Are you on speaking terms with your ex husband? If you followed the tips in my last article you should have at least opened up an avenue of communication with your ex husband. Now it's time to take what you've learned concerning the breakup of your marriage and put the pieces back together.One piece at a time.

If you haven't already done so, you need to sit down and make a list of the reasons that you think the marriage went bad. This is not a "blame" list, but a "reasons" list. Let me explain, instead of writing on your list"my husband was cheap"; instead write "we disagreed over money issues". Get the picture? It's time to be analytical about what went wrong, not assign blame. That didn't work when you were married, did it?

Once you've got a list of the top problems, pick the one that you think most likely led to the divorce and forget about the rest for now. This is the issue you want to be in conversation about with your ex husband. And this time the conversations need to be different than what they were before.They need to be open discussions with you really listening to your ex, not just thinking about how you can get your point across.

Try to create some kind of regular schedule that you meet with him. It very important that he does not feel pressure about seeing you, so be a little flexible. And it's also very important that these meetings have some romantic undertone to them. Go to one of the favorite spots that you went to when things were good. Avoid meeting anywhere where there were bad memories created.

Now here's the tricky part: how to bring the issue up? Getting your ex husband to be receptive to the idea of talking about a sore subject in the marriage can only be accomplished successfully by one method. You must be willing to admit some sort of blame. If your husband was a tight fisted jerk and you know it asking him why he was so cheap isn't going to make him want to discuss the issue. Instead you need to bring it up with a self deprecating statement like "was I too hard on you about being frugal when we were married?".

This type of approach does amazing things to opening up real lines of communication. More than likely his response will be something like "no I just was too stubborn," or "no, I think I over reacted". But, this does not mean it's time to pounce on him. The conversation must continue forward with you reinforcing that you accept some of the blame. We are not here to try at fix your husband. We're here to fix the relationship and get him back. The only person that you can fix is yourself. Accepting some of the blame must also be taken to heart, not just a trick to get the talking started.

It's also time to forgive him for whatever he's done to you. No relationship can survive without forgiveness. More than likely you are just as much to blame for the breakup; if not mostly responsible then at least partially responsible. Be willing to accept that and give your husband the benefit of the doubt for his transgressions.

This marriage can be restored one issue at a time. Once you feel that the two of you have successfully talked out your worse issue then continue down your list. Do not rush back into the relationship however, just because you're making progress. For this to last long term, it's important that you've discussed all the major issues before putting the marriage back together.