are largely the same - A 150+ page e-book (or e-books) covering the crux of the programme, worksheets, and some additional materials in the form of videos or audio sessions. However, Save My Marriage Today does also offer a free email consultation upon completion, allowing you to ask tailored questions to the course creators, Amy and Andrew. It means that you get that dedicated feedback on issues specifically related to your relationship problems, rather than consuming general advice and applying it to your situation.
Online buzz
Mend The Marriage and Save The Marriage come out on top when it comes to other reviews and chatter online. Marriage programmes are the type of thing that will always carry mixed reviews - one couple will laud it as their relationship saviour, while another couple will separate and label the programme ‘a waste of money’.
Mend The Marriage’s creator, Brad Browning, is one of the most respected and ‘listened to’ voices in the relationship space. And Dr Lee Baucon has been on both sides, spending 25 years as a relationship therapist and since being a serial author on relationships.
Final thoughts
We leave you with a few final thoughts from our reviewers...
Save My Marriage Today
“The course went into a lot of depth which really helped me and forced me to focus on different aspects and how these can be incorporated into my daily life. The personal email consultation was really good and was really detailed asking a lot of different questions."
Mend The Marriage
“This course feels a bit ‘stricter’ than some of the others - in that you are forced to look at yourself and do a bit of soul-searching. It reminded me of when I was dating and realised that if I didn’t love myself, and wasn’t happy with who I was, I couldn’t expect anyone else to love me either.”
Save The Marriage
“The author points out that most martial issues arise because once you settle into day-to-day life, focusing on the marriage - your relationship - tends to be ranked third or fourth in priority. It’s easy to take your partner for granted.”
FAQs
Should I go to marriage counselling or do an online programme?
Online programmes are a lot cheaper than marriage counselling, however, a truly troubled marriage may require the dedicated, personalised, professional help. In fact, Dr Lee Baucon recommends seeking professional help at the end of Save The Marriage, if the programme has not been enough to help fix a failing marriage.
What if my partner doesn't want to do a marriage programme?
That's fine - these programmes are designed in a way that they can be done individually, or together. Save My Marriage Today is particularly focused on self-reflection and self growth to help your relationship work.
In fact, Save The Marriage works particularly well for a broken marriage where one person is less enthusiastic than the other - one is searching 'how to save my marriage' while the other is 'should I leave my marriage?'
How long do marriage programmes take to complete?
This varies, depending on how time you can put into it. Some people prefer to engulf themselves in all the materials the courses have to offer, completing it in a day or two. Others prefer to take their time to ensure they have a strong understanding of the issues and advice being discussed.
