I want a divorce. These are the four most hurtful words that a
married person could ever hear. And perhaps your spouse has said
these words to you, or maybe you have even said these words to
your spouse. Here is an example of how this commonly happens.
Mary and John are fighting for the umpteenth time, about the
same old things. It's not just about the unwashed dishes or the
overdrawn account, although that's what they keep circling
around. John is frustrated, feeling like his wife never
listens to anything he says. And Mary has shut down, feeling like
her husband doesn't really care about her. He just cares about
what she does. Making sure that the dishes are done, and the
finances are stable.
John comes home after a hard day of working, already upset and
stressed from what happened at work. And he sees a pile of
dishes again. He checks the account, not even enough money
to get them through the week. What is she doing all day? He
thinks, and how does she even spend her time? How does she
spend all of the money and not have time to keep the house
clean? Isn't this her job? He thinks, why doesn't she respect
me? And so once again, he lashes out. Except this time not caring
about how it affects her, or what might be happening in her
life that's leading her to disengage in these things. In
the middle of the fights in the middle of the criticism in the
middle of the accusations, he finally yells to her. I want a
divorce. But let's flip the script.
We still have Mary and John and they're still fighting for the
umpteenth time, about the same old things. But it's not just
about these unwashed dishes or the overdrawn account. John is
frustrated, we know that. He feels like his wife is never
listening to his request. But Mary has shut down feeling like
her husband doesn't really care about her. He just cares about
what she does, making sure that the dishes are done, and the
finances are stable. Mary is overwhelmed and taking care of
the kids. Having four kids under the age of seven is too much.
And with different school schedules and outings and
activities and play dates, she barely has enough time to
breathe much less all of the housework to. She needs help,
but John doesn't want to hear it.
I bring home the money you take care of the house. That's how he
sees it. But he works too much to notice that not only is she
drowning and trying to manage the kids, but she can't carry
the entire burden of the housework either. She feels
completely unloved, like all John cares about is having
someone around to give him the picture-perfect life. The great
house, the four kids, but meanwhile, he doesn't even have
the time to be a part of it. She withdraws, becomes numb. She's
told him for years that she's unhappy that she needs help, but
he won't listen. Finally, it's not in a fit of rage or emotion
that she makes the request. But she calmly lets John know that
she's done. She wants a divorce.
What do both of these situations have in common? I'll tell you in
just a minute. But I'm also going to tell you why both of
these ways of telling your spouse that you want a divorce
either in a fit of rage or after a long, premeditated thought of
wanting a divorce aren't the best ways to handle it. There's
actually four questions you need to ask yourself before you tell
your spouse you want to divorce. And I'm going to tell you what
those are. My name is Kimberly Holmes, and I am the CEO at
Marriage Helper where we have helped marriages for over 20
years to save their marriage.
I know you might be thinking right now, I don't want to save
my marriage. I'm trying to figure out how to divorce my
spouse, I get it. But there are still some things that you need
to take into consideration because divorce is a difficult
decision. And it is not one that you should take lightly. It has
ramifications for decades and generations to come. So be sure
that you ask yourself these four questions and stick around to
the end because if anything that I say jives with you, then you
will want to get a free resource that we are going to have just
for you at the end of this video. Divorce, as I'm sure you
know, is not a decision to take lightly. It has a significant
impact on not just you or your spouse, but kids, family
members, friends or even your career for years and generations
to come.
So what do Mary and Jon's sides of the story have in common?
Both of them were hurt. They did not feel liked, loved, or
respected, which we know from research are the top three
reasons that people want to divorce. John didn't feel liked,
loved, or respected because he didn't feel like his wife was
supporting the things at home while he was working, and he was
overwhelmed at work. Mary didn't feel liked, loved, or respected
because she felt like her value was only in what she did. And
that was all that her husband was seeing. But what did they
not do? They didn't talk about it. At least in a healthy,
constructive way to understand each other, and work to fix
things.
So here are four questions that I want you to ask yourself
before you tell your spouse you want a divorce. And then at the
end, if you decide, you know what, I don't know that I'm
ready to tell my spouse, I want a divorce, then I will share
with you the free resource that I was talking about.
The first question to ask yourself is, have you stopped to
really identify why you want to divorce? Are you unhappy? Are
you hurt? Are you frustrated? What is it that is leading you
to want to make this decision? Was there an affair that
happened? And now you don't know if you can trust again? Has it
been years of fighting and unhappiness, and now you're just
done kind of like Mary in this situation? Or do you just feel
like marriage shouldn't be this hard. It shouldn't take this
much work. At times, people seek a divorce when in reality, they
should be seeking a conversation. It may be a hard
conversation, but more times than not, you really can work
towards sharing your feelings with each other, and working
together to make the marriage work. But it has to start with
you really understanding why you are not happy?
If you don't have a good answer to that question. You don't need
to say anything to your spouse yet. You need to figure out what
it is that is leading you to be unhappy? Here's a bonus tip.
Sometimes you'll find that it's actually something from your
past or your childhood that's leading you to be unhappy in
your marriage. And even then, divorce still won't solve
anything. You need to go back and heal from what happened in
the past.
Here's the second question, have you sought to understand your
spouse's point of view? This is countercultural and
counterintuitive. It is so easy to tell ourselves the story of
what is going on and allow it to become the gospel truth. But
guess what, more than half the time if not closer to probably
90% of the time, the stories that we tell ourselves are
wrong. In the case of John and Mary, John was assuming what
Mary was thinking and feeling. He assumed she was being lazy,
taking advantage of being a housewife spending all of the
money and just doing whatever she wanted all day long. He
assumed because he didn't stop to ask her what was going on in
her life before making a judgment. He based it solely on
the story he was telling himself. And that story wasn't
based in reality. It was based on what he was perceiving. He
hadn't stopped to ask her anything.
I love what Brene Brown says about pushing through the
discomfort to find connection, the discomfort of overcoming
these negative stories to find what's really going on. She
says, I define connection as the energy that exists between
people, when they feel seen, heard and valued. When they can
give and receive without judgment and when they derive
sustenance and strength from the relationship. Have you leaned
into what feels uncomfortable? To move past your assumptions?
And honestly seek to connect with your spouse? Do you
honestly think they would say right now that they have felt
heard and valued from you? You see, John should have approached
Mary years ago and said to her, actually, he should have asked
her a question he should have asked her. What is going on in
your day to day? How can I help you? You seem overwhelmed? What
can I do to assist you more in your life and your work?
Mary should have asked the same to John. John, you seem
frustrated, you seem like you aren't happy about things. What
is it that that I can help you with? Are things overwhelming at
work? What's going on with you? They should have leaned into
each other and allowed the other person to share what they were
thinking and feeling in a way that wasn't attacking, or
blaming. In a way that neither of them would become defensive,
but instead seeking to support the other person. They didn't do
that. They harbored resentment. They wrote these negative
stories in their heads about each other, which ultimately led
both of them to want to just disconnect and move on when in
reality it could still be fixed.
We've said have you approached your spouse and asked them
what's going on? Have you identified the things that are
actually making you unhappy? The third part of this is have you
told your spouse that you are unhappy and have you done so in
a way that wasn't attacking and blaming and telling them that it
was all their fault? Th is is the flip side of the coin of
asking them what they need help with and instead going to them
and asking them for help because you're struggling. John never
told Mary that he was unhappy in a way that didn't push her
further away. And Mary never confronted John to say that she
was unhappy, she just disconnected, and neither of
these things worked.
Both of them ended up pushing the other further away. John,
because he would just keep on attacking her berating her, he
would just come home and see what she hadn't done and
continue to point that out, which just kept pushing Mary
further and further away to where she didn't want to go to
him because she didn't feel loved. She didn't feel valued,
she didn't feel respected. So what have you done? Have you
approached your spouse and said, You know what, when I come home
from work, and these things are left undone, I feel overwhelmed,
because I'm trying to provide for the house. And then I come
home. And I feel like there's more that needs to be done. How
can we work through this together?
Or the flip side of that being? I feel like you're gone all day,
and you're expecting me to do absolutely everything, and it's
too much. I'm not happy, I need help. How can we work together,
you'll notice a theme in all of these questions. And all of
these ways, I'm encouraging you to approach your spouse. The
theme is, you're a team. The minute you begin to think you're
not a team with your spouse, and that your spouse is the enemy,
then it's not just a question of do I divorce or not?
That mindset is going to affect every future relationship that
you have, if you constantly see the other person as the enemy,
instead of being on your team. So how can you approach your
spouse before seeking divorce, and really seeing if you can get
to be on the same team. You may be thinking, I've tried. I've
done it. It's never worked. We're in a toxic marriage,
things are so terrible and all of my friends are saying I
should get out.
But I really want to ask you, have you honestly done all of
these things? Have you really sought to empathize with them to
seek their point of view? Have you identified why you aren't
happy? And if it's really coming from them? Or if it's from
something in your past that you need to overcome? And have you
really tried to approach these issues as a team?
My fourth and final question for you is have you honestly tried
to work together to overcome these issues to have the best
marriage possible? Here's the truth, divorce hurts. It will
hurt you, it will hurt your current spouse. If you have
kids, it will hurt your kids, and I'm not trying to twist your
arm to stay married. But I'm trying to get you to pause and
really see if maybe there's just a conversation that you need to
have maybe many conversations you need to have, and not a
divorce that you need to seek. I recommend going to one of our
workshops where we deal with couples in situations just like
yours, where they have a spouse, or they are the spouse who's
wanting out of the marriage, they feel like they've tried
everything and nothing has worked.
Our workshop has over a 70% success rate. If you want more
information about that, then you can call our office at
866-903-0990. Again, that number is 866-903-0990. And you can
talk with one of our client relations reps about the
workshop and how it could be a good fit for you. Many people
after they attend our workshop say they know it was the best
thing they ever done because not only do they know they gave
their marriage the best fighting chance they could. But over 70%
of the time the marriage is made better than ever before
completely restored and the family is able to stay together.
There is still hope, but I do have a free resource for you. If
you're not sure about wanting to save it and you're still really
considering divorce, then please get a free mini-course that we
have created and made just for you. The free mini-course on how
to stop your divorce or how to stop your marriage from heading
for divorce, and instead how you can possibly fall back in love.
That's what we will teach you inside of that free mini-course.
Click the link on the screen now to go ahead and join that course
and to begin learning the research-based principles that
we teach that have an amazing success rate at keeping
marriages together and better than ever before. Don't seek
divorce without first making sure you gave your marriage a
fighting chance. At Marriage Helper, we are here to help you
walk along that journey and give you what you need to have the
ultimate success if possible, of saving your marriage and making
it better than ever before.