People Will Self-Sabotage Despite Knowing They Shouldn’t.

People Will Self-Sabotage Despite Knowing They Shouldn’t.

Like a moth to a flame, people who pay good money to learn about personal growth and get solid, well-grounded advice about their relationships will often ignore what they’re told and head straight into the fire of self sabotage, come what may. I get to watch this dynamic week and week out as I consult with people whose marriages are either hanging by a thread or in the beginning stages of an amicable divorce, which often will end up not being amicable once their parting spouse finds out what they’re up to. This is why it is sometimes painful to be me.

I care about my clients. They tell me their stories and share fears, hopes, dreams, and their biggest mistakes, and my heart goes out to them as they struggle to figure their lives out. In my fantasy as a superhero of relationships, marriage, and marriage crisis management, people listen to my wise counsel and save their relationships just in the nick of time. They set healthy long-term goals, learn about self care, how to get rid of low self-esteem once and for all, end the negative self-talk, make it through hard times, and come out the other side into the light where people are respectful, functional, and kind. Unfortunately, the reality is quite different. Ready to assist their romantic relationships, I am prepared with cutting-edge research backed by years of experience, all meant to get them to be functional, know how to make healthy relational choices, and head on down the road to a good place where good things happen with their families and children enjoying all the great experiences life has to offer.

Edwardo and Edwina

Edwardo desperately wanted me to help him save his 20-year marriage to Edwina. They have three teenage children and have had numerous ups and downs and separations, and Edwardo insists he is ready to end his self-destructive behavior and turn things around once and for all. When they separate, Edwina tells me, Edwardo calls old girlfriends and starts something up, apparently needing some female validation to reassure himself that if his wife doesn’t want him, someone else certainly does. It’s the ultimate temporary fix for searing emotional pain and the discomfort of rejection. Many people have this problem, and the only solution is learning to be comfortable alone and to validate your worthiness from within instead of from others.

Each time Edwina finds out that he has reached out to an old girlfriend again or met someone new online, all hell breaks loose, and why wouldn’t it? She reports that she has had enough of their endless pattern of destructive behaviors and wants to kick Edwardo out and end the marriage for good, most especially because she can’t get past the last episode two years ago.

“After we got back together, he pined for this woman he had met online and looked and acted like a friggin weasel,” she says. “I needed his full attention as we worked to get our relationship back on track once and for all, and he was dour, like a hurt puppy. He was mad at me for being mad at him! I know he has childhood trauma and all that. Fix it, for God’s sake. I just lost total respect, and I am done. He never returned to the warm, wonderful guy he could be after this last one. I am not here to discuss saving our marriage but to orchestrate an amicable divorce.”

Edwina’s walls were tall and made of iron. Still, I have done enough marriage crisis work to know that things can change on a dime, or at least in time, once the dust settles and things go a certain way. Miracles can and do happen when people follow my coaching and control themselves in a Jesus Christ turn-the-cheek way through this fragile, white-knuckle period, but it is hard as hell and goes against every instinct. Edwardo insisted he was up for the job.

Can people change? Um, yes.

A positive outcome is possible when a marriage hangs by a thread, even when it looks impossible. People can change dramatically, and for good, I am here to report. I have done it myself and seen it happen, but the percentage of people who hunker down and dedicate themselves to it is only about 5 percent. The other 95 percent may say they want to, and they may attempt to do it for a while. Still, eventually, something switches; perhaps they conclude that all the work is too complicated and too tall of a hill to climb, and the movie hero’s determination driving them starts to putter, then turns off. In the next scene, they turn straight on back to whatever bad habits and self-defeating behavior that pissed their spouse off in the first place. I never know who the heroes will be and who is going to return to all the signs of self-sabotage because they all look and sound the same until the puttering starts.

Another part of this is that some human beings can’t deal with discomfort of any kind, one of the loudest and most blaring symptoms of codependence, along with a lack of self-care. Once loneliness or pain arrives, these folks refuse to power through it. Their heads fill with negative thoughts about how wrong this is; they find a little self-righteousness and indignation and then look around for that quick fix to bring them back to whatever peace and contentment they can muster up, built on whatever thin foundation it is sitting on. Hence, they return to some form of self-sabotage, and therapists like me who are overseeing their care brace for the self sabotaging behaviors that will come next.

“I told you so” is ever so sweet for soon-to-be ex-spouses who never believed their errant spouse’s profuse promises of change. Still, it sickens my heart because I like to think the best of people. I believe in what they are capable of, and I want to believe them when they passionately say they are done with their past dysfunctional ways.

In my opinion, Edwardo had the determination and willingness to turn things around for good. He set up weekly appointments with me months in advance, read every book I asked him to, and discussed them with me. He kept a notebook and wrote down his many epiphanies; he was humble and remorseful about his marital mistakes and cried about how many times he had hurt and disappointed Edwina. He did everything I asked, no excuses.

I coached Edwardo to leave Edwina alone and to move out of the house as she had asked. He was resisting a move because primary breadwinners often do when their spouse asks them to leave, and I told him that if he wanted any chance of her changing her mind, he needed to be accommodating and kind at all costs. As I said, it is easy to leave someone who acts difficult in a marriage crisis and very difficult to leave someone who stays kind, reasonable, generous, and caring.

As they transitioned from a marriage crisis to managing an amicable divorce, where we’d meet and plan their lives apart as caring friends and co-parents, I met with each of them alone.

Edwina affirmed that she was dead-set on divorce and warned me that Edwardo could not, and would not, be alone.

“Becky, he will call one of his past relationships or find someone new 10 minutes after he really understands that I will not change my mind. He has abandonment issues and comes from a very dysfunctional family. He has promised me that this time he won’t do that, that he is changing for the first time, that he can be alone, and for me to wait and see, but I can tell you one thing, if he does that, it’s friggin curtains for our so-called friendship. He’s his own worst enemy.”

Edwardo sobbed and looked like a lost soul in his session. Seeing such pain and anguish is gut-wrenching. I told him he’d likely end up divorced, but if he stayed kind and generous during the process as instructed, there could be a thawing, and that was his only chance. “I will, I will,” he said. “I have plans to move in a couple of days. I am not arguing with her; I am just doing what I can to help her now when she lets me.”

“Great,” I said. “One more thing. “You know how she said you have destroyed this marriage by quickly looking up past girlfriends during your down times?”

“Yes,” he said. “I won’t do that now, I promise, I won’t! That is the last thing on my mind. I am changed, I can be alone, I have learned so much this time. I promise you I will show her she was wrong about me. I want to be with my wife and family.”

The Last Chapter.

​You already know how this ends, don’t you? About three weeks into the amicable divorce process, Edwina had started to thaw just as I’d hoped. She was enjoying Edwardo’s assistance, kindness, and generosity and sincerely appreciated it. Meanwhile, I smelled a rat when Edwardo’s excruciating pain suddenly disappeared. He looked healthy, confident, and healed. He was well dressed instead of in dirty sweats, and his hair was combed. His voice even sounded different.

When he appeared on my screen in our next individual session, I said, “Wow, you look better. “What’s going on?” My suspicions were on high alert, and one eyebrow was raised.

“I have a confession to make, Becky,” he said, and I already knew what it was. Edwardo launched into numerous self-justifications about how much he has put up with from Edwina and her continuous negativity and criticism of him, and how he was alone. At the same time, she had an enormous support system. She seemed happy as could be now that he was gone, and yes, she was happy for him to take a load off her plate, but he was getting little or nothing back … “So I thought, you know what, I deserve to be happy too, so I called Sandra, and she’s interested in talking again.”

“Oh God,” I eeked out. “Sandra?” Sandra, who he’d been pining over the last two years. Edwina had mentioned that if he returned to Sandra, which he had promised not to do, she wouldn’t want to deal with him anymore on any level.

“You know what? I can feel Edwina warming back up, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she even starts wanting to revisit our marriage,” he said. “But I don’t want it now. I want to continue exploring my relationship with Sandra. I want to introduce her to the kids; I want to take her around; I don’t want to hide. I deserve to be happy.”

“Oh hell,” I said. “I’m coming down to Georgia and locking you in a room to keep you from destroying yourself. You know the negative consequences of this, and it will be so ugly that I can’t exaggerate how ugly it will be. Please, please, do not do this.”

“I knew you’d say that,” he said smugly. “I’ve thought this through. Sandra is better for me than Edwina.”

Edwardo had switched the gears of his personality from his best, healthy self and returned to his self-destructive, self-sabotaging self in less than one week. They looked and sounded like two different people because they were. His lack of ability to stay the course when things got uncomfortable sent him straight back to his negative behavior. No amount of common sense, facts, and predictions of how this would play out would cause him to budge. He was going to drive himself off a cliff for immediate gratification and validation and lose the respect of his family members, and that was that.

“Um, just for the record, I need to say that what you need right now is to spend about a year alone focusing on healing from your divorce, which, if this gets out, will probably no longer be amicable,” I said. “Then, you need to grieve, come to terms with, and learn the lessons of these past 20 years.”

Forget my pipe dreams of a healthy outcome. Edwardo was steaming ahead like a train headed to danger and couldn’t be stopped. I honored his courage in telling me about it, at least. He could have just canceled and disappeared, as so many of those clients who self sabotage do.

Edwardo will face the rub.

In such cases, Edwardo could stay friends and be amicable and caring co-parents with Edwina if he waited. Then, he started dating new and different women with no negative baggage from their marital past once he felt strong again. The worst thing he could have done for his family was to bring in Sandra, the woman he fell in love with during his last separation, the woman Edwina despises, and their children think of as an enemy of the family. Edwardo will surely lose what could have been with Edwina, but he is at very high risk of losing his children, too. He knows this; he has been told how this will play out, and yet, like hundreds of other clients before him, he justifies it and will see it through. Hundreds of times, I have been able to visit with clients like this to get an update, and this is what I usually hear: “You told me it would be hell, and it has been, but it is what it is.”

I managed to get Edwardo to promise not to announce his relationship to anyone, not to take Sandra around, and not to introduce her to his family because it would harm them. “Your first step, and only step,” I said, “if you are hell-bent on doing this, is to keep her hidden away from your family.”

Moth to flame.​

Why do people self-sabotage? I have seen it many times, and I always notice the shift of their facial expressions, as if the pleasant person I was talking to was suddenly possessed by something dark and full of negative emotions. Sometimes, these folks will own up to tip-towing back into whatever waters of danger is their good time, whether it be a lover, workaholism, drugs or alcohol, money schemes, gambling, or some other thing that was about to destroy their family. I see the self-destructive entity in their voice, body language, and facial expressions, and I feel the same way I do when watching a horror movie.

“Well, I need to do this (self and relationship-destructive activity) just until August; I’m a fool if I don’t.”

“I know how to control it; it won’t be like before.”

“I don’t get why you can’t see that this is the right thing to do.”

My response is usually, “You’re scaring me. I know how this movie ends.”

“Not with me, not in my case,” they will likely respond. “I am the exception.”

That little piece of narcissism that tells them they are different from every other human being is the real reason they dance like a moth near the fire. But therapists like me know that all humans are predictable. Psychologists and sociologists have studied what people will do in certain situations for years, and they are rarely wrong. My clients sometimes think I am psychic, but I am not. I am experienced and have seen the dances, the patterns, and how things play out over 23 years. I have books about marriage and divorce written by scholars that list everything that will happen if a person does x, y, or z, and my experience says they are correct.

But people must learn the hard way—or not, I hope. Years ago, I decided that since no one teaches us relationship dynamics, somebody needs to. What is a great relationship, anyway? What predicts divorce and relationship mayhem? I can teach this all day, write, make videos, and throw out solid information, but only five percent will take it to heart and turn their lives around. The rest will fly into the fire, and my heart will ache for what happens next.

If you enjoyed this, then might like … https://medium.com/unfaithful-perspectives-on-the-third-party/you-may-be-to-blame-if-your-relationships-are-toxic-9324e2c86de8

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Becky Whetstone, Ph.D., is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Arkansas and Texas* and is known as America’s Marriage Crisis Manager®.

She is a former features writer and columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, and is the author of “I (Think) I Want Out: What To Do When One Of You Wants Out” published by HCI Books, distributed by Simon and Schuster, and to be released February 4, 2025. She has worked with thousands of couples to save their marriages. She can work with you, too, as a life coach if you’re not in Texas or Arkansas. She also has a YouTube Channel called Marriage Crisis Manager where she talks about relationships. She has a telehealth private practice as a therapist and life coach via Zoom. To contact her, check out www.MarriageCrisisManager.com. Also, here is how to find her work on the Huffington Post. Don’t forget to follow her on Medium so you don’t miss a thing!

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