One Step Before Divorce: Backtrack Or Continue

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

A friend said that her long-term family life literally hangs in the balance: the disagreements that arose on various occasions in quarantine between her and her husband, caused mutual irritation and anger, poured into violent quarrels and made both seriously think about divorce. This thought leads her to despair, but she no longer has the strength to live in a state of mutual hatred.

For those who are experiencing similar conditions, this article may be useful.

So, let's figure out how to be, being one step before the divorce.

What do you think, if the spouses living in the same house previously had the opportunity to relax from each other at work, in the gym, in a cafe, in cinemas with friends, and then they forcedly had to be side by side with each other for two months in a row, can they have disagreements among themselves?

Naturally.

Is it okay?

Sure.

It's okay for different people to have different views on different things.

Did the number of disagreements increase during the quarantine?

Of course, this is normal, because people spend more time together and there are more reasons for disagreement.

Why, then, in some families, due to disagreements, relations are aggravated, and the conversation turns to divorce, while in others, despite the disagreements that arise, peace and quiet (I hope everyone understands that there are no families without disagreements)?

Because in families where scandals arise, and after them - talk about divorce, partners have certain “Deficiencies” - lack of specific ability to resolve differences.

These deficits were well compensated for by something else, invisible and not realized until the moment when they had to stay in the apartment with each other for a longer time. And then they were naked in all their glory. I will give examples of such deficits from my own practice of working with married couples. Of course, it will not be possible to cover everything, but I will outline the main ones.

So, in families where relations are now strained, one or both partners do not know how to:

1. Understand your desires.
2. Understand that the other person may have their own desires (opinions, views).
3. Be understanding with the fact that the other person has the right to their own opinion, and this opinion may be different from yours. Experience this understanding calmly, without aggression.
4. Perceive the partner as an equal, not as a subordinate who must follow your orders.
5. Accept your own responsibility for what happens in the relationship.
6. Respect the other person's personal boundaries.
7. Define your own boundaries.
8. Agree on issues where interests and opinions do not coincide. Find compromises.
9. Understand your feelings.
10. Talking to others about your feelings in words.
11. Feel and understand the feelings of another person.
12. Perceive another person as a separate independent person who is not obliged to satisfy your desires all the time.
13. Take care of yourself on your own.

If your family during quarantine did not have disagreements with subsequent thoughts about divorce, great.

If the relationship has become tense, a desire to divorce has arisen, you may be able to analyze and highlight one or more of your own deficiencies or deficits in your partner, which are the core of such tension.

What to do now?

Think and answer the question:

"Do I want to keep my marriage or not?"

If you answered "Yes" to this question, then you can continue by clarifying:

"Is the relationship with my husband (wife) so important to me that I am ready to change my behavior and character to improve them, and not wait for everything to change by itself or until he (she) takes the initiative?" Depending on the answer, you can take action or continue inaction.

If you chose to take action, then let's understand how to proceed?

It is clear that it is necessary to change behavior and certain traits of your character, but how exactly to change them is not clear.

And here one more obstacle arises - for independent changes there are no basic resources - knowledge and experience.

Of course, it's hard to change behavior on your own when you don't know how to do it. Even if there is a desire, the obstacle will be the old way of life, the old ways of reacting to disagreements and not knowing how to change them to something else.

It's like driving a car - there is a car, there is a desire to go, the path has even been chosen, but until someone tells you how to start it, change speeds and brake when cornering, the car will be a piece of iron, and not a means of transportation to the set goal. Ignorance of driving rules will always be an obstacle. And a specialist who knows how to drive a car correctly can help to overcome the obstacle.

So it is in relationships with people. When a person wants to change something in his personal life, in relationships with close people, and his own resources are not enough for this, he can always turn to a specialist psychologist for help.

Working with a psychologist will give a person the opportunity to realize the barriers that stand in the way of his happy family life and learn to overcome them by creating new forms of behavior. Changing your own behavior in case of disagreement will entail a change in the partner's reaction. Thus, family relationships will change dramatically. It happens that the desire to change the quality of the relationship arises in both partners and then joint family therapy is possible.

So, let's summarize.

Sometimes, during periods of marital disagreement, those who do not know how to overcome disagreements peacefully are very seduced by the idea of divorce. Of course, those who are not shackled by family ties, of course, are insured against collision with the opposite view of a loved one - insured against quarrels and scandals, from experiencing anger and powerlessness.

But they are also far from the benefits that marriage unions give: spiritual closeness, mutual understanding, support, mutual hopes and plans, attraction to each other, love, respect, children together, etc. All the joy that marital relations are rich with outside the moments of disagreement.

Is it worth it, in the heat of anger, to deprive yourself of all this because you have not learned during your life certain skills that you can learn now?

With wishes for a happy family life, Svetlana Ripka