Latest / The Divorce Decision Podcast / Ep. 65 "But My Spouse Is A Good Person... "

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Ep. 65 "But My Spouse Is A Good Person... " · 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.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hey there everyone.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Divorce Decision podcast.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I am really delighted that you're here today because we are talking about something that I think affects or likely affects a lot of you out there.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: But before I jump into the episode, if you find this podcast helpful, could you please just take a couple of seconds and give me a review and maybe even leave a comment?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Those things absolutely go a long way in helping me grow this podcast so that we can help more people.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so today I want to talk about a very specific kind of a guilt that some of you are experiencing as you start to question your marriage and or fantasize about divorce.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds something like this but my spouse is a good person, right?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is your spouse a good person?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: They haven't cheated, there's no addiction, there's no abuse, there wasn't some huge betrayal that blew up your marriage.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: They go to work, they show up for the kids, they're responsible, other people like them.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your family loves them.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And because they do things that in air quotes good people do, you might feel guilty.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: You might be questioning, like, why am I so unhappy?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Am I being selfish?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this has been coming up a lot with uh my new clients lately.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, you know, that if they're experiencing this, you might be experiencing it as well and could relate to it.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I see happening is that the guilt becomes so strong that a couple of things like can start to happen.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: First, you can start talking yourself out of your own experience.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that bad.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Other people have it so much worse.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I should be grateful.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm expecting too much.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a good enough reason to feel like this.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's like a lot of you out there.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's another group of you that does acknowledge your experience.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: You can say, look, I'm really, really unhappy in this marriage.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: But because your spouse is a good person and you feel guilty, you just put your head down and you keep doing what you're doing, status quo, day after day, right?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: But the hard part about that is that nothing changes.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: So while you're not having a conversation about separation or divorce, you're also not having any real conversations about what it would look like to make your marriage better.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing that I want you to hear is that being married to a good person is not the same thing as having a good marriage.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Someone can be a very good person and still be difficult to be married to, right?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So your husband can be faithful and responsible and still be emotionally unavailable.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Your wife can be a wonderful mother and still avoid every difficult conversation with you.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: They can be kind to everyone else and still become defensive every time you try to talk about what isn't working between you.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: They can have a hundred genuinely like wonderful, amazing qualities, and you can still feel incredibly lonely in your marriage, right?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So both of these I just double repeated that, both of these things can be true.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: I am a very big believer that two things can be true at the same time.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and that's what makes this decision feel so confusing.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Many of you think that if your spouse were obviously terrible, that the decision would be easier, right?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: There would be a clear explanation.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: You could point to something and say, there, right there, that's why.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: But you guys trust me on this.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't any easier in that scenario either, okay, which is by the way, what next week's topic is about.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: But when your problems are what I call like the more ordinary marriage issues, resentment, emotional disconnection, little or no physical intimacy, years of communication problems, feeling unseen, feeling more like roommates or core like co-parents than partners, it can be much harder for you to trust your own experience and your own dissatisfaction.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and these ordinary problems can 100% make for a very painful and dissatisfying marriage.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: So when I ask a new client, what does your marriage feel like to you?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: They will tell me what it feels like.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's usually something along the lines of we're like roommates, we co-parent really well, we coexist, right?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or some version of that.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then they quickly follow it up with a disclaimer, but he's a good dad, but she works really hard.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: He would never cheat.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: She's always been loyal to me.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody loves him.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: She does so much for our family.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you guys, those things do matter, but so does everything else that came before that disclaimer.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you're unhappily married to a good person, what I want you to do is answer this question.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: What is it like to be married to each other?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Not is your spouse a good person?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not would other people understand if I left, not is someone else's marriage worse?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: What is the actual condition of your relationship, of your marriage?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is important for so many reasons.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is because in order to make an authentic, healthy choice, whatever that choice is, right, to stay in the marriage and turn it around or to separate, you have to be clear about what the state of your marriage itself is.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and again, some of my clients will say this would be so much easier if my spouse were a jerk.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And some people, when I start working that with them, will feel like this need to build a really strong case against their spouse in order to justify their unhappiness.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're doing this, please hear this.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: You do not have to do that.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: You do not have to manufacture a villain in order to take your unhappiness seriously, in order for it to count.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Your spouse does not have to become a terrible person before the problems in your marriage are allowed to matter.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And taking those problems seriously, questioning your marriage, does not automatically mean that you're getting a divorce either, right?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: It means that you stop dismissing the issues.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: There is a very big difference between saying my spouse is a good person and saying we have a good marriage.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Those are not the same things.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And along these same lines, something else that I will hear people talk about is they almost like wish that something terrible would happen.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: People will see secretly wish that their spouse would do something bad because they think it would be easier to justify to other people.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be easier to justify going to counseling or coaching.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: It would be easier to justify exploring the options or considering divorce.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth is, you guys, trust me, you really do not want your spouse to cheat on you.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: You don't actually want some horrible betrayal.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you don't actually want whatever it is that you are secretly fantasizing about to happen, okay?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I understand it because in your mind you're like, it would be so much easier if they did this thing.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: It would be so much easier if this bad thing happened.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because then you'd have a reason, you'd have permission, then everyone else would understand.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Then you wouldn't have to explain why emotional disconnection feels like a big enough problem.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't have to explain how the impact that 10 years without meaningful physical intimacy has had on you.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't have to explain why years of resentment have changed the way you see your spouse.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And another thing that people um will get stuck in and that keeps people stuck here is the idea that if you appreciate your spouse, you shouldn't be unhappy.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Again, those like not the same thing, okay?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Gratitude and dissatisfaction can exist at the same time, right?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I'm a very big believer in two things can be true at once.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can be grateful that your husband or your wife is a loving and adoring parent, and at the same time wish like so desperately that they would connect with you on an emotional level, that they would connect with you on a physical level.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can appreciate how hard your husband or your wife works and resent the fact that the marriage has seemed to always come last.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can genuinely admire who they are as a person and still question whether or not the two of you really work as partners.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: You do not have to erase every good thing about your spouse in order to acknowledge what is wrong in your marriage, in order to acknowledge what is hurting, what is painful, what is causing you to fantasize about leaving.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the reverse is also true.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Acknowledging what hurts doesn't erase everything good about them.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where I see people almost start rewriting their marriage.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: They've decided that if they're thinking about leaving, they need to build this case.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so now every little irritating thing that their spouse ever does becomes evidence, um, evidence for what they're feeling, evidence that that the marriage is in trouble, evidence that um considering counseling or coaching or maybe even divorce is um a worthwhile endeavor, right?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you start magnifying those flaws.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: You start focusing almost exclusively on what's wrong.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what you do is you turn your spouse into a villain because somehow that makes your feelings feel more legitimate.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you guys, I've done this myself.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: I 100% remember thinking if he just do something bad, I would be justified.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: As if the years of loneliness and the resentment that came from that wasn't enough.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but you guys, you don't have to do that.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to prove that your spouse is awful, you don't have to dislike them, you don't have to hate them, you don't have to stop seeing their qualities, their good qualities.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: You can say he's a really good person or she's a really good person, and this marriage is not working for me the way it is right now.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: That is so much more of an honest place to begin, so much more of an honest place to start.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And there's one more distinction that I really do think is important, and it's separating guilt from responsibility.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Guilt says I shouldn't feel this way.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Responsibility says I do feel this way, and what am I gonna do about it?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Again, very different things.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think everyone should acknowledge what they're feeling, and then answer the second part of that question.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what am I going to do about it?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Your feelings are not the decision, and I think that that's one of the things that really holds people back is you resist acknowledging how you feel because you think that that automatically means that you're making a particular choice or decision, and that is not necessarily true.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Feeling disconnected does not mean that you automatically have to leave.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Feeling resentful does not mean that your marriage is over.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not feeling in love with your spouse today does not automatically tell us what's going to be true six months from now.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: But those feelings are information, and your decision is going to be easier if you acknowledge them and understand them.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So here's some questions that I want you to answer.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: What are you feeling?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: How would you describe your marriage?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: How long have you felt this way?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: What's created the resentment?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: What conversations have you had?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Have you clearly told your spouse how serious has it become?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Have there been real attempts to change the relationship?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Have you participated in those attempts?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Have changes happened and then disappeared?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: This one happens a lot.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is there emotional and physical intimacy left to rebuild?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or has that completely dis like disappeared?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Is there still respect between the two of you?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do both of you actually want to work on this marriage, or does one of you just not want the consequences of ending it?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Ouch.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's a hard one, right?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: All of those are really useful questions for you to think about and consider.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: You are allowed to notice your own experience.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: The harder question is, what do you want to do with it?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to do with those answers?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to do with your experience?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now there is something I want you to be careful about if you realize yourself in this episode, okay?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Don't wait for the marriage to become catastrophic before you decide that it deserves your attention.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need an affair to justify going to counseling or coaching, okay?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And there doesn't need to be this terrible fighting before you say we have a serious problem.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to be on the verge of filing for a divorce before you're allowed to ask whether or not this relationship can be some can become something different, or whether or not you want to stay in the relationship long enough to see if it can become something different, right?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't have to wait until you hate your spouse.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, you know, if you do decide to rebuild your marriage, or if you do decide to separate and file for divorce, not hating your spouse is actually going to make it a heck of a lot easier.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: So taking your unhappiness seriously is not the same thing as deciding to leave.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: It might mean having the conversation that you've been avoiding for years.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: It might mean finally being specific about what it is you actually need.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: It might mean looking honestly at your own contribution to where your marriage has ended up.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it might mean getting professional help, okay, and just testing whether or not your marriage can actually change instead of just wondering if it could.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, it might mean deciding that even though your spouse is a good person, your marriage is no longer one that you want to remain in.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: That is an option too, okay?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: But you don't need to decide that today in order to acknowledge that something isn't working.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you both just got busy raising your kids and building careers and running a household.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And somewhere along the way, your marriage was reduced to logistics.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is not something to feel guilty about.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is such like a typical story.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think it is something to be honest about and something to really take seriously.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: So look, if you think about it, the purpose of questioning your marriage, the goal of questioning it, is to help you better understand what's happening inside of your relationship so that you can talk about it, process it, and figure out what you actually want to do about it.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And those are really, really good things, regardless of whatever decision you come to.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, listen, if you are thinking I could really use some help with that, um, I invite you to take my should we get a divorce quiz.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can find that by clicking on the link in the show notes or visiting my website, kahoskins.com.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, on my website, you can also book a free consultation where we can just chit-chat about what is going on in your marriage and we can figure out how coaching can help you.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, this is what I've got for you today.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening to the Divorce Decision podcast.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Carrie Hoskins and I'll talk to you next week.