Latest / The Divorce Decision Podcast / Ep 71: At A Marriage Crossroad? 3 Types of Pain You Need to Understand

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Ep 71: At A Marriage Crossroad? 3 Types of Pain You Need to Understand · The Divorce Decision Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Divorce Decision Podcast, the show for couples asking the most painful question in marriage.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Should we stay or should we go?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: If your marriage feels heavy, confusing, or painfully uncertain, you're not alone.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're leaning towards divorce or hoping to rebuild your marriage, my desire is to help you find clarity.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Carrie Hoskins.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's get started.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hey there everyone.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Divorce Decision podcast.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Before I jump into today's episode, if you would take just a second and leave me a review, I would really appreciate it.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: It actually does help other people find this podcast and ultimately it helps more people.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I would really appreciate it.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so today what I want to do is I want to talk to you about pain and not whether you're in it.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're listening to this podcast, so you probably are.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to you about which kind of pain you are in.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not all marriage pain, and you know, honestly, I looked up a million other words that I could use instead of pain, but this one is so fitting.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'm gonna be repeating that word over and over again.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: But not all marriage pain is the same, and that matters more than most of you actually realize.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to think about it like going to the doctor.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: It hurts is a symptom.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a diagnosis.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: If your knee hurts, it could be a pulled muscle, a torn ligament, or arthritis.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: The pain might feel similar, but the underlying problems are very different.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And what helps one condition might make another one worse.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why you need to understand what's actually causing the pain before you decide what you're gonna do about it, how you're going to treat it.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the marriage pain that you are experiencing works the same way.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, some emotional pain is grief, some is fear, and some is what happens when you have been like running on empty for so long that you stop feeling much of anything at all.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And each one of these different types of pain actually needs something different.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to walk you through three different types of marital hurt that you might be experiencing and just give you some suggestions on some things that you can try so that you can begin to process it, which in turn helps you find clarity.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: It helps you figure out what it is you want to do or what it is you want to do next.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: So the first kind of pain is what I'm gonna call grief pain, and it's the one people most often misread.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: We usually think of grief as something that happens after a loss is final, a death, a funeral, the day your divorce is final.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a kind of grief that happens before any decision is made.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's a specific kind of loss that you experience while the person is literally sitting across from you at dinner.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a name for it.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Family therapist Um Pauline Boss called it, I think it was back in the 70s, she calls it ambiguous loss.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: The person is physically present, but they're not the person that you knew, right?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: The person that you knew is gone.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I recently worked with a gentleman.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: He's been married for more than 20 years.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: He found out that his wife has cheated on him or had cheated on him multiple times.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So she moved out of their marital home, uh, and they have not decided what they want to do yet about the marriage.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: But she is literally still texting him every day, like blowing up his phone.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: She is still dropping by the house without giving him a warning and just kind of in and out of his life, like almost every single day.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And again, they haven't made a decision about to do, like they're vacillating between whether or not they want to try to repair their marriage or get a divorce.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he is in an immense amount of pain.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: He cannot settle his mind.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, he functions fine, like when he's at work, when it's in the background, when he's distracted.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: But the minute he thinks about it, the minute uh he faces it, starts talking about it, he starts to fall apart.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: So when he gets home from work and even at work, he's not eating, he's not sleeping, uh, and he thinks this pain is because they're in limbo.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's part of it.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: But another big part of it is just that he hasn't really allowed himself to grieve.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: You have to grieve the person that you knew.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: You have to grieve the loss of the marriage that you had so that you can make a clear-eyed decision about whether you want to rebuild your marriage with a version of your spouse that you frankly don't recognize.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And this type of pain, like, you know, that example is from betrayal, but this type of pain does not only come from betrayal.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: It can come from your spouse who is physically home but emotionally gone, right?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: So he's at the dinner table, but he's on his phone.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: She's on the couch every night, but she doesn't look up when you walk in.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: You ask, how's your day?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you get a fine every day, day after day for years, right?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's moved out, nothing official has happened.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're feeling the loss of someone who still lives in your house, who's still physically present.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're not emotionally present.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a very real grief.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's just confusing because there's really no clear day that it started and no way of knowing if it's going to end.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Another way that this shows up is when one of you goes through, say, a radical change, right?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: So um, one of the couples that I'm working with, they're really struggling because the wife has lost a lot of weight recently.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And she is like literally completely changed, not just physically, uh, but she has new habits.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: She's healthier, which is fantastic.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: She has more confidence, again, which is fantastic.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: But her interests have changed, and she's getting lots of attention from other men now.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And her husband feels like her personality has changed too.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And frankly, she's no longer interested in him on an emotional or physical level.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he, you know, he told me he's like, she's not the same person that I married.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that feels so disorienting.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: That is ambiguous loss.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're in this type of pain, grieve the marriage that you had and the future that you thought you were going to have.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: That is so important whether you choose to stay in the marriage and rebuild it or leave the marriage.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to start really processing the loss, the loss of what you had or what you thought you had, and the loss of the future that you were expecting to have.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I also encourage you to start practicing something called both and thinking, which is basically the concept that two things can be true at the same time.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what's going to help you start processing and grieving.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you can think things like, well, I might stay and I still need to grieve what we had.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or I love who she was and I don't trust who she is right now.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Both of those things can be true at the same time.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: So grieving what you lost can help you figure out what you want to do next from a much more authentic and honest place.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now the second kind of emotional pain is fear.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: So fear is like, I know what I want and I'm terrified to do it.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so fear is a very sneaky kind of a pain because it really shows up or like masks itself as indecision.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: You'll hear yourself say to other people, or maybe to your own self, I just don't know what I want.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: But when we dig in, a lot of the time you do know.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: You do know what you want.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: What you don't know is how to survive the consequences of what you want.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: So fear pain is usually your list of what ifs?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: What if I can't afford to leave?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: What if the kids hate me?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: What if I end up alone?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: What if I wreck this and it was actually fine?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: What if I commit to this marriage and she cheats on me again?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: What if I want to try again, but he refuses to change X, Y, and Z?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: What if I stay and she continues to be emotionally and physically distant?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: What if I stay and try and rebuild this and we end up getting a divorce anyway?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: All those what ifs.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So when you don't address the fears, what you do is you end up choosing whatever feels less scary day after day after day.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it's usually without making any changes.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so you just stay stuck.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because unless you change something, you're going to continue to repeat the same pattern day after day after day, right?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Year after year.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're in this kind of a pain, this is what I suggest that you do.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: I suggest that you take it out of your head, out of those thought loops, and you make it concrete.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I suggest that you, or I should say, I encourage you to make a list of all of your fears and start working through each of them one by one.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: What does that fear look like?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what would you do if it happened?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, now some of those are going to be logistical, like especially the ones around money, the living situation, the house, you know, all the stuff that you can like actually go online and research and figure out.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: The more challenging ones are the emotional ones.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So if deep inside of you you know you want to leave your marriage, those emotional things are going to sound like, what if my kids hate me?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: What will my family think, right?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and these are usually the ones that you're going to need help working through.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, this applies to staying as well.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many fears around staying, like, am I wasting my time?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And what if this happens again?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I don't think I can do another round of this, right?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, and that's exactly why you haven't committed to getting help to fix the marriage.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I want you to hear is that fear doesn't tell you what to do, it tells you what you're afraid your decision is going to cost you.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something that you need to spend some time reflecting on and working through.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third type of pain that I want to talk about is what I think the most quiet one.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I call it empty tank pain.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's what happens when you've been carrying the marriage alone for so long that you are tapped out.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Your tank is empty.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: So when I work with the clients in this kind of a pain, they'll say something along the lines of, I don't know if I even care anymore, right?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's a bit of ambivalence there.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this one doesn't always feel like pain.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like tired, numb, and going through the motions.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: This one often shows up when you feel like you're the one who's making the effort to keep the relationship going.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're the person initiating the check-ins, bringing up the hard stuff, having conversations where it feels like you're pulling teeth to get your husband or wife to communicate with you.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: It also shows up when you feel like there's little to no acknowledgement or gratitude for what you do for your spouse or what you do for the family or for the part that you play in your marriage, right?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't feel valued, you don't feel respected, you don't feel appreciated.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And all of those things leads to resentment.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And what's happening for a lot of you in this scenario is you end up going through these cycles of I can't keep doing this, to, well, maybe it's not so bad.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that just kind of goes on repeat because you suck it up, and then it's like, well, maybe it's not so bad.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then a few months later, you circle back to, well, this sucks.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to keep doing this anymore.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: But then it cycles back to, well, maybe I'm the problem and I really do like my life.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it isn't so bad.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that cycle is on repeat year after year after year.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's exhausting.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Are you guys exhausted?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's exhausting.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what empty tank paint does: it makes you wait.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some people tell me that they're waiting for something bad enough to happen so they'll finally have a good enough reason to leave.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I put that in air quotes.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Others will tell me that they're waiting for something good enough to happen so they finally feel sure enough to stay.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, you're waiting for the marriage to make the decision for you.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you guys, that's not gonna happen.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, what I want you to know is you don't need a catastrophe to leave, and you don't need a miracle to stay.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: What you need is proof that things can get better or not.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes I don't care anymore, I don't have the energy really means I'm just too tired to hope.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna be honest with you, empty pain is where people get vulnerable and it puts the marriage at more risk.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you're running on empty, the first person who notices you, who shows you gratitude or appreciation or any kind of attention, it can literally feel like oxygen, which is completely human.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now it doesn't mean you should act on it, but it's a signal of what's missing.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Pay attention to that signal.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that information can help you rebuild your marriage just as much as it can help you decide to leave.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: So pay attention to it.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if your tank feels empty, here's what I suggest.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: I suggest that you share this with your husband or your wife.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: You share with them what's going on for you.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Have that conversation.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now you might need to get some help working, you know, working through that conversation, just having the conversation and then working through it, but you need to get some proof.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Then the real question becomes if my husband fully shows up, is that going to be enough for me?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Or if my wife fully shows up, is that going to be enough for me?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: These are the questions that you can only answer once you start getting some proof of whether or not it's even possible.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So let's put all this together really quick.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Grief pain is about what you've lost.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Fear pain is about what you're afraid it's going to cost you.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And empty tank pain is about what you're tired of carrying around on your shoulders.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And most of you are in more than one.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is totally normal.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I need to give a little warning.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I don't want you to do.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to hear this episode and go, oh, well, okay, it's, you know, it's grief pain, so I should stay.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, it's fear pain, so I should just leave.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: That is not the point of this episode.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Naming your pain is not the decision.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's what helps clear the fog so you can make your decision.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And just so that you guys know, I'm just giving you a little heads up here, when you actually start naming this stuff, you might feel worse before you feel better.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not a sign that you're doing a doing it wrong.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a sign that you're facing it.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't really make a decision, a good one, until you face it.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to offer you one thing to try starting today, all right?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: When the hurt really hits you, and you know those moments that I mean, like maybe he's scrolling on his phone again, or she's got that tone, or you're exhausted from all the work you did all day long around the house and for everybody else in the family, and no one said thank you.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to ask yourself when you when you experience that, when you're like, God, this sucks, right?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to ask yourself one question.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Is this about what I've lost, what I'm afraid of, or what I'm tired of carrying?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Lost, afraid, or tired.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just jot the answer down in your phone.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Don't fix anything, don't dwell on it, don't decide anything, just name it.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And after a couple of weeks, I I really strongly suggest that you go back and you look because you're going to start to see a pattern.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that pattern tells you a lot.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: All right, my friends.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: So listen, if you want more clarity on where you are right now, I do have a free quiz.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Should We Get a Divorce?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: It takes just a few minutes and it helps you see where you are in the decision process.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I did put the link to that quiz in the show notes.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are tired of going back and forth at 2 a.m.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: by yourself, laying in bed, right?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Book a call with me.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a conversation.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: It is not a sales pitch.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about what's going on and whether my 12 session coaching series is a good fit for you or not.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that link is also in the show notes for you, or you can book that call at kahoskins.com.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, everybody, thank you so much for listening to the Divorce Decision Podcast.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Carrie Hoskins and I wish you a wonderful week.