So why do people divorce? Quite a question, isn't it? Let me
tell you what the research indicates. And then at the end,
let me offer you a free resource that can help you if you're
struggling with the possibility of a divorce occurring. You see,
when we start talking about the reasons we can speculate all day
long, if you just ask people on the street, what do you think's
the biggest problem with marriage? They'll say something
like, oh, communication, and then you start asking them, What
does that mean, then after a while, you begin to realize that
they're actually talking about something different than
communication. There's a researcher out there, Dr. John
Gottman, the guy is absolutely amazing. He's a guru when it
comes to research about marriage. And in one of his
books called the Marriage Clinic, at the beginning of the
book, he did what's called a literature review. Now a
literature review, if you've ever had to do one is when
you're about to research a particular topic. And so what
you do is you go find the existing scholarly literature,
where other people have researched that same topic,
you're looking for their commonalities, you're looking
for their differences, you're looking for the strengths of
their studies, the weaknesses of their studies, the
idiosyncrasies, in other words, what do we know so far, that we
probably a pretty sure is right, in what's been set up there that
maybe it's not right at all. And then you summarize all that into
a literature review. That was quite boring, wasn't it? But But
understand from that, you can understand how that John
Gottman, in his literature review came to this conclusion.
He said, if you look at the literature out there, the
restarts, but you're going to find is that typically people
want to divorce for one or more of these three reasons. One is,
I do not feel that you love me. 67% of women who wanted out of a
marriage said I do not feel he loves me. Another his
sensitivity to being belittled. 59% of both men and women said,
I feel like my spouse disrespects me, puts me down.
Well, summary of the third one was that I don't feel like my
spouse likes me. So people typically want out of a
relationship, if they feel you don't love them, if they feel
you don't respect them, if they feel that you don't like them.
Now, notice, Gottman, and those various research projects did
not study what the spouse actually felt the one that was
doing the actions, they studied, the other person, the one that
wants to have a relationship. And so therefore, rather than
trying to evaluate that this person really love, like and
respect, what they were studying was, Does this person feel
loved, liked and respect, because sometimes, no matter how
much you think you're communicating directly, respect,
love. And like, you don't, I can give you several examples. But
in a short video like this, let me just give you one or two, if
you are dominating and controlling, for example, what I
mean by that is that your spouse tends to have to feel that he or
she needs to get your okay before they can do various
common things in life, and therefore they feel you're
controlling, or if you handle the money in such a way that
they have to ask for it. Or if you tell them how to do this, or
if they do that you tell them how they did it wrong and how
they should do it differently. Those people will feel
disrespected. If they try to explain to you what they think
about something and you continually rather than
listening to them, tell them that they're wrong, that that's
not the way they should look at it. They shouldn't look at it
this way. Instead, they will feel disrespected. If you spend
your time more with your hobby, than with your spouse, more at
work than with your family, then your spouse, your family would
tend to feel no you don't love me. You love what you're doing.
For example, one guy and a couple that I dealt with years
ago, he was a god, he loved being in the woods, showing
people how to hunt those kinds of things. And they had three
boys, they were all very young and the oldest was six. And as
they were talking to be the bride, the wife said, I can't
raise three boys by myself. He spends all of his time in the
woods. He's got to be here to help me some I don't mind his
profession.
I'm happy with him doing that. But it can't be all the time
because I feel abandoned. I feel alone. That's another way of her
saying, I feel like he loves being in the woods. Whether he
loves being with me. Now he would protest all day long. I
love you with all my heart. I love my boys with all my heart.
But you see, we're not measuring what he felt. We're measuring
what she felt based on his behavior, his actions. And so
it's not your actions, because their interpretation tops your
intention. And so if you want to find out if your spouse is
wanting to leave you what it may be for and start examining, have
been communicating in some fashion where that he or she
feels disrespected. Feels dislike, feels unloved. And if
that's how they're interpreting my behavior, or my lack of
behavior, what I do or what I don't do that I'm beginning to
find a clue about where this divorce is coming from, and why
he or she doesn't want to be with me anymore. When you do
that, you can start figuring out how to fix it. You see, when it
comes to any relationship, we all have three things we really
want to feel, in addition to what I just said, They that I
want you to love me, I want you to like me, I want you to
respect me, we all want to feel seen. What that means is I want
to matter. I want to know that I exist in your life in an
important position, that that not only can you see me
physically, but you see me emotionally, you know that I'm
there and that my being there is important to you. So I very much
want to be seen, I don't want to be insignificant, I don't want
to be something that's secondary in your life. And another thing
I want is I want to be secure. I want to know that your
relationship with me is not going to end. But don't worry
about that. If you spend so much time at your hobby, so much time
at your work so much time with your friends, my security starts
getting wobbly. It's like maybe just maybe, even though I think
you see me, I don't know if you're gonna stay with me,
because it seems that other things in your life are more
important. And then the third part of that is I want to be
soothed. What that means is, I don't care who you are, I don't
care what position you hold in life, you can be President of
the United States of America, you can be the most brilliant
business person on the planet, you can be the richest person in
the world, it makes no difference. Each of us, every
one of us at times, want someone to take care of us to be soothe
somebody who will listen to us when we don't know what to do.
Somebody who will hold us when we find ourselves afraid or
ensure somebody that's there for us, no matter what's happening.
Every person on the planet needs that when I want to be secure. I
want to be seen and want to be soothed. Are you doing that for
your spouse? Now he appears he wants away from you. Because of
the fact that you've let them down when it comes to that
respect, loving like that seems secure and stupid, then you can
fix that. You might be thinking, well, good grief doctor, maybe
it may be way too late. Agree, it may be what we have found,
and working with 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of marriages is that
usually the too late part is much further down the road than
people think it is. We have witnessed many marriages working
out their problems, making the marriage good again, when
nobody, nobody believed it was possible anymore. So don't give
up too quickly. If on the other hand, you're the person
contemplating leaving the relationship because your spouse
doesn't seem to love you doesn't seem to like you doesn't seem to
respect you that you don't feel safe, you don't feel seen you
don't feel secure. That's actually fixable as well. You
can't make them do it.
So how do you do it? Well, a free resource we have for you if
you'd like to have it is that you can check out our free mini
course about how to fall in love with each other again, now it
won't give you all the answers. But this friend has got some
very good information. And that can get you started on this. And
you can actually get that by clicking the link that's on your
screen right now. Or you can have a free strategy call by
calling one of our client representatives. And he or she
will be glad to listen to you. Now. They're not counselors,
they're not therapists, listen to you. And then help you know
what resources we have that you can follow that will help you
through. We have all kinds of resources, we have one called
save your marriage, for example, that's just for the one spouse
that wants to save the marriage. Or he's trying to decide if he
or she wants to save the marriage. And just one spouse
goes through it all the way to the other end of that we have an
intensive three day workshop where couples learn how they got
into the situation they're in and then can decide what they
want to do about it in terms of making it better or ending it.
So we have across the spectrum, many things that can help you
repair what has been broken, to help you find a respect to love
the like to help you to be seen and to see to help you be secure
and give security to help you be sued and to give the soothing to
the other simple, yes. Hard to do. Yes, but can it be done?
Absolutely.