How do I tell my husband I want a divorce? My name is Paul Friedman I'm the
founder of The Marriage Foundation and you've come to the right place because
you've come to the wrong place to learn how to tell your husband, "Do you want a
divorce?" You've come to the place where I'm going to ask you to take another look
at things. I used to be a divorce mediator so I had an association with a
group, a support group called Second Saturday that helped women go through
divorce. It began like 30 years ago or more and things have changed but I
changed too. In the early 2000s, I think it was 2001, I shifted my practice
altogether to helping couples stay together
instead of helping them get a divorce. And so, with my newfound information that
is not what you find in most places. I would go to Second Saturday and then
group was anywhere from 60 to 90 ladies and I tell them, "You don't need to get a
divorce." Now, there's always one or two people who do. Maybe their husband's a
criminal, maybe he's a pedophile, something really far out there but
unfortunately in our society the standard for getting a divorce is so low.
Now, that doesn't mean I want you to live in misery. In fact, when I wrote my first
book, I told people, "I don't want you to get a divorce for the sake of your
children but I don't want you to be suffering either so I'm going to show you
how to change your marriage, how to turn it around, how to make it amazing every
day." When you got married, let's go way back.
When you wanted to get married it was to be happy. It was to experience unconditional
love. Those were reasonable expectations. What happened?
He changed, I changed, she changed. No, what happened? The problem began before you
got married. He didn't get married with these ideas of there would be
maintenance involved. Nobody does. Everyone gets married as if
marriage is a destination and so you're not thinking, "Okay, I have to remember..."
It's not like when you have a car. You have to remember to
check the oil, change the oil, check the pressure and your tires -- it's not like
that. We don't have that kind of guidance in our society for marriage so
everything went to hell. You blamed each other
maybe there's infidelity, maybe there's constant fighting even in front of the
children that all kinds of things are going wrong in virtually every marriage
when people are ready to get a divorce. I'm asking you to consider that you
invested so much time and energy into your husband, into the marriage and the
family. Now's not the time to just throw up your hands and quit. Now's the time to
take a look at what is my role, how can I change it, how can I get the love that I
wanted and some of you are going, "No, I'm so angry right now."
Well, that can be dealt with too. We're one of the largest organizations. We're a
non-profit, one of the largest organizations for helping couples
survive what you're going through right now.
You could write into one of our counselors -- it's a free service. You could
take a course which is the way to go. You don't have to tell your husband you want
a divorce. Don't tell him. Do research first and see
if you and he and your marriage can be saved that's the best advice that you
will ever receive. Please head it. All right I'm going to leave you on this note.
Hopefully, this is making sense to you. Don't take that step because the
bridge between you, the connection between you is already shaky obviously.
Don't blow it up. All right, blessings to you, blessings to your husband
blessings to your family. Don't give up. It's not the time to do so.
We don't use traditional Western psychology methods because it
doesn't help people. We use methods and principles that actually work, actually
works. Okay, God bless! Thank you!