How Not to Get Divorced…Yet
I don’t know how to be married forever. I don’t know how to make it perfect- all hearts and flowers. What I do know is how to not get divorced this year.
About half the people who come to marriage counseling are seriously considering divorce. There are affairs or horrible fights or betrayals or simply huge caverns of distance and disconnect that hurt like a MF. And yet… they come to my office when it might be simpler to head to the lawyers office. And I buy them time. I help them figure out what they really want, what they need from each other and what they simply cannot live with any longer. And on some level I have enormous faith that if you don’t divorce this year, things get better. I don’t want people divorcing in the heat of the hurt or because they don’t know how to fix things or because they don’t want to be the person who just gets walked on again. I am not anti-divorce. There comes a time when a person has to admit that the pain is no longer bearable, that there is just too much damage done. And then we talk about finding a different way to be a family.
I believe that bad marriages and bad divorces are bad for kids. I believe that healthy parents in respectful relationships do the best job for their kids. I believe that if at all possible, the people who are your parents should be the ones to tuck you in at night, all the nights, not half of them. I fight for marriages because my parents had a shitty divorce and a shitty marriage.
So if you are finding yourself considering divorce here are a couple of my personal favorite tools.
Don’t do it yet. Divorce is highly stressful, messy and expensive. One of you has to move out, one of you has to pay the other a bunch of money. You will be poorer running two households than one. Your kids will regress. You will have to get a therapist. Just don’t do anything yet. Maybe put it on the calendar to reconsider in June. If things aren’t better by June you can get divorce this summer…or January…January looks good. 000
Don’t put it on the table. This means don’t talk about it, don’t think about it, don’t threaten it, don’t entertain the idea. It is there. No one is going to remove your right to a divorce from you. Now stop picking at it and leave it alone.
Make a list of what you would do if you were divorced and then do it. (Maybe not the new boyfriend thing…) Most people who consider divorce want more freedom, more space, less fighting, a change in priorities. Most people who get divorced end up single and they start to work out, buy some nice clothes and reconnect with their old friends. They get to take vacations alone. They get to sleep alone. They get to self define. Try this. Work on you. Find out what is standing in the way of your own happiness.
Push back. Be a Bitch/Ass. This one might sound counter intuitive but many people I know are being too nice to their partners in a “Peace at all costs” method of marriage and it doesn’t work. Say some of the things you really should be saying. Assertive, strong, clear things. These things look like…”I hate it when you…” or “I am not going to put up with…” or “I am not happy with…” You would be surprised what people have not told each other when there was still time to deal with those things. Lots of unspoken stuff comes out if there is a divorce… so just skip that part and say a bunch of stuff.
Make peace with your partner’s misery. You cannot make people happy. Marriage does not make people happy. Divorce does not make people happy. Some people clearly are not even invested in happy. Some people like being right. Some people are lost in their own stuff and cannot find their way to happy. That is not your problem. And not just misery but fussiness and that face that your partner makes- Disappointment! Sorry. One way to make your kids happy is to give them ice cream for breakfast. I do not suggest this method of parenting. I certainly do not recommend this method of marriage.
So go forth and just don’t get divorced. It will wait. Get on with your one great and exciting life and never let anyone stand in the way of your being happy and healthy. And if it doesn’t get better, if this stage doesn’t pass, you’ll know. At some point you will decide that I am full of crap and have no idea what I am talking about and you will be ready to pull the plug. Until then, stick around… it is a amazing, frustrating, enriching and difficult journey being married.
