I assume that you're watching this video because you're thinking of
contemplating separating from your spouse.
Maybe you're even in the first stages of separation and trying to figure out did
we make the right decision?
Sometimes there are people who will tell you to do that.
People like family and friends, because of the fact that they see you in pain,
they want to help you get out of that pain.
And if they think being away from that person will do that,
then they'll recommend it.
But understand that family and friends can sometimes be biased.
They love you. There's nothing wrong with that,
but may not be giving you the best advice.
Or maybe even a therapist or a counselor is recommending that you try
separation for a while. Well, if you're still trying to make that decision,
may I give you some suggestions to consider before you decide finally what you
wish to do. Hi, I'm Dr. Joe Beam with Marriage Helper International.
Every year we worked with thousands upon thousands of marriages from all over
the world.
And whatever the situation you're facing my guess is we have faced something
very similar to it, if not exactly the same with some other couple,
because we've been doing this for decades. And as I said,
working with thousands and thousands.
So based on our experience with thousands of couples,
may I give you seven things to consider,
as you make your decision about separation?
The first thing is this. If you separate,
you will feel some relief, but that may be a bad thing.
If you're thinking, what does that mean Dr. Beam, think of it this way.
If you're in conflict with each other and you're thinking, well, separating,
somehow can just ease that out, smooth that out,
and so therefore you go live over there and I'll go live over here.
Or I'll stay here and you go away, whatever the situation might be,
you'll almost immediately feel some relief when the other person leaves or you
leave. Why? Because you're not facing each other with that conflict every day.
And you might be thinking well, isn't that really a good thing in the long run?
Well, not necessarily because of this.
Understand that people who avoid conflict actually increase the likelihood of
divorcing dramatically.
Several research projects over several years have indicated that people who do
not argue or who don't face the conflict are people who will in all
likelihood divorce each other. And so while you might get some degree of peace,
you actually decrease the likelihood of putting the marriage back together. Now,
if you're thinking, well, I don't want to put the marriage back together.
Then my question is, why are you doing a separation? I mean,
are you going to do it because you think somehow it lets the other person down
easier. Well we'll separate first, but my real intent is to get a divorce.
Actually, if you do that,
you're just elongating the pain for your spouse and for you
because of the fact that they'll still have some hope thinking we'll figure this
reconciliation out, or we'll put it back together.
And if that's not your intent,
may I suggest that you have the integrity to not see the other person.
If your intent is to leave, then make it clear that you're going to leave,
not just for a separation, but to end the marriage with a divorce.
And if you are going to just separate thinking, well, it'll solve the problems,
it probably won't because of the fact that you're not going to deal with the
conflict that you need to deal with. Number
two in my list of seven things is you'll increase your living expenses. Now,
some people separate by living in the same house and that can actually not cost
all that much extra money.
But most people are going to go out and rent an apartment or buy a house.
Even sometimes they'll go live with some friends out there. And you'll think,
well,
if I live with my friend then I'm going to be okay because it's not going to
cost that much extra money. Believe it or not,
even that will because of the fact that your friend's probably going to expect
you to help pay some of the expenses.
Plus the fact that your friend is going to be wanting to do some things that
maybe you're not doing right now like going out and having fun partying here or
there. And that actually winds up costing money.
And obviously if you wind up renting another place,
that's going to cost you money.
So the second thing to consider is, it's going to cost you some money.
Your living expenses will increase if you decide to separate.
And if money's already tight, that can create quite a problem. Do you know,
in America a great percentage of children, if their parents divorced,
now live under the poverty level. Why? Well,
you took an income and split it in half.
And if you have any kind of financial difficulties like that,
don't just think about how it's going to affect you,
but how it's going to affect your children by doubling those expenses.
Third thing to consider is you actually are going to lose some
legal protections that you would have, for example,
if you did a legal separation. And by the way,
I'm not encouraging separation at all. I'm just saying,
if you separate don't think that somehow that sets you free in some fashion.
For example, if you were to win the lottery while you're separated,
it's still community property. It belongs to both of you, not just to one.
On the other hand, if, while you're separated,
one of you racks up a great deal of debt and you're not legally separated or
divorced, then that debt may be your onus, your problem as well.
And so understand that by being separated, you're not being legally protected.
Now you think, well, we're not legally protected if we're living together.
I agree. But sometimes people think because they're living apart,
that somehow that changes that and it does not. And here's the fourth point.
By being separated you do increase the likelihood that one or both of you might
be involved with someone else. We hear it all the time at Marriage Helper. Well,
I got involved with that other person while we were separated.
Therefore it's not cheating. It's not an affair. I mean,
we were separated at the time. Like I said,
we hear that all the time regularly from people. You say, well,
how could that happen if we're just separated? Well,
remember you've gotten away from some of the conflict and maybe you're now out
kicking up your heels a little bit,
and there are always other people in the world.
What if you start spending some time with one of them,
maybe just seeing them at a bar or talking to them across the cubicle at work or
sitting next to them in a pew at church. And in those conversations,
you begin to develop this relationship with each other and you think, well,
I'm not really with my husband or wife anymore.
And if you're thinking I would never ever do that,
understand that when you think you'll never do something,
you may actually be more susceptible because you won't put up the barriers you
need to. And even if you wouldn't, maybe your spouse would.
What I'm trying to say is this, it increases the temptation.
Therefore it increases the likelihood of somebody being involved if you're
actually separated. Number five, if you have children,
you're going to have to figure out how to split up the parenting
responsibilities. It's not fair to leave it with just one or the other.
You need to figure out how to do that together.
And you realize that that's going to be a difficult thing to do because of the
fact, if you're living in different places,
then where do the children sleep on this night and that night?
How does it affect their going to school or getting to school on time?
And always, always,
how does it affect the kids if one of us that they expect to show up and spend
some time with them gets caught up doing something else and can't get there.
How does it affect that child that way?
Who makes the decisions about the health cost about whether the child has the
surgery or not, or who talks to the teachers at school?
And so if you're going to separate and you have children,
you need to think all those things through in advance.
And then there's another one under that, number six. If you have children,
who's going to explain to them what's going on?
You can't just move out and expect your children not to worry about that and
wonder about that. You really should sit down with them,
the two of you together, and have a conversation. Based on their age, obviously,
it determines what you tell them and what you don't, but don't lie to them.
Don't be dishonest and be open in every way with your children so they don't
worry about what they don't know. You know, in your life,
because it happens to all of us,
sometimes the scariest things are the things we're not real sure about or the
things that we don't know. Like, oh, I've got something going on.
It may be cancer.
It's terrifying to even go to the doctor because I wonder what might be about to
happen. Your kids go through that as well. And then the seventh thing is this.
If you actually separate,
you will increase the likelihood that you're going to divorce.
Now I realize some counselors and therapists tell people you need to separate.
Sometimes they'll even do this thing called a directed separation. Well,
you live over there and you live over there for at least six months.
I'll talk to each of you in between and do therapy with you,
and I'll tell you when it's time for you to come back together.
I think there are some awfully good therapists and counselors out there,
people who are worth their weight in gold. But in my mind,
somebody making those decisions for you has overstepped the boundaries by far.
What gives him or her the right to tell you when it's time to come back
together, where you should live, where you should be, what you should do?
You see,
it's easy for people to make decisions for you because they don't have to live
with the consequences of those decisions.
And so even if some professional is telling you to split up, understand this,
it will increase the likelihood that you actually will divorce. Well,
let me refer you to a study, for example.
This was published back in 2015 in the Journal of Marriage and Family,
Volume 77, by the way, if you want to go find that.
It's a study done by some PhDs at Ohio State University.
And they were looking at some data that had been collected by other people.
It's called the National Survey of Family Growth.
Sometimes we just abbreviate that to N.S.F.G.
And this particular study covered 2,216 people. And by the way,
if you want to go look up the scholarly article, feel free.
You'll see that we refer to two different studies.
This is the one that's actually easier to understand.
And they followed these people. Now, not the people from Ohio State,
but the people doing the original thing, the National Survey of Family Growth.
So these PhDs at Ohio State,
they get an information and look how it tracks over time.
They look to see how many people actually separated.
And among those who separated,
how many of those actually wound up divorced rather than putting things back
together. In the N.S.F.G., now again, remember,
that's the National Survey of Family Growth studying 2,216 people,
they found that 53.6% of separations
ended in a divorce after one year.
80.3% ended in divorce within three years,
and 86.9% ended in divorce within five years.
And you say, what do you mean? Well,
obviously one thing there is the longer they were separated,
the more likely they were to divorce. But they found on average that people,
more than half by far and up to 86% or 87%
of people who separated actually never put it back together.
Why? Because all of the things I've been talking about.
The fact that you are apart and you're now spending the money in different ways.
You're parenting not together anymore, if you have children.
Other people are coming into your world. You're avoiding the conflict,
and if you don't resolve the conflict,
there's no way to put it back together.
Now, sometimes people say, well, Dr. Beam,
it sounds like that you're against separation,
and typically we would advise against it. Now it's your decision.
Just as I said, no counselor should be able to tell you what to do.
Or no family member or friend should tell you what to do, then neither should I.
But I wanted to get these seven points in front of you to think about as you
make that decision. And if you say, well, Dr. Beam,
have you ever advised anybody to separate? It's been pretty rare,
but I've done it. You say because of what reason?
If someone is in danger,
like this person has a temper and keeps causing pain to the other people by
hitting on that person, I mean, physically hitting that person.
A woman several years ago told me that he tries to kill me every time he gets
drunk, and he gets drunk every Friday night.
My suggestion to her was you'll only be safe if you're not with him until he
learns how to handle those problems. And so yes,
we would even advise or recommend to people that they separate if someone is in
danger, you or your spouse or children. By
the way, we've been doing this since 1994. We've been around for a while.
And like I said,
thousands upon thousands of couples we work with and our experience is that
separation most often leads to divorce rather than
reconciliation. I don't have the numbers right in front of me,
but if you decide to read that research, you'll find that in their study,
they also found that a great percentage of people who had separated for a while
and then got back together, wound up divorced anyway.
So rather than running from your problems,
if you really still think there might be a chance,
why not see if you can work through those problems? And if you're thinking,
oh my goodness, we've been doing that already, and it's not working.
May I recommend this?
We have a three-day intensive workshop and you can learn as much in three days
there,
as you will in several months of going through just counseling or therapy.
That's what the counselors tell us, by the way,
you move our clients forward six months when we send them to you.
And you can make a better decision about whether this marriage has any hope or
not. And if you want to know about that,
then you can call us at (866) 903-0990. Now,
you won't be talking to a counselor or a therapist if you call that number at
(866) 903-0902. You'll talk to one of our client representatives.
And these are people who help you by listening to you to find out exactly what
your problem is,
and then guiding you to whatever resources we have that can best help you with
that situation.
Or if we are not the ones we will tell you that we aren't the ones.
We don't want to take your money to help you when we know we can't.
So should you try the separation? It's your decision.
But think through your motives, what are you really trying to do?
Think through these seven points. And if we can help,
we'd love to talk to you about this. Thank you very much for watching.