Is your relationship worth saving?
How to know when it's over, and what to do if it isn't, quite...
In my time, I’ve helped quite a few couples to stay married, even though they arrived at my door feeling like divorce might be a magical route to freedom, peace and a break from the kids.
What lots of people don’t know is that (as Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin so famously brought to our attention with the whole idea of “conscious uncoupling”), is that a good divorce is really hard.
What is a good divorce, anyway? It’s one where you can communicate about the things you need to, where your presence in each other’s lives doesn’t feel poisonous and where maybe you can even look back on your relationship as an achievement that eventually came to its natural end.
This can seem like such a lot of effort, though, that often people realise that they could also put that effort into saving the relationship. And if you have children, financial commitments, decades of shared friendship and adventures, then those will weigh into the “should I stay or should I go?” decision.
I wrote about this whole complicated question for The Gottman Institute this week. Take a look at my article, “How to Know a Relationship is Too Much Work” - there is a lot there! I go through seven questions you can use to see if you’re really done, and seven signs that there’s life in your marriage yet.
What you might be getting wrong
If you’re embroiled in constant conflict, there are likely to be some common errors you’re making. It’s safe to say that most people who can’t deal with relationship conflict have grown up in a troubled home environment - to various degrees.
I spoke to internationally renowned marriage therapist Terry Real on my podcast, The Meaningful Life with Andrew G. Marshall, a few weeks back.
We discussed how as a child you maybe had to be fiercely independent to survive, or you had to shut down to block out trauma around you, or you used academic success as your escape/bid for love…the list goes on.
These techniques worked for you: they got you through. But now you’re aiming for a warm, supportive, intimate relationship with your partner, and they’re making that virtually impossible.
Terry highlighted five failed strategies that we need to recognise and replace (we most likely all have tendencies towards one or more of these!):
🚩 Needing to be right
🚩 Controlling your partner
🚩 Unbridled self-expression
🚩 Retaliation
🚩 Shutting down
Listen to the episode to hear some of the ways you can start making changes. Terry’s particular focus is on escaping a highly individual mindset (which society sells us vigorously, all the time) and finding your way to “us”, an equilibrium where you and your partner soothe and influence each other positively.
And as always, if it feels like the right time to start marital therapy, send an email to Tricia (tricia@andrewgmarshall.com) for a virtual or in-person appointment with one of my team of therapists in London, or with me here in Berlin.
With love,
Andrew