There is a great old book about marriage preparation titled, “Before You Say I Do.” This blog could be titled, “Before You Say I Don’t.” If you are experiencing marital distress and considering divorce, there are some things I urge you to to think through before you take that final step.
before you divorce, Consider The Cost
You may have looked at the financial cost and decided that you don’t need the big house, the nice car, and the material things that you’ll no longer be able to afford. But before you divorce, consider that divorce actually costs much more than money and things. Divorce costs more than you can imagine. If you have friends that have divorced, ask them to be honest about how bad it was, and take notes. Divorce carries a terrible cost.
Right now, all you can think about is stopping the pain. And divorce seems like the answer. But think about the pain of losing your reputation at church or at your club or in your social circle. Think about losing friends who pick your partner and ignore or are just polite to you. Think about how you will feel when you learn that he or she is dating again and is with someone else? Think about having your kids angry at you for years and not liking or getting along with the new guy or gal that you eventually bring into your life. Think about the struggle that blended families have with all that baggage and resentment the kids carry. Think about not having your kids living with you anymore and only getting them every other weekend. Think about sharing grandchildren with your former spouse and the new wife or husband being called “Papa or Nana.” The cost is high!
before you divorce, identify the real problem
If you and your spouse are stuck in a pattern of negative conflict with constant fights and arguments, it’s natural to identify your partner as the source of the problem. “It’s because he is so sensitive,” or “It’s because she is so demanding,” etc. And that may be true. But before you divorce, ask yourself why is that so? We consistently find in the counseling room that husbands and wives have deep, primary emotional needs that, when they are unmet, cause all kinds of dysfunction like what you are experiencing in your marriage. And those unmet needs drive what we call “the negative cycle” that is making your marriage intolerable.
The actual problem in your marriage isn’t you or your spouse, as flawed as you and all human beings are. The real problem in your marriage is the negative conflict cycle that sucks you in. You married your spouse because you believed he or she was not only good, but great. Unless he or she was totally fooling you and is actually a monster, that great person you thought was great is still there. But the way he or she is responding to you now is out of a need for connection that has gotten misrouted into strident attacking or avoidant withdrawing or both. There may be some trauma issues, or there may be some early childhood attachment strategies that are unhealthy, but by working with Emotionally Focused Therapy, you might find that the great person you fell in love with is still in there and worth the work of rebuilding your relationship. You may even find that your relationship becomes better than it ever was. Most of our clients do.
before you divorce, consider
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy
Couples who decide to divorce almost always say, “We’ve tried everything. We went to marriage counseling and it didn’t work.” But going to marriage counseling isn’t like going to an auto mechanic. Auto mechanics all do the same thing pretty much the same way. But 100 different counselors may use 100 totally different approaches to counseling. Going to one counselor whose counseling approach didn’t work doesn’t mean that all counseling approaches won’t work. It just means that one didn’t work. And, frankly, most marriage counseling approaches, with the exception of Emotionally Focused Therapy, only have a success rate of 20-25%.
The most common marriage counseling approach is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). It’s been around a very long time and is somewhat effective. It’s based on the fact that people believe and tell themselves things that are often false, and if those false beliefs and messages are replaced with true beliefs and messages, change will follow. Sometimes that works. Emotionally Focused Therapy goes back further than the false beliefs and messages to the emotion that triggers the false beliefs and messages, which in turn trigger the dysfunctional behavior. No counseling model has been researched more then Emotionally Focused Therapy and proven that humans are driven by a need for connection, which when it is damaged or broken, results in dysfunction. Emotionally Focused Therapy is not like any other counseling model. It is a proven therapy that repairs the disconnection and rebuilds connection. 90% of couples who complete EFT see significant improvement and 70% move out of distress and into connection, reporting that their marriage is stronger than before. If you haven’t tried Emotionally Focused Therapy, you haven’t “tried everything.” There is still hope if you are willing to try.
before you divorce,
know the truth about affairs
If you are in an emotional or physical relationship outside of your marriage, before you divorce, you should understand that you are not thinking clearly. You can’t be. It’s biologically impossible. We know from neurobiology that a new love relationship alters the brain so that you feel euphoric. The brain is releasing chemicals that fool you into believing that you are in love and this is true love. Hollywood has reinforced that with the trope of the unhappily married person who “falls out of love” and then finds their true love.
The truth is that love is not a feeling. The brain’s chemical high wears off and you still have to do the hard work of true love, which is not driven by feelings but by choices, daily commitments to do the hard relationship work that makes love last.
The problem with an affair is that you can’t find your lost feelings of love for your spouse when your brain is lit up like a Christmas tree with an overflow of serotonin. You’re like a drug addict who chooses the high over sobriety.
An affair is not the way to start a new relationship. It will likely end in pain and hurt. Even if you do divorce your spouse and marry your affair partner, your brain cannot sustain the “love high,” you’re on. You will have to come down to reality and do the relationship work with your new partner that you could have done with your old partner. And you will find that he or she is a flawed human too, just like your first spouse was. Maybe you’ll beat the odds and your new marriage will last, but the damage of divorce will last as well…the costs I talked about earlier will still be there. You could have rebuilt your marriage and saved your reputation and family and everything else.
before you divorce, try an Alternative
I know that this has been a hard blog to read. If you made it all the way through, you’re either very sad or very mad right now. Know that the intention is not to shame you, but to help you. Like Gandalf says to Frodo in “Lord of the Rings” when Frodo becomes angry at Gandalf for asking for the ring, “I’m not trying to rob you…I’m trying to help you.” Sometimes you need a little shove, a little painful truth, to help you get off of the wrong path and onto the right one. But it’s to help you.
Before you choose divorce, why not try something you haven’t tried. I talked to a lady last week who said that her friends were prime candidates for divorce, that there was no hope at all, but they tried Emotionally Focused Therapy and their marriage is better than ever. Why not you?
I urge you to read more about couples therapy, and reach out to us at SoulCare Counseling for a free thirty-minute consultation to get you started on the road to repair and recovery of your marriage.
Dr. Bernis Riley holds a Doctor of Psychology degree, is a Licensed Professional Counselor – Supervisor, and is certified in Emotionally Focused Therapy. She is the Clinical Director/Supervisor at SoulCare Counseling, and is currently accepting new clients.