I hate divorce. It’s a fact I have to live with though, because I am a relationship psychotherapist and some marriages have to end. I think divorce is a lot like marriage in that you don’t really know what you’re getting into, until you’re midway in and then it’s too late to turn back…so you just keep going, feeling, and living. I have a dear friend going through a divorce they didn’t want. It’s painful to watch, to listen to, and for my friend, I am sure it is the most painful to experience. I’m going to be seeing my friend soon, and this was the short note I received about the status of the divorce.

Dear Mary Jo, Our divorce might be final by then. We communicate through our lawyers right now. I'm just completely speechless by the way my spouse (ex) manages to turn around and live life as if I had never been part of it! It's this rejection which hurts most….. Love your friend….ML

I keep thinking there is a better way, but for the life of me, how does one turn things around to make the pain stop? An annulment is not the answer any more than pretending something which existed didn’t. Mediation comes closest to helping a divorce end with some sort of workable relationship still intact, and I think it is the best idea for children involved to be able to love both their parents without being quizzed or made to feel guilty. It’s the prevention of divorce I would like to offer…but we have very few tools to work with. The one tool we have that actually has the biggest impact toward helping marriages survive is premarital counseling, but most couples prefer the huge wedding and expensive celebration in lieu of money better spent on making sure they will be compatible for more than three years. It’s frustrating for those of us in the field and for those involved with a divorce they didn’t want.

More and more research is coming out in the marital area. Something most of us in the field would never have promoted is making an impact on marriage survival. In the past, if one of the partners were against marital therapy, the other who wanted to go would suffer in silence. Now we have good evidence that if one of the partners goes to therapy and shares the homework and talks about the therapy with their partner, the marriage actually begins improving. Below are the new rules for marriage therapy on your own. It may not be as ideal as the couple going….but as long as the couple wants to save the marriage, and both are willing to work at the marriage by completing homework assignments, it can be a positive step in the right direction. Before you invest, make sure you do your homework up front. Here are suggestions to consider up front according to Dr. Howard Markman, a Psychologist and the study’s lead researcher:

1. Find a therapist who will engage with you, but understands you are trying to improve your marriage. The therapist must be willing to see you alone, but work on the relationship.
2. Talk to your partner about why they don’t want to go. Do they feel the marriage is hopeless, or are they uncomfortable with therapy? Does your partner still believe the marriage will work? If you go alone, the marriage problems must be transparent. If your spouse is still lying, cheating or abusive, this method will most likely fail. 
3. Understand your goal is not to change your partner, but rather to gain insight into the dysfunctional pattern established and your role in it.
4. Invite your partner to come with you, but don’t coerce them. It is better if they attend when and if they are ready to join you. Using shame or guilt will backfire if used on your spouse.
5. Share all homework, articles, and books suggested. Spouses who began learning together were each improved the same, and their marriage did too, according to the research.

No matter who goes into therapy, there is a premise that couples need to understand and embrace. That premise of marriage is that you cannot change another person. The only person you can ever change is you, and you accomplish that by changing your reactions. The fault of a broken marriage has two names, HIS and HERS (same sex marriages His and His or Hers and Hers).

Couples reach out at all times in their marriage for marital counseling. Perhaps the worst time is when there is an impending divorce date on the calendar. Beginning marital therapy with an impending divorce date is the epitome of procrastination and many times won’t be successful. If you have an impending date, you have already told your partner with actions that you do not believe the marriage can be salvaged. It’s analogous to a dieter who joins weight watchers for the first time but also stops on the way to the meeting for a bag of chips. You have sabotaged yourself before you get started.

A divorce or separation doesn’t just happen; it takes years. In fact, the mean is seven years plus or minus two to create a divorce. Conflict resolution is always more effective when you deal with it right away. Many couples let things go, thinking they will resolve themselves, and sometimes they do. However, if the same problem keeps occurring, it is a good time to intervene. Faulty patterns established in order to resolve a situation make their way into the marriage without intervention. These faulty patterns bring a temporary solution, but they are usually not healthy or well thought out. Alcohol, drugs, eating, withdrawing, yelling, shopping and emotional affairs could be considered temporary solutions. It is the temporary solution rather than the marriage that is problematic. The temporary solution is also why the divorce is impending.

Couples may say the reason they don’t get help with their marriage is because their partner won’t go to therapy. The newest research is supporting that if one partner goes to marital therapy, the marriage will improve. The research is more positive if the woman goes by herself, and this may be for several reasons including that the majority of divorces are initiated by the woman. During therapy, the couple learns that it is not their partner who needs to change but themselves. Changing your reaction changes everything.

If you find yourself with an impending divorce date, and you both aren’t sure if you really want to go through with it, you do have options. Below are 5 suggestions you should consider prior to calling a therapist for help.

1. Talk to your spouse and tell them directly you do not want a divorce. Ask them if they are willing to work on the marriage. Be clear, don’t hint.
2. Postpone the court date that you have scheduled for your divorce.
3. Each of you should write down three weaknesses about yourself that makes it difficult for your partner to love you.
4. Each of you should write down five reasons you believe the marriage can make it.
5. Whichever one of you initiated the divorce should consider beginning therapy on your own first and then finding a couples counselor. This does not have to be the same counselor, and often is not since the couples counselor must be fair at all times and not show favoritism. If you have a relationship with a therapist, it may be difficult for the therapist to be objective with the two of you.

If you go to couples counseling with temporary solutions before the marriage becomes destructive, it is highly likely you will be successful at enhancing your marital communication. The worst time to begin therapy is with an impending divorce date; however, personally, I would rather have a couple seek help at any time rather than walk away from their marriage.

*These suggestions are not meant for abusive marriages. In the case of abuse, leave the marriage; protect yourself and your children.

I’m in the divorce generation. I know so many people that have gotten divorced, remarried and divorced again. It’s interesting what people say when they talk about their divorce. They focus on the fighting, the betrayals, and the lonely nights. Rarely do they ever talk about the kids. If they do, they may mention, “Well, the kids are better off without the fighting.” I understand why they say this. If I were divorced, I would probably want to say the same thing, but I can’t. I can’t because it isn’t true. Kids would do anything to help their parents stay together in most cases. Abuse is an exception to all of these rules. If there is abuse, you have to get out, no questions asked. Just leave. Keep you and your kids safe.

One of the reasons parents say that the kids are better off is because they are given only two options, “Do you want mommy and daddy to live together and fight, or would you rather we live apart and not fight?” The child may say, “I want you to live together and not fight.” It is at this time, the child is much wiser than the parents. The child is presenting a third option that the parents are blind to in their rage or unhappiness. The child understands that there are more options than fighting and splitting or living together and being miserable. Parents will tell me at the point prior to divorce they have explored other options, but they just cannot work it out. I don’t believe that either. I think one or both parents have decided they love someone else, don’t want the fuss of a demanding partner anymore, or they have decided the therapist isn’t helpful and their marriage is over.

No matter where you are in your marriage, I do want you to know the truth about your children and divorce. It hurts them. It hurts a child more for parents to divorce than it does if one of the parents died.  There is a study that has been going on for eighty years by a gentleman at Stanford University named Lewis Terman. Terman began the study in 1921 and it continues. Psychology Today featured an article about divorce and kids from Terman’s study. The children in the study (some of them old adults now) died five years earlier on average than kids from intact families. The death of a parent did not show this result, nor were the kids as stressed with parental death as they were with parental divorce.

We have so many ways of talking to ourselves to make life more acceptable. Some days, denial is necessary for us to be able to get out of bed in the morning. Denial is a defense mechanism, and with divorce and its pain, denial helps numb us so we can carry on. Denial can also be harmful if it prevents us from making wise, often times difficult choices. If your marriage is going badly, and denial keeps it going badly, then you better wake up before it’s too late. Your kids are watching, they are stressed, and getting a divorce is not one of the options you should begin with.

There are reasons divorce is so stressful for kids. Here are a few.

1. Kids don’t have control over death or divorce, but with divorce they personalize it more and believe that if they had done better or more, their parents would still love each other. Death doesn’t take away daddy’s love for mom, or mom’s love for daddy, divorce does. No matter what you tell your child, they believe this.
2. Kids understand eventually that death is final. Divorce is never final. Parents can choose to love one another again or work things out. I have had forty year olds tell me they wish their parents could get back together.  
3. Kids feel unloved when mommy or daddy choose a new partner. A divorce tells your child that one of their parents loved someone else or a different life more than they loved them. Again, it doesn’t matter what you tell your child, on the contrary, actions are louder than words.
4. Kids get more attention and love if a parent dies than they do if it’s a divorce. In the case of a divorce, the child’s grief is confusing. The child may still see both parents, but one of the parents is no longer present in the child’s concept of their family. The child may end up feeling guilty, ashamed, and angry. Many times, kids will use these feelings to manipulate the new living arrangements after a divorce. This increases the guilt and anger for the child.

I wish there were some magical way I could prevent kids from going through a divorce, but unfortunately I cannot. We are all vulnerable to divorce, which is another reason we have to be attentive to our relationships. If you are having difficulty in your marriage, and you want to make changes before it becomes insurmountable, here are three ideas I think are a great place to begin.

1. Talk to your spouse about how you FEEL. Use I words, not you, never, always or should.
2. If you are religious, I would suggest you begin by talking to someone in your church who counsels parishioners. Many reverends have been trained in counseling, and they can help you spiritually step back, and rethink the situation.
3. Psychotherapy is so helpful, but it’s expensive. You may want to begin with a marital retreat. Some of the best retreats are listed on a website called www.smartmarriages.com. This can help you get started.

Kids who grow up in an unhealthy marriage have more stress, more illnesses due to the stress, and more emotional pain due to the stress. If you cannot make your marriage better for yourself, please work on a healthy marriage for your kids and their kids to come. All marriages require work and they are all imperfect at times, just like life. Marriage is a lifestyle, not a means to an end. It is a work in progress.

I see many couples who are struggling with their marriage. When I ask them how long the struggle has been going on the answer is usually several years. When I continue and ask them how they have tried to fix it on their own, 80 percent of the time having a baby, building or buying a new house, and having plastic surgery are typical answers. Just looking at these possible fixes they have used makes me stressed out.

 I cannot imagine trying to fix anything with adding a baby to it, the complications of buying or building a new home, or the pain and down time of having plastic surgery. However, when you are struggling with your marriage, many times you are in a place of desperation and may not be thinking clearly. You are trying to find the answer to what will bring you together more to help secure the future. If your partner feels that there is nothing attaching the two of you, then thinking about a new baby may seem logical. If your partner is nagging you about your weight, breast size or wrinkles, then a facelift, tummy-tuck or breast augmentation may seem logical. If you feel that many of your fights are centered upon lack of space or you’re comparing your home to friends who have nicer homes, then it would make sense that building or buying a home together may bring peace. The truth is none of these things will restore a sick marriage, and most likely will make the impending divorce more painful.

Couples seem to go outward when they are having marital discord. The simple solution is always to go inward, beginning with you first. That becomes very painful for couples, so their tendency to put the “cure” or “fix” on something material makes it more palatable, and also affords them a new focus. Rather than going to counseling and expressing the painful resentment, hurt and pain in order to heal, they move toward getting something new. This may help for a while, but it is almost certainly a Band Aid effect on a deeply infected wound. It may cover the wound so you cannot see the redness, pus, and swelling, but it still hurts, and it will continue to worsen. That baby is going to scream at night, that new house is going to cause more resentment with working longer hours, and trying to agree on décor, and that cosmetic surgery is going to attract more attention, which may cause anger when your partner all of a sudden values you more because of how you look. With all of these “fixes,” the resentment is going to grow exponentially.

There are things you can do when you begin seeing marital discord.  I suggest you engage in these 3 suggestions before resorting to a baby, new home or plastic surgery to “fix” your marriage.

1.     Sit down together and admit there is a problem in your marriage. Identifying the issues together will help you both know where the weaknesses are, so you can better focus on solutions.

2.     Words like never, always, should, can’t and won’t are less effective than “I feel statements.” Begin thinking more of the present. What can you do today that will make it better? Couples who begin to think about forever become more stressed. Marriage is a lifestyle, but its strength is in its ability to grow and change with both partners.

3.     Never go more than 12 hours without touching or connecting in some way. The more you touch your partner, the less you talk, and the more you listen, the stronger the marriage. A good rule of thumb is to say one sentence to your spouse’s three. Practice, Practice, Practice.

4.     Seek a good counselor or mediator. It is wise to tell the therapist or mediator up front that you have marital discord and need mentoring with resolving the issues. This way the therapist or mediator can understand exactly what you want. When everyone is focused on helping you resolve the issues, the chances of success are high.

 Many of the couples I work with did not have good mentors to resolve marital discord. Therefore, they become panicked when they aren’t getting along. Their mentors (many times their parents) used the “fixes” discussed in this article only to divorce later. There are other options.  Having a baby, a new home or plastic surgery can be wonderful events, but not if you end up losing the person you wanted to share them with the most.