Can You Save Your Marriage If Your Partner Is Contemplating Divorce?
The challenge to saving your marriage lies in this truth: Your unhealed pain is yours to heal, not the other’s to fix.
The unthinkable has just happened: your spouse has announced they're contemplating divorce. With your whole world turned upside down, what are you supposed to do now?
As a licensed therapist what I can tell you is that the end of your story has not yet been written. There is still hope. I'm not promising it will be easy, but if you're committed to figuring this out, you can.
So let's begin. There’s an old saying: It takes two to tango.
What’s missing from this old saying is that it also takes two to repair.
Often couples seek couples therapy when they are in their final hours of desperation; when they are on the brink of divorce. When this is the case, more often than not, one person wants to save the marriage and the other is nine and one half toes out the door.
Sadly, most couples seek marriage counseling about seven years after they probably needed too. This means that saving their marriage won’t be easy.
Does this mean breaking up is inevitable? No, but repair and reconciliation will be a challenge, especially if only one person genuinely wants it and the other feels hopeless about things getting better.
Nonetheless, if your partner agrees to go to couples counseling, even if it’s only to feel like they’ve done their best before they exit, there is hope.
In your couples therapy sessions, the goal is to understand the “fight” couples have.
Hence, it takes two to tango.
The "fight" you have with your partner has most likely been acted out over and over again over the years. This is the relationship issue that is the kernel of dissatisfaction and unhappiness that inevitably leads to disconnection where one, or both of you, no longer feel seen, heard, respected and valued.
And, this fight is seldom one person’s fault, though one person in the relationship may believe that to be the case.
Now every couple has a “fight”. Some are loud and dramatic and others are more quiet and nuanced. All couples come together with their own history - a template so to speak- on how to love and how to be loved. This template was created from both the explicit and implicit messages you received about love from your family of origin.
You also come to your relationship with your own unhealed childhood wounds. These "old hurts" are places in your childhood where you felt alone, abandoned, neglected, shamed or humiliated.
The consequence of your childhood template on love is that you developed beliefs around it.
Many of these beliefs are about who you are and include things like, "I'm bad" or "I'm unlovable when..." When you meet someone you fall in love with, these parts are particularly vulnerable and get activated when you are stressed or hurt.
The truth is, what brings people together is what also tears them apart.
Once the honeymoon phase in a relationship ends, the consistent attunement (connection) you feel from your partner starts to feel less consistent. This triggers anxious and panicked thoughts, as your old, vulnerable parts that felt unlovable start to rekindle.
When this happens, people fight desperately to get that sense of connection back. This happens in healthy relationships and in relationships that are not likely to succeed.
The big difference for your overall happiness is one important fact: Accepting that your unhealed pain is yours to heal, not the other’s to fix.
Couples, more often than not, work diligently to get their partner to "fix" the painful feeling that comes up so they stop feeling panicked, bad, sad or lonely. This places the burden on the partner and often sounds like this, “if you really love me, you would do XX."
It’s a common misconception. Loving someone doesn’t mean you always do what the other wants you to do. But, it does mean you care about their needs and their pain.
So with this in mind, can one person save a marriage?
No, but that person can be the catalyst for both people to embark on a journey of deep healing. This healing journey is the work that saves marriages and it is amplified with the help of couples therapy.
When you work together to repair your relationship, you learn how to tango better together.
Here are 10 steps I work on with clients in couples therapy to help them save their marriage:
Know your “beginning”. Very likely the "fight" you have has been there since the beginning. Problems in the relationship start early on, often before people fully commit to one another. Reflect on how you met, what drew you to this person, and what hesitance you may have had but never resolved.
Be willing to track your cycle of the fight rather than your partner’s behavior. People are experts and predict what their partner is going to say or do, but are less inclined to look inward and examine their own contribution and reactions.
Be willing to listen to your partner with an open heart and open mind, even if you don’t fully agree with their narrative.
Be willing to own “what’s yours” and take responsibility for how you contributed to the communication breakdown, fight and the repair. If you take ownership of your part of the tango, it will help empower your partner to do the same and reduce the "blame game".
Be courageous enough to state what isn’t “yours” in the disagreement in a non-defensive way. So often people are blamed for not being tuned in or knowing what the other person wants. When this happens, you can calmly say, “I hear what you are saying, but I’m having a hard time aligning with you on this and I would like you to try to see things from my perspective. Are you willing to do that?"
Be courageous enough to share your own vulnerable feelings. For example, "I have felt so alone or insecure or unlovable for so long, that perhaps I do xx to overcompensate”. When another person sees your softer side and feels confident that you are seeing theirs, they may shift from being nine toes out the door to one foot back in with you.
Keep your dialog “in the I”. This goes back to #1, tracking yourself rather than tracking your partner. Saying “I feel like you do xx” is not sharing your vulnerabilities. It’s actually judging the other in a disguised way. Instead, say something like, "when you do this, I experience xx. My ask is that you do xx instead. Is that possible?” Then listen to their response.
Know that just because someone doesn’t do what you want them to do doesn’t mean they don’t love you. But if they never yield or compromise, their capacity for loving you is pretty limited.
Accept that trying to get a person to do what you want without their agreement will eventually fail. Couples therapy will support you with the process of understanding what caused the breakdown in your relationship and owning what's “yours” in the healing. From that place, you can begin to work on what you need to heal inside of you so the marriage isn't burdened by your unhealed parts. This is the work that will give you the best shot at saving your marriage. It will also genuinely open up doors for a next chapter together. Remember that when both people feel confident that they can negotiate conflict and feel heard, seen, and valued there is a stronger likelihood that they want to stay in the relationship and help it grow.
Finally, when you ask your partner to stay in the marriage and the answer, after you have done your best, is still no, hear the truth. It’s not what you want, but it is what's in front of you. This will most likely trigger your vulnerable parts that feel scared, sad, and unlovable to the surface. The next step is usually a massive amount of grief and that's also part of couples therapy.
For couples who enter therapy and still choose to end their marriage, grief is also talked through in weekly therapy sessions. You may choose to end couples therapy and work on your own at some point. Most couples therapists will continue to work individually with the person who has been left, so if this happens to you, take advantage of that resource.
As you face this challenging time in your marriage, know that the truth is that not all marriages last. Endings are not failures, especially if you worked through the steps above and did your best. Someone’s choice to leave, as awful as it feels, does not mean you are unlovable. It means they, for whatever reason, needed to take a different path in their life that doesn’t include you.
Your path now is with yourself for a while. And though it’s not a path you want, it is an opportunity for you to learn and grow so you are fully prepared to negotiate a relationship with the next great love of your life, should you want that.
Saving your marriage is hard work, and marriage counseling is a big help in figuring out how to be happier in the future. Just remember, whatever happens, you deserve someone who does have the courage to choose you for better and for worse, and that begins with choosing you first.
Maura Matarese, M.A.,LMHC is a licensed psychotherapist and author of the book: Finding Hope In The Crisis: A Therapist’s Perspective On Love, Loss, And Courage. She’s also the creator of the online course: Finding Hope After Heartbreak: Learn The Secret How To Get Over Your Ex And Start Feeling Better Now.
