Don’t Say This When Your Spouse is Thinking About Divorce.

There Is One Path When Seeking to Avoid Divorce: Humility

There are things one should never tell their miserably unhappy spouse. For example, if you want to infuriate a person, one of the best ways is to tell them that their concerns or emotions aren’t justified. I have breaking news for the world: feelings are organic and can’t be ordered on Amazon or concocted on demand. I can’t decide to be angry; it just happens. Feelings are how our soul speaks to us. Whatever feeling we have is actually a tap on our shoulder by our soul telling us, “Look at this and see what’s going on.” For example, if I am angry at something my husband said, I need to sort through it, examine any underlying issues, and see if the feelings have merit. Only the person with the feelings can know whether they are worthwhile. If I do bring up my concerns and my husband says something like, “You are overreacting,” or “What I did wasn’t a big deal,” things won’t be repaired, and his lack of empathy and understanding will likely make matters worse. This is a marriage counseling 101 concept.

You’re Overreacting.

In marriage crisis situations, this phenomenon of minimization of the issues occasionally appears, and it hampers what we need to do to repair the marriage. I work with shell-shocked people whose nervous systems are firing the same as if they were in a house fire. The person who is thinking of leaving has been unhappy for a long time, and the stress has risen over months and years and reached a crescendo. In this climax of stress, the person deciding whether to leave or go has an instinctual urge to run away, and the one who doesn’t want a divorce is in a fight response, grabbing an imaginary net and working on throwing it over their partner and pulling them back into the marital boat. They’ll do anything, especially willing to do things they refused to do before, to win their love back and avoid a two-home family and ugly legal process. The problem is that chasing after the unhappy spouse never works. I started helping people in crisis to steer them in a direction that might be successful and prevent them from entering the divorce process everyone hates and dreads whenever possible.

Thankfully, most people in the underdog position, or those leaning in and wanting to save the marriage, are humble, which is the best way to be for what we need to do. Every now and then, though, I meet partners outside the norm whose spouses have told them they are miserable and are thinking of leaving, and the person about to get thrown in the marital dumpster won’t believe it. 

Denial can be helpful for short periods of time while we wait for painful realities to sink in, but when your spouse has mustered up the courage to reveal how unhappy they are, the denial better not last long. When a person has thoughts of divorce, the only helpful stance is to face it head-on, with an open mind to change and growth and a “How may I help you?” attitude.

Take your spouse’s concerns seriously.

A person who has told their partner they’re thinking about divorce is deadly serious. All they need to pull the trigger on the marriage is a ridiculous response or action by the person they’re frustrated with, and it will tilt them out of uncertainty and convince them there is no hope. No one wants to be a single parent or to put themselves or their children in that situation, so people whose gut tells them their spouse will never change will give them every chance up until the last possible moment to turn it around, and that’s where I come in. It is so easy to make mistakes during this extremely fragile period that it’s a good idea for a couple to find a marriage counselor with extensive experience to lead them through the fog.

How does the denial happen? Because how they see themselves doesn’t match up with how their partner experiences them. Unaware of their own behavior and how others perceive them, they trample through life, thinking they are right and everyone else is wrong. They’ll find out otherwise when their spouse finally says, “You know what? You don’t get it, and that tells me you will never change, so bottom line — I’m out and moving forward to a new life without you.”

Surely, you have met obnoxious people who don’t realize they’re perceived as obnoxious. Self-awareness and emotional intelligence are some of the most important qualities humans can have to be able to get along with others, and we must have it to make a marriage work. What does that mean? We must be tuned into our words, tone, delivery, and body language, making it safe for others to engage with us. We must also be tuned in to the listener and sense when we get too close to the line or have taken a conversation too far. If people don’t have these qualities, they become self-righteous human bulldozers who wonder why people run when they see them coming. 

Unfortunately for all of us, these folks also enter into romantic relationships and get married; sooner or later, their partner will be at their wit’s end.

Ralph and Patsy.

A few years ago, Ralph called, told me his wife wanted to leave him, and let me know right off the bat that he was vetting therapists to find the best couples therapy for his situation. I didn’t ask how he would know when he’d found it, but he called to ask if he could see me for free for 15 minutes to get a sense of whether I could help. 

“A free sample, just like in the grocery store,” I thought. 

When someone I don’t know asks to talk to me for 10 or 15 minutes for free, I already know whatever they want to talk about will take longer than that, and they are a person who likely has no issue taking advantage of people. These people mow down those with no boundaries, but unfortunately for Ralph, I don’t have that problem. He also couldn’t know that an experienced therapist can smell clients who are likely to be difficult to work with in the initial phone call.

“Sorry, Ralph,” I said. “You have to pay for my time.”

“We’ve already been to two, and I didn’t like them,” he said. “Let me think about it.”

Perhaps Ralph thought he was walking away from a car deal and hoped the salesperson, me, would give in and say, “Oh, okay, let’s talk for free,” but his indecision did not move me. Eventually, Ralph paid for a session, again reminding me at the start that I was being vetted.

He and his wife popped up on my Zoom screen, and it didn’t take long to see how miserable his wife Patsy was. Exhausted, haggard, worn down, and peering over her steering wheel, she appeared to be emotionally hanging from a cliff by her fingernails and about to let go, and I said so. Before she could say a word, Ralph answered for her:

“She’s overreacting and giving me a felony punishment for a few misdemeanors,” he said.

“Really?” I said to Ralph. “Look at her and tell me a second time that what is going on in her life is no big deal.”

“I am dying,” she said. “I can’t do it anymore.”

Ralph had been handling his wife’s unhappiness over the last year in ways that wouldn’t work. He reported that he had worked his ass off to repair the things that upset his wife, all to no avail. Within a few moments, I could see that Ralph is the type of man who believes he knows what’s the best and right thing for everyone. The way he handled their entire life was what he decided was best: finances, children, career, household, choosing a marriage therapist. Now, he was handling his marriage crisis in the way he thought best, and he was about to go down to Divorce Town after almost 20 years of marriage. He would say and do all the right things and move one step forward, followed by a Zinger that took them two steps backward. It sounded like this:

“Ralph, when I told you that you never dated me and were putting nothing into our sex life, you told me to get a toy,” said Patsy. “We weren’t getting anywhere, so I took sex off the table, and yet you still pressured me for it.”

“What about me?” he said. “Taking sex off the table wasn’t fair to me.”

“I told him I couldn’t take it anymore, that I was so miserable,” said Patsy. “I said I felt we should separate, and he said, “You’re selfish and need to get your shit together.”

“The punishment doesn’t meet the crime,” he said.”What I have done isn’t that bad.”

With that, I put a stop to the bleeding.

“Ralph, you are your own worst enemy,” I said. You don’t say things like that to anyone, but especially someone who is about to divorce you. You need to shut your mouth and not open it again until I tell you to.”

I explained to Ralph that, indeed, he may not have committed the marital felonies, known as the three A’s — abuse, adultery, and addiction, that in and of themselves can end a marriage, but still, fending her off, shooting her down, and shaming her could arguably be defined as verbal and emotional abuse. 

I understood also that he may have had good intentions regarding the decisions he unilaterally made about what was best for his wife and relationship, but that is not being relational. Both partners need equal input to major decisions that come along, or sooner or later, one of them will bristle. 

Still, the most important thing to understand is that uncorrected marital misdemeanors accumulate and can end a marriage. 

Here’s how it goes down: If your spouse tells you they need something to be different, they need you to be responsive to that. If you are not, over time, they will lose hope, feel disrespected, and not valued, and cancer cells will grow in the marital bloodstream, leading to the inevitable moment when they say they can’t take it anymore.

“You didn’t think your actions were that bad,” I said, “So you didn’t take Patsy’s cries for help seriously. You minimized and disregarded her complaints and even shamed her for feeling like she did, which showed her you wouldn’t change. In short, you blew it. Now your marriage is hanging by a thread, your wife is emotionally dying, and up until this moment, you have shown no signs that you get it.”

Patsy was worn out, needed time away from him, and had been pleading for a separation, and his response was to shame her each time she brought it up. She desperately sought ways to save their marriage, but he shot every idea down if it didn’t fit into his uneducated and uninformed viewpoint. He fired therapists who didn’t have his worldview, and every decision he made along the way was worse than the next. 

The proof of what had been happening was sitting before me, slumped over the steering wheel, expressing unbridled anguish, looking like someone who was alive and dead at the same time. Now it was time for him to stop trying to decide to do what’s best and listen to someone who knew what had to happen to give them a fighting chance.

“Ralph, Patsy is trying not to divorce you. You need to give her the time and space to recover from her current state so she might find the energy to work on this marriage, or at least to access how she thinks and feels,” I said. “If you keep denying what she asks, you will divorce. The woman needs to separate, don’t you hear her?”

Ralph looked at me with steely eyes.

“How in the hell can you tell me this when you have only spent 45 minutes with us?” he said. “You barely know us. We came to you for professional help and advice, and you’re telling us we should separate.” He glared briefly, but then his face came out of his stone-like reserve, and he wept.

“Education and experience,” I said. “You’d probably like to think you are unique, but I have talked to thousands of couples over 20 years and I see the same old patterns repeatedly, and I know what works and what doesn’t. I also know what factors indicate a separation is needed, and you have them all.”

Leaning-in partners like Ralph often believe that separation is the worst thing in the world and equivalent to divorce, but it isn’t, especially if done the way I do it, with a timeline, purpose, and plan. 

Of course, he wanted to kill the messenger, which has also been a pattern in his marriage: “Only tell me what I want to hear or else.” Patsy told him painful truths or expressed needs he opposed, and he shot back, punishing her for it. In the past, she hadn’t had the energy to push through his resistance, false arrogance, and certainty that he knew what was best. Separations are difficult decisions and not easy for me to recommend. I take the whole concept very seriously and only recommend it when I see that a couple won’t make it unless they spend time apart. This was one of those times.

“Well, we need to talk to the other therapists I have lined up and see what they say,” he said.

“Wait, Ralph,” said Patsy. “I want to work with Becky and see about doing this separation.” Patsy knew that I saw and felt her. I was tuned in and unafraid to tell them the reality of their situation and offered her a little glimmer of hope. 

Ultimately, they did separate, but Ralph resented it deeply and could not move in the right direction or take advice, coaching, or suggestions, even though I insisted he get individual therapy and spoke to this therapist with his permission about my concerns. He was so rigid in his viewpoint and clamped down on the belief that he knew what was best, that their marriage couldn’t be saved. Some people seem to be almost phobic about accepting outside input, no matter who it’s from. 

At least Patsy had given him the chance to grow up, become relational, keep their family together, and form a new and different healthy relationship with her, and he couldn’t do it. Her attempt to do all she could to save the marriage will give her peace of mind; that’s what all people thinking about divorce tell me. They need to know they did all they could. 

There are several morals to the story of Patsy and Ralph:

• Take your spouse’s concerns seriously the first time. If they ask to go to therapy, go.
• Understand that if your spouse is unhappy in any way and you put a wall or obstacle, you are creating fertile ground for a future marriage crisis.
• Humility saves marriages; arrogance, stubborn pride, and resistance kill them.
• Lean into your spouse’s concerns instead of away.
• Don’t blame anyone but yourself for the situation you are in.
• Be willing to be wrong.
• If your spouse is pulling away from the marriage, be soft, compassionate, and curious in asking about what’s going on. Make it safe for them to tell you the truth of their feelings. Never ever be an asshole about it.

The difficult ones. 

Some people have personalities that can’t be changed. The ones that are stuck in a rigid viewpoint like Ralph’s often have more serious mental health issues that can never be resolved. Ten to twenty percent of the time, at least one spouse has this issue, and no matter how great your therapist is, it won’t help. Experienced therapists spot them easily, and some of the common traits are repeated therapist shopping, extreme defensiveness, finger-pointing, and a blaming attitude. Ralph and Patsy’s divorce was terribly sad, but it was the right decision, in my opinion.

For a person to feel safe in a marriage, they need to know that their partner will be responsive to their concerns. Tattoo that on your arm; it’s that important and the best thing you can do to keep your marriage alive and thriving. The next time your spouse says, “Honey, will you start dating me more and treat me like you adore me,” do it consistently and joyfully. It ought to be fun and enjoyable to make your partner and best friend happy, and if it isn’t, go to a therapist and get insight into what’s up with you.

 Getting emotionally healthy is the first step to having a great marriage. And one last thing: if your self-esteem is solid and certain, you’ll be better positioned to hear what your spouse isn’t happy with and deal with it in a positive way. This is good news for everyone, especially your family members.

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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 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 is also co-host of the YouTube Call Your Mother Relationship Show and has a telehealth private practice as a therapist and life coach via Zoom. To contact her, check out www.DoctorBecky.com and 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!
• For licensure verification, find Becky Whetstone Cheairs.