You must be smart and caring in how you go about trying to fight for your marriage. Photo / Getty Images
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My wife and I have been married for seven years and have three young children. We’ve been through the usual ups and downs of marriage but haven’t had any massive arguments, which is why I was shocked when she recently asked me for a divorce. I told her no, I don’t want a divorce and think our marriage and family are worth fighting for, but she says she’s done. Where do we go from here? Thanks – Andy
Dear Andy,
It sounds like you have been badly blindsided, and your sense of shock is entirely understandable. It’s great that you want to fight for your marriage and family, but you must be smart and caring in how you go about that.
The first thing we encourage you to do is have the humility to recognise that there has been a loss of intimacy in the relationship. With hindsight, it is evident that there are crucial conversations you did not have. This has probably happened in one of two ways. Either one or, more likely, both of you have been avoiding difficult topics and “keeping the peace” or “letting sleeping dogs lie” to the detriment of your understanding of each other. The other likelihood is that your partner has been telling you of her dissatisfaction, and you have not taken her seriously. To make something constructive out of this crisis, you must commit to radical, compassionate honesty.
Whether you stay married or not, you will have a significant ongoing relationship as co-parents. So using this opportunity to learn to communicate better is worthwhile. Begin by inviting your wife to help you understand what has been going on for her and what has made her want to end your marriage. Make it clear that you know you cannot force her to stay (unthinkingly pushing for her to stay is likely to have the opposite effect) but that you are concerned about what you have missed or been blind to in her experience of the marriage. Even if this doesn’t result in a reconnection, it will help you to process, accept and adjust so that she and you can get on well as co-parents for the sake of your children.
Be open to the possibility that telling you she wants a divorce was tough for her. Sometimes, people who don’t feel entitled to say what they want or feel can be remarkably abrupt when they finally get desperate enough to communicate. The fact that, from your point of view, she gave no warning of being this dissatisfied with the relationship points to her having this difficulty.
However, if you ask her to be open and honest, staying steady and handling what you find out is essential. This will be hard to do when much of what you value in your life – your marriage and your family – is under immediate threat. Sadly, your self-protective impulses (fight/freeze/flight) are likely to try to dictate your responses. It may help your steadiness if you have a goal of trying to demonstrate to her that she can talk to you about her pain, frustration and even her complaints about you without you being defensive or critical in response.
Suppose the two of you have been avoiding the radical honesty that deep intimacy requires. In that case, you may not be practised at responding with care and concern about her feelings when she expresses dissatisfaction. If you genuinely want to convince her that there is hope for your marriage’s future, you will likely need to show her something different from what you have in the past. It takes a lot of anxiety-management skill to respond to criticism like “You never listen to me” with “I am concerned that you feel so unheard by me” (a more typical response is something like, “Well, you never listen to me, so why should I?”).
Initially, your aim should be to keep your focus firmly on her experience, her understanding of what has happened and how it made her feel, regardless of how different from your experience it is. If there are significant differences, be curious and caring about how she came to see it her way (rather than trying to convince her that she’s got it wrong, misunderstood, exaggerated, etc).
The key to moving forward is demonstrating an ability to tolerate your wife’s feeling and thinking very different things about your relationship, and showing care about her point of view, even if your experience is very different. Our advice is to dig deep and offer her a space where you will not push her or react badly if she is open with you. This will serve both yourself and your children best and may even lead to the possibility of further discussion about the future of the relationship. It is a tall order to ask you to tolerate hearing things you don’t like the sound of, but accepting this discomfort might be the only option for you to open the lines of communication.
You need to prepare yourself for hearing that she felt like she couldn’t talk to you. Perhaps she found you too defensive, argumentative or aggressive. Alternatively, she saw you as too easily hurt, passive, or appeasing. These are not facts about you but descriptions of her experience and beliefs.
Perhaps she felt that you were self-centred, paid her little attention, or took her for granted. In situations like that, it’s possible that she found someone else paying her attention to make her feel alive or important in ways that were significant to her. Don’t assume there is a third party involved, but it is one of the possibilities you need to be able to handle with composure. Even where that is the case, that doesn’t necessarily mean your relationship is irretrievable.
Obviously, we know nothing of your wife’s reality; these are just examples of what you need to be prepared to tolerate hearing and, ideally, show care and concern about. Without information, you can’t know how much relationship is left to fight for. Suppose you can demonstrate to your wife that you have the humility, solidness, and self-awareness to engage with her experience of the relationship. In that case, you are giving yourself the best chance of turning your situation around and will be doing the best for your children regardless.
• Verity & Nic are psychologists and family therapists who have specialised in relationship and sex therapy for more than 25 years. They have been working on their own relationship for more than 40 years and have two adult children.
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