Hey, look, less that 2 weeks and I have more to say!!!
A few months ago, I mentioned the “ocean liner” analogy to a turning a R around --- how it’s impossible to stop and turn on a dime. Well, the divorce ship has finally drifted to a stop, and we’re making real moves to starting up in the direction of saving the marriage. We are kind of dead in the water right now, but active measures are being taken to start the engines and strike a course toward a new R.
This therapist we’ve been seeing is a woman we found when I was trying to do anything to keep W away from divorce attorneys. She’s actually a divorce mediator and communication therapist who occasionally handles couples therapy, with an SBT-type model. We actually had an initial mediation appointment arranged before W said she’d work on the marriage, and we called before we got there to ask her to change hats from divorce mediator to couples therapist. In her work with us, she’s mostly been working on communication, and hasn’t really taken a stand one way or the other regarding marriage. The has been “safe” for W. During our therapy, she gave us various communications exercises, and asked us to read a book called “LoveWorks” by a two couples therapists – Mary Ann Massey and Ronald W. Heilmann. From the start, W has had a tremendous aversion to reading any R books. And this book is particularly badly written (these folks are therapists, not writers). But it is loaded with incredible insight, and no nonsense observations of the dynamics of the shift from a new-love romantically charged relationship to a maturing, long-term relationship. For whatever reason, W read this book. And she was moved and found something in it that made her pause and reconsider. She also has been getting feedback from some of her closest friends that she owes it to herself to fully explore whether this marriage really needs to end before she goes to that end, and that she’s really not done that to the extent she needs to to be able to walk away with a clear conscience. This is all getting through to her. And, I guess, I’ve been sincerely being a nice enough person that she sees little to actually loose in trying.
So, anyway, the current C (mediator) feels we’ve reached a point in progress where she can’t really help us anymore. She feels her area is improving communication and solving disagreements, and she believes we’ve progressed to the point where we need more solid couples work, particularly work on intimacy. She’s recommending we see another therapist, who also follow a Brief model, who’s specialty is couples and intimacy. Before she did that, we had one last session yesterday, where she essentially asked if we were both willing to make this step forward in improving the marriage, or if either of us felt we were done and this should end. I had told her on the phone that I was not going anywhere, I was in this to save my marriage and my ideals had not changed. We were both unsure of what W would say. So C posed the question in the C session. W said that she has realized that she needs to give this all the best effort she can. She owes it to herself, to our daughter, to her family. She’s not totally convinced that staying together will be the best thing for our daughter, but she’s not willing to risk her well being without a final attempt. She’s become convinced that any divorce action will be horribly destructive and painful (thanks to advice from divorced friends, I think), and she no longer wants that if there is any chance of avoiding it. She also was clear that she wasn’t “coming back to me” but was exploring “coming back to the marriage”. She apologized to me for this.
A key point in “LoveWorks” is one about learning to make the “second-best” choice being one of the most important skills a couple needs to develop to endure through the transition and enter the long-term relationship happiness phase. “Second Best” means making choices and compromises that lead to an agreement on choices as a couple, even if those choices were not the first choice as an individual, while still respecting that the first choice for each individual was valid and proper for the individual, but that as a couple maybe you had to accept the second, or third best individual choice, because that was the best for the couple… the “second best” choice. W feels she understands this, an that it has opened her eyes to the possibilities of our future R. ( I hope I didn’t mangle that concept too badly).
I say Halleluiah! I believe that’s truly what it’s all about, that the secret of a long term R is to pursue you live and R together with you partner, not to make your R and life about your partner. I believe that understanding that distinction is the key to making the transition from infatuated romantic love to long-term commitment and companionship love. I believe it’s the failure of many couples to understand that that leads to the breakdown that causes divorce. I didn’t get it, and I made her miserable enough to look elsewhere and run. She didn’t get it, and looked to recover the romantic infatuation instead of move ahead to the long-term phase.
So, now we are moving slowly starting to move ahead. We are slowly starting to explore how the concept of “second best choices” works. I feel for the first time in the 16 months of this nightmare that I don’t risk having W throw in the towel at any given moment and walk out the door. I feel that for the first time in years she’s willing to be “present” and see what has to happen for both of us to make this work.
The ship of divorce has, for now, stopped. I’m feeling better than I have in a long, long time. Thanks to everyone here for all your love, support and help.
