Thinking About Divorce?Notes from the Desk of
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To ORDER BeHappy! NOW 
Is your marriage in trouble? Is it just not "great" and could be a bit better? If the answer to either of these questions is 'yes'...
If you're considering marriage or are in a long-term relationship, then this is the most important book you'll ever read. It has 1000 questions covering every topic imaginable to make sure you're perfect for each other.Maybe you have transferred your affection to someone else or have initiated an inappropriate relationship with a coworker, a friend, or over the Internet. Perhaps you have started keeping a list of everything that you do right and everything your spouse does wrong. It could be that you have started spending time with single friends or others in similar situations who are bitter about their relationships and offer no real support on resiliency. Or, you have started working out, dieting, getting your teeth fixed, or doing other covert things to prepare yourself to leave.
Divorce to you looks like a tempting option. Are you ready? Or is it an example of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence?
If they ever promote me from the Neighborhood Shrink to Relationship Czar I'm going to command that every married person be forced to temporarily live the singles life again. Let them have fun for a while and then let reality kick in. They will get to experience the loneliness, the frustration in not finding the "right one" and the swinging from one relationship to the next in order continue to pack their already overstuffed emotional baggage. (I will do the same thing for singles, letting them try on the it-is-better/easier-to-be-married shoes). It is never as good as it looks from either side.
I am not suggesting that people shouldn't get divorced. If there is physical violence or abuse or if there is emotional or verbal abuse to the point that it affects quality of life – especially for your children, that needs to stop today. If it continues, you need to leave (with your children) today. Regardless of the potential for reconciliation, preserving your life or the lives your children must come first. Although it is sometimes more difficult to reconcile a marriage after separation, if there is potential for physical harm to you or emotional or physical harm to your children, separation is necessary. If there are other matters of such a nature that they are destructive financially, socially, vocationally, or emotionally, you need to determine a time limit now, even if you are going to attempt to repair your marriage. These include substance abuse, outside destructive relationships, chronic unemployment, or parental irresponsibility. Most of the time these factors need to be made non-negotiable as there really is no potential for a meaningful relationship if they are present. Put a time limit on how long they are going to be tolerated and then stand on it. Then, get busy on what you can do.
Violence or abuse is not usually the problem. Most of the time divorce occurs because people stop working on their marriage, get defensive and resentful, and leave. It will happen hundreds of thousands of times this year in the United States. When clients come to my office with this frame of mind I often ask them to decide if they have done everything they can to work it out. Leaving the marriage would be immediately gratifying for most of them. They would get out of the conflict, get relief from the daily barrage of resentment, and get to a place where they could breathe again. They fantasize that by being single they could get more sex, love, support, intimacy, or freedom. It is about immediate gratification and lack of motivation. By the time many couples get to therapy they are not really looking for reconciliation, they are looking for permission to get divorced.
The truth it is that it takes two people to make a marriage work, but only one person to get a divorce. Even in non-"no-fault" states, it only takes one person to leave the marriage for the marriage to be nonexistent. The good news is that with only one person working on it, marriages can come back together as well.
Divorce is not just a legal process. People first get emotionally divorced. They emotionally check out-sometimes living in the same home-but they are divorced just the same. Couples come to therapy saying that they are living like roommates and that at least one of them does not have the motivation to do anything about it. They are angry, tired, and frustrated, looking for answers that they have had all along. Sometimes they're willing to do the work to put the train back on the tracks, sometimes they just walk away from the wreckage.
Obviously if it is your spouse who has given up and left emotionally you may think there is not a lot you can do to reconcile the marriage. That's not true! What are you feeling? Have you already emotionally distanced yourself as well? Is there any hope? As mentioned above it only takes one to break up a relationship but that one maybe you. I once heard Dr. Pat Love1 say "People often break up right before they break through".
One of the questions you must ask yourself is, “will you make every effort to turn this relationship into what you want it to be instead of waiting to find one that is what it is supposed to be?” This may mean doing what you need to do versus doing what you have been doing throughout your marriage. In recovery circles, the definition of insanity it is, "Applying the same solution to the same problem and expecting a different outcome.” That is crazy!
Let's say you have had enough. You have determined that the marriage is irreconcilable and so you leave. Now what? Most people sooner or later will establish another relationship. The problem is that if they have not resolved their value conflicts, family of origin issues, or any of the other dozens of things that get in the way of a relationship, they are destined to re-create them again.
Many times clients seek psychotherapy after a breakup. They have gained some perspective and recognized a pattern in themselves that they want to fix; it may be co-dependency, it may be anger management, or it may be problems with one of the four “Cornerstones” of a Lasting Relationship. Nonetheless they have identified something they want to work through. The problem is they are now out of the relationship. Working on relationship dynamics in vivo (live) versus just dealing with them in theory, without having a place to practice, is difficult. They can think of what they want to do differently next time, but without practical experience the new functioning never galvanizes.
So, are you willing to put your frustrations, resentment, and whatever other emotional baggage you have packed aside for a while and at least attempt to resolve some of your own stuff in your current marriage? Are you willing to seek support and guidance from outside sources which may help you figure out what needs to happen next? Are you willing to act of your own accord and not as a condition based on what your mate does? If you do all that you can for the marriage and it still does not work out, you have lost little. If you leave your marriage prior to attempting to work out differences and resolve your own demons you may regret it, or worse, re-create it.. Philosophically, Life is here to present us lessons. If we don't learn them the first time, Life does not get mad. It simply presents them to us again. If we don't learn them the second time, Life stays calm and brings them back again.
Another thing to think about-though it may sound like guilt tripping-is to consider what legacy you wish to leave for your children. Can you model healthy intimate behavior and conflict resolution for them, or do you exhibit a preference for immediate gratification?
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So if you are in this situation of contemplating divorce, I am asking you to try a "do over" in a Herculean and life-changing way. I am asking you to start moving towards progress and forget about perfection. I may also be asking you to accept the fact that sometimes being adequate is all there is, but to not confuse adequacy with mediocrity. You may need to accept that your marriage is just adequate at times-not wonderful. Letting go of the idea of a consistently immediately gratifying marriage may be difficult. I am asking you to consider that if you have been hurt in your current marriage, to fix it and heal from it while you are in your current marriage. If you wait until your next relationship to deal with your emotional pain, you are most likely going to re-create it. I would also ask you to accept the idea that success is not the absence of pain. Success is the presence of hope - something you may have put aside a long time ago.
Okay... so maybe you are not ready to get divorced yet. What are you supposed to do now? While this Neighborhood Shrink Note cannot comprehensively cover what needs to happen to reconcile your marriage, here are some things to think about, as well as some resources:
First of all you have got to quit quitting. Couples in trouble often threaten to break up. When they get angry enough they say to one another, "Well, let's just get divorced!" Their arguments end with splitting up...again! Threatening to leave becomes a habitual idle threat. It also keeps the relationship unbalanced because neither of them ever knows when the other is going to act on it. So quit quitting. Start asking each other how you're going to work through this instead of how you are going to get out of it. Obviously if you are truthfully thinking about divorce you must discuss it. But having the option to leave always swimming around in your brain while you are attempting to reconcile your marriage is not helpful. Cut it out!
The next thing to do is take personal responsibility for what you bring to the marriage. This means honestly looking at what you have done, what the complaints of your partner have been, and what you know to have been functional faults of your own. Marriages can be reconciled when one person begins to fight for it.
It is in the office of The Neighborhood Shrink where marriage counseling starts. Reconciliation begins by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals in the marriage and asking them to take personal responsibility for what they do. It is about asking them to identify the specific needs of their partner and begin to meet them. It is about having them take a full inventory of what they think, what they want, and what they are willing to do in order to reconcile their marriage. The next part is having them do these things unconditionally.
Sometimes one of the spouses will begin to do something proactively and then stop because the other spouse is not "doing their part". This has been part of their problem all along in that they play the I-will-do-what-you-do game. They need to base their actions in their own integrity instead of conditional on what their partner does.
This may seem too simplistic, but if both people in the marriage begin to act of their own accord and proactively attempt to meet the needs of the other, they can make significant progress toward reconciliation. If only one of them begins to do this consistently, they can still make progress because the power struggle ends and so does the resistance to lose.
Saving your marriage can be the fight of your life. But from what I have heard from the people who have reconciled their marriage, it was worth every ounce of energy that it took to make it happen. Counseling is difficult. Changing behaviors is hard. Letting go of old emotional baggage and grudges feels disempowering. And yet without doing some of these things, nothing changes. What are you going to do?
If you are in trouble but want to reconcile your marriage you need to seek some outside help. Trying to do it on your own is not working. This may mean going to a marriage counselor, someone connected with your spiritual life, or reading relevant books on reconciling relationships. Here are a couple I recommend:
Weiner-Davis, Michele, MSW,CSW, (1992) Divorce Busting: A Step-by-Step Approach to Making Your Marriage Loving Again. Simon and Schuster, New York: http://www.divorcebusting.com/ ... Michele has championed the idea about the ability of one person to change the direction of a marriage. Her books and web site are packed full of great information related to marital survival, reconciliation, resources for specific problems, and services available to help you through.
McGraw, Phillip C., PhD (2000) Relationship Rescue: A Seven Step Strategy for Reconnecting With Your Partner. Hyperion, New York: http://www.drphil.com/... Say what you will about Dr. Phil McGraw, but his book on Relationship Rescue is a specific strategy for dealing with marital issues. As mentioned in this article, fixing the marriage is not necessarily about fixing your partner. It is about you coming to terms with what you bring, what you want, and what you will do to make things better. His web site is also full of information and questionnaires that can help you identify the problems and figure out what to do.
Eugene D. “Chip” Weiner
The Neighborhood Shrink
www.neighborhoodshrink.com
1Love, Pat, Ed.D. http://www.patlove.com
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Disclaimer from behappy101.com: The thoughts and opinions expressed by The Neighborhood Shrink (Eugene D. "Chip" Weiner) are not necessarily those of Jimmy DeMesa, M.D., or BeHappy101.com. Jimmy edits these "notes" only for wording and grammar and, therefore, BeHappy101.com is not responsible for the content in these thoughts.
