Perhaps you are feeling desperate as you watch the structure of your life as you have known it for a long time, start to crumble before you, disintegrating and heading for breakup, separation and ultimately divorce. And you fear this end approaching, you want to know how to save your relationship or failing marriage. So you have started desperately seeking out advice on marriage advice or things to do to save your relationship.
Maybe underlying fears about being on your own belie your attempts to save your failing relationship whereby you would prefer to cling to something known rather than face being single and all that that entails for you. Perhaps you are still deeply in love with your partner, wife or husband and cannot come to terms with your unrequited love. Or maybe you dread whatever impact you fear divorce or breakup may have on children.
And then there is your partner’s perspective. How much do you really know about why your partner no longer wants to remain married to you or in a relationship with you. Regardless of what events or betrayals might have transpired between you, it is likely that you do NOT really understand what is happening from your partner’s perspective. If you did, it is reasonable to assume that your communication would have focused on your relationship issues a long time ago. What is clear is that your relationship or marriage has reached a crisis point where breaking up seems a way forward for your partner. And for you this is proving unbearable, unbelievable, impossible to accept. This is the time to focus attention away from “you” so you can start to learn about how you are impacting “another.”
So where do you go from here?
You might ask for the opportunity to try and understand your partner’s perspective by asking for time together in order to explore this. If you don’t feel you can manage this alone, a relationship counsellor or therapist could help.. It will be important for you to allow your partner to express his or her thoughts and feelings without being defensive or aggressive. You may need to “hear” about yourself through the eyes of your partner and to “accept” what has become insurmountable in your relationship, whatever that is. You may also need to try and step into your partner’s shoes to “empathise” with however they have been feeling. No justification, explanation or challenge, just willingness to understand so that your partner can feel somewhat validated. You may express how genuinely “sorry” you are that your partner has been experiencing what they have and that you would really like to explore how things might change.
Clearly your partner is also playing a role in the relationship difficulties. However, he or she may not feel as able to manage the conflict they are experiencing within the relationship and so they may be hoping to break-up as a solution. Maybe they have already initiated relationships with other people as part of this process. It is possible that your demonstration of being willing to not judge and to try and understand your partner’s perspective, may go some way in forging a bridge between you. Whether you are able to repair this relationship or not, you will be learning important life skills in communication.
If your attempts at communicating and trying to understand are unsuccessful, then you may need to find a way to come to terms with what is happening. The following skill from Marsha Linehan’s Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) for Distress Tolerance, may be an empowering starting point:
Notice your resistance to accepting your relationship break-up or ultimate divorce
Reassure yourself that this is “just as it is and cannot be changed, this is just the way it is”
Remind yourself that there are valid causes for your break-up, that people’s lives have been affected by a number of factors and that this is just the way things happened
Practice accepting this with your whole self (body, mind & spirit). Take some time alone to sit quietly and to focus on your breath. Place your hands on your belly or chest and follow the movement of your body as you breathe in and out. Start breathing to a count of “3, 4, 5…” and then gradually increase the count of your outbreath. For example, breathe in to a count of 4 and out to a count of 5 or 6. Allow feelings of disappointment, sadness, grief or anger to arise within you and acknowledge that life can be worth living despite the pain you feel.
On a large piece of paper, start writing words and drawing symbols or images to express what you would like to happen in your future. Imagine your life in 5 years time, how would you like this to be. Your imagination has great capacity to help you heal if you choose to work with it.
For more information about working through marriage relationship difficulties or managing the end of a relationship, contact The Hove Counselling Practice.
