Latest / The Divorce Decision Podcast / Ep. 64 How Coaching Can Help You Stop Going in Circles About Your Marriage

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Ep. 64 How Coaching Can Help You Stop Going in Circles About Your Marriage · The Divorce Decision Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker: This is the Divorce Decision Podcast, the show for couples asking the most painful question in marriage.
• 0:06
  Speaker: Should we stay or should we go?
• 0:09
  Speaker: If your marriage feels heavy, confusing, or painfully uncertain, you're not alone.
• 0:14
  Speaker: Whether you're leaning towards divorce or hoping to rebuild your marriage, my desire is to help you find clarity.
• 0:22
  Speaker: I'm your host, KariC Hoskins.
• 0:24
  Speaker: Now let's get started.
• 0:26
  Speaker: I want to pull back the curtain on what coaching actually looks like when you're at a crossroads in your marriage.
• 0:46
  Speaker: Now, if you are unsure whether or not you're at a crossroads, which happens to be stage five of the divorce decision process, I do encourage you to go take my should we get a divorce quiz.
• 0:57
  Speaker: I put the link in the show notes for you, but you can also find that by visiting kahoskins.com.
• 1:04
  Speaker: So I wanted to talk about this because I think that there can be this really kind of vague idea about coaching, that coaching kind of sounds like I tell someone what's wrong with my marriage, and they listen, and maybe they ask me how that makes me feel, and then I pay them.
• 1:23
  Speaker: And if you think that that's what coaching is, I understand why you might be wondering why you need a coach.
• 1:32
  Speaker: Like, why wouldn't I just call my best friend?
• 1:34
  Speaker: Okay.
• 1:35
  Speaker: Um, that is not what coaching, at least coaching with me is, and that is not the work that I'm talking about.
• 1:42
  Speaker: When someone comes to me at a crossroads, they are usually not lacking in the amount of people that they have to, you know, available to them to talk to.
• 1:53
  Speaker: In fact, sometimes they've talked about their marriage struggles endlessly with other people, whether that's family members, friends, maybe they're a therapist, right?
• 2:05
  Speaker: But what they're lacking and what you might be lacking is a process for figuring out what all of the stuff that's going on in your head and your heart actually means.
• 2:16
  Speaker: So you know that you're unhappy, you know that you want something to change, and you might be to the point where you are, you know, I guess acknowledging that the divorce, the concept of divorce or the idea of divorce is actually a very real possibility.
• 2:36
  Speaker: But you can't tell anymore whether you're considering leaving because you truly want the marriage to be over or because you're hurt or angry or exhausted or resentful or scared or simply desperate for relief.
• 2:52
  Speaker: And then what happens is all of our conflicting emotions and thoughts around should we stay or should I stay or should we go gets just kind of all jumbled up and tangled up together.
• 3:04
  Speaker: Okay, so what I want to do today is just kind of walk you through what I actually do with all of that, how we untangle your conflicting thoughts and feelings to arrive at a decision that feels right.
• 3:18
  Speaker: Now, I have to tell you, one of the things I think that holds people back from reaching out for help is they're afraid that if they um actually say it out loud what they want to do, stay or go, that that means that they are like obligated or committed or required to follow through that that decision like immediately right now.
• 3:40
  Speaker: And that is a hundred percent not the case.
• 3:43
  Speaker: Okay.
• 3:43
  Speaker: You can arrive at the decision to stay or go and not be ready to take action yet.
• 3:49
  Speaker: And that is totally okay.
• 3:51
  Speaker: But what I can tell you is that making that decision, even if it's something you're not gonna act on for six months or a year, or maybe even two years or more, just making that decision is a huge weight off your shoulders.
• 4:06
  Speaker: Okay.
• 4:07
  Speaker: Um, but coaching at this stage definitely is not about me telling you whether you should stay married or get a divorce.
• 4:17
  Speaker: It's about helping you get clear enough so that you can trust your own answer.
• 4:23
  Speaker: And usually that starts somewhere where people do not expect.
• 4:28
  Speaker: It starts with resentment.
• 4:29
  Speaker: Now, if you haven't listened to episodes 61 and 62 on resentment, I definitely suggest that you go back and listen to those.
• 4:37
  Speaker: But the reason why, one of the very first things that I start off with in our coaching, um, why I start off with resentment is because when you come to meet a crossroads, you usually have this long list of reasons why the marriage isn't working.
• 4:53
  Speaker: Duh, obviously, right?
• 4:55
  Speaker: Uh you can tell me all the things that your spouse has done.
• 4:59
  Speaker: You can tell me what has changed, what hasn't changed, uh, what you've asked for over and over again, what you're sick to death of.
• 5:07
  Speaker: Um, and very often, underneath all of that, you know, all of those things is resentment, not just, you know, anger about what happened last week or frustration or disappointment about what happened next week.
• 5:21
  Speaker: I'm talking about years of disappointment and hurt and feeling dismissed and feeling alone and feeling like you've carried too much or like you've tried to communicate something important and they never really got it.
• 5:35
  Speaker: And resentment matters because it changes the way you see your marriage.
• 5:40
  Speaker: And you stop looking at one interaction just as its own interaction, just like by itself, right?
• 5:48
  Speaker: So, like your spouse forgets something they said they do, and it's not just you forgot, it becomes C, I can never count on you, or they get defensive during a conversation, and your brain immediately goes to, this is why nothing will ever change.
• 6:03
  Speaker: And those conclusions might be accurate, but maybe some of them are also just being amplified by the years of hurt and disconnection and heartache.
• 6:16
  Speaker: Okay.
• 6:16
  Speaker: And when you're trying to make a decision as big as whether or not you want to stay married, you need to understand the difference.
• 6:24
  Speaker: And that's why in my coaching I often start there.
• 6:27
  Speaker: Not because I'm trying to talk you out of your feelings or talk you out of being angry, or because I need you to forgive your spouse, that's not it.
• 6:37
  Speaker: And it's definitely not because working through resentment means deciding your marriage is worth saving.
• 6:43
  Speaker: It means we start getting specific.
• 6:45
  Speaker: What are you actually angry about?
• 6:47
  Speaker: What still hurts?
• 6:49
  Speaker: What happened that you never really came to terms with?
• 6:53
  Speaker: Um, what are you still waiting for your spouse to understand, acknowledge, apologize, or repair?
• 7:00
  Speaker: And what have you decided those experiences mean about your husband or your wife, your marriage, or even yourself?
• 7:08
  Speaker: That's the first work that we start doing.
• 7:10
  Speaker: Okay.
• 7:11
  Speaker: And that is so important.
• 7:13
  Speaker: It is so much more important than people realize.
• 7:16
  Speaker: And once we work through that and you're holding on to less of it, you start to see your relationship, your spouse, yourself from a different perspective.
• 7:28
  Speaker: So once that anger and that resentment really settles down, you might realize, no, I'm not just reacting anymore.
• 7:36
  Speaker: I genuinely don't want to continue this marriage.
• 7:40
  Speaker: Or, okay, this is awesome.
• 7:42
  Speaker: I'm less angry and I'm less annoyed and I'm less resentful.
• 7:49
  Speaker: And I do want to see whether this marriage can change.
• 7:53
  Speaker: But both of those are clarity and it feels way less confusing when you are holding on to less of the disappointment, less of the anger, less of the resentment.
• 8:05
  Speaker: So the goal of working through resentment isn't to change your answer about whether or not you want to stay in your marriage or leave the marriage.
• 8:16
  Speaker: It's to make sure that resentment isn't answering that question for you.
• 8:21
  Speaker: And once we've done some of that work, another layer of what's keeping you stuck usually becomes much more clear to see.
• 8:31
  Speaker: It's much easier to see it once that top layer is gone.
• 8:35
  Speaker: And for most people, the next layer happens to be fear.
• 8:40
  Speaker: So the second phase of coaching is where we really start to untangle and work through the what-ifs.
• 8:48
  Speaker: And this is where the crossroads gets really interesting.
• 8:52
  Speaker: Because once you aren't quite as consumed by, like I was talking about, you know, the frustration, disappointment, disconnection, resentment, the what-ifs, all your what-ifs start showing up about the future.
• 9:04
  Speaker: And there's usually a whole ton of them.
• 9:07
  Speaker: So if you're considering leaving, your what-ifs might sound like, what if I'm alone for the rest of my life?
• 9:14
  Speaker: What if I regret leaving?
• 9:16
  Speaker: What if my kids blame me?
• 9:18
  Speaker: What if my spouse moves on immediately and I never find anyone else?
• 9:23
  Speaker: What if I can't afford to leave?
• 9:25
  Speaker: What if I destroy something that could have been fixed?
• 9:27
  Speaker: Right?
• 9:28
  Speaker: Those are really powerful fears that are keeping, you know, potentially you stuck.
• 9:34
  Speaker: Now, if you are really conflicted because there is a part of you that does want to stay, your what ifs could be, what if nothing changes?
• 9:46
  Speaker: What if I wake up five years from now and wish I'd left it today, right?
• 9:50
  Speaker: Wish I'd left my marriage today.
• 9:52
  Speaker: What if I'm settling?
• 9:54
  Speaker: What if the kids leave home and we realize there's nothing left between us?
• 9:58
  Speaker: What if I spend the next 20 years lonely in this marriage?
• 10:02
  Speaker: What if I'm only staying because I'm scared?
• 10:05
  Speaker: And this is one of the reasons people can stay stuck in this stage of a crossroads for such a long time.
• 10:12
  Speaker: Because there are fears and what ifs and worries on both sides, right?
• 10:18
  Speaker: So leaving feels risky and staying feels risky.
• 10:22
  Speaker: So what happens is because leaving feels risky and staying feels risky, you bounce back and forth between the two, trying to find the option that feels less scary to you.
• 10:35
  Speaker: But they're both scary, right?
• 10:37
  Speaker: So then that's where we start separating the problems from the fears because they are not the same thing.
• 10:46
  Speaker: So, for example, what if I can't afford to live on my own?
• 10:50
  Speaker: That is a legitimate question, okay?
• 10:53
  Speaker: We don't need to sit around analyzing your feelings about it for six weeks.
• 10:57
  Speaker: What we need is information.
• 10:59
  Speaker: What would your expenses actually be?
• 11:01
  Speaker: What income would you have?
• 11:03
  Speaker: Would you need to sell the house?
• 11:05
  Speaker: Would you need a professional financial advice or a you know a professional uh financial advisor, right?
• 11:11
  Speaker: There may be a real obstacle there, but it's an obstacle that you can investigate.
• 11:16
  Speaker: Now compare that to what if I leave and no one else loves me again?
• 11:22
  Speaker: That's not really a logistical problem that you can solve with a spreadsheet.
• 11:27
  Speaker: That's true.
• 11:28
  Speaker: What if fear?
• 11:30
  Speaker: Or maybe the thought is if my marriage ends, it means that I have failed.
• 11:35
  Speaker: Again, that's not necessarily a fact.
• 11:38
  Speaker: That's a belief.
• 11:40
  Speaker: And beliefs like that can have an enormous power over decision when we don't stop to examine them.
• 11:47
  Speaker: And so one of the things that I do in coaching is we slow all of this down.
• 11:52
  Speaker: Instead of one just giant big question, I don't know what I want to do, what should I do?
• 11:58
  Speaker: We start asking, what are you exactly afraid of?
• 12:03
  Speaker: Okay, which fears are practical, which fears are ones that I need to research, and which fears are emotional, which fears are based on something that might actually happen, versus ones that my brain is kind of treating like a prediction.
• 12:20
  Speaker: And then we take them one at a time.
• 12:23
  Speaker: The reason why is because fear loves vagueness and everything becomes enormous when it's swirling around in your head at two o'clock in the morning.
• 12:32
  Speaker: And so clarity comes when we start naming things specifically and separating them into what we can logically research and find information for and what we need to work through on a more emotional and cognitive level.
• 12:49
  Speaker: Okay.
• 12:50
  Speaker: And the next layer of what we do is we look at the marriage itself.
• 12:56
  Speaker: Once some of that, like I'm gonna call it emotional noise quiet down, we can begin looking more directly at your relationship.
• 13:04
  Speaker: We start asking questions like, are you willing to look honestly at how you've contributed to where you are?
• 13:12
  Speaker: Do you think your spouse, if you're doing you know the coaching individually, is willing to look honestly at how they've contributed to where you are?
• 13:21
  Speaker: Um, have you clearly communicated what needs to change?
• 13:26
  Speaker: Can you resolve conflict differently than you have in the past?
• 13:30
  Speaker: Is there still enough respect between the two of you to make it work if that's what you chose?
• 13:36
  Speaker: Is there enough goodwill left to build something new if that is what you chose?
• 13:41
  Speaker: Okay, and so these are really important questions that can help you start to find clarity around what it is that you actually want.
• 13:52
  Speaker: And the goal of all of this, all of these questions, all of the work, is to keep you moving toward clarity instead of staying trapped in a mental loop.
• 14:04
  Speaker: So I want you to see that coaching, at least with me, because I cannot speak for other coaches, isn't just about talking through, you know, your list of marital problems.
• 14:15
  Speaker: It's about helping you sort through all of these little pieces so that you can see your marriage and yourself and what you actually want more clearly.
• 14:26
  Speaker: I want you to be able to say, I understand why I'm making this decision.
• 14:32
  Speaker: I know what I've tried, I know what I need, I'm confident about what I'm choosing.
• 14:37
  Speaker: That is such a different place from lying awake at night asking yourself the same question for the 300th time, right?
• 14:46
  Speaker: It is such a different place from rehashing the same story about yourself and your spouse and your marriage to your best friend for the 300th time.
• 14:56
  Speaker: So if you are listening to this and you are realizing that you are sick of feeling stuck, you can start by taking the Should We Get a Divorce quiz.
• 15:05
  Speaker: Again, I put it in the show notes.
• 15:07
  Speaker: You can find it at kahoskins.com.
• 15:10
  Speaker: It's going to help orient you to where you are actually at in this process.
• 15:16
  Speaker: And if you're curious about getting help, like through coaching and sorting through some of your specific marriage circumstances, I invite you to check out my website, kahoskins.com, and you can find information on there about what it would look like to work together, including the price for both individual and couples coaching.
• 15:39
  Speaker: And there is a link on my website to book a free 50-minute consultation with me.
• 15:45
  Speaker: So, you guys, I really hope this episode gave you just a little bit of insight into my coaching process.
• 15:52
  Speaker: Uh, you don't have to figure this out alone.
• 15:54
  Speaker: I guess that is the bottom line.
• 15:56
  Speaker: I am here to help you.
• 15:58
  Speaker: All right.
• 15:59
  Speaker: So, thank you all for listening to the Divorce Decision podcast.
• 16:03
  Speaker: I'm Kari Hoskins, and I'll see you next time.