Hindsight is always 20/20.
Such is the case for Valerie, a 39 year old woman who told me recently that only now can she admit that she was holding on to her marriage with a death grip. "Not something you do," she said, "when your marriage is working well. I lived in that state for so long that I had lost perspective."
Valerie even went so far as to admit how many people had been against her marrying Craig in the first place. "I don't understand how I could have been so blind! Everyone told me not to marry him, but I thought we had enough of what it took to make a marriage work - I loved him, he loved me and we shared many of the same core values. What more should we have needed?"
The answer to that question lies in understanding what went wrong for Valerie in the marriage. Things were humming along pretty well until they had their son, Benjamin. Then, as if someone cast a spell on Craig, he became all but physically checked out of the marriage and seemed to have no interest in being a dad to Benjamin.
Craig went to work each day and gave his entire paycheck to the family, but when he got home at night, he did nothing to help Valerie out. Instead, he sat in front of the t.v. all night until he went to bed at 10 pm. He lived his life and she lived hers.
When Valerie tried to talk to Craig about the fact that this arrangement wasn't working for her, he would just say, "It's not my job. My job is to go to work everyday. I don't want to work when I get home." and that would be the end of the conversation. Despite the rage that welled up in her over being so easily and consistently dismissed, Valerie felt that she couldn't raise a child without a husband - life would just be too hard, she thought.
But the straw eventually broke the camel's back and Valerie could no longer stand to have her needs ignored. Just before Christmas of last year, she asked Craig to leave and she filed for divorce.
After he left, a strange feeling came over Valerie. It was a feeling she'd had prior to meeting Craig bit it felt so foreign that it actually took her a long while to figure out what the feeling was - it was inner peace!
Ironically, rather than being overwhelmed and distressed by not having her husband by her side to raise their son, there was actually relief! Life was easier than it had been when they were still together!
What Valerie came to realize was that Craig was actually a dead weight that she was unknowingly dragging along beside her. Once the marriage was over, life was much smoother and "lighter" than it had been.
Of course, she's had a number of tough days, and she misses Craig the man, but in no way does she miss Craig, the husband. She had no idea how hard she was working to try to get Craig to be involved and interested in family life.
Once the pressure was off, Valerie and Craig actually became friends and Craig even agreed to watch their son on the nights that Valerie couldn't. Letting go of her "death grip" of how the marriage "should" look gave Craig an opportunity to step up and he did.
Square pegs don't fit into round holes but Valerie is certainly not alone in trying to get her marriage to be something it couldn't be. Lots of couples are doing the same thing.
As for why Valerie's process took so long, she needed every experience to get her to a place where she could say, "That's enough. I give up!" She couldn't have stopped a minute earlier. Not because she's dumb or willful, but because she needed to feel she'd given the marriage her all. She believed for a long time that she could eventually come up with some kind of agreement and buy in from Craig and she simply needed enough evidence before she could admit defeat.
If you, or someone you know, has a "death grip" on your marriage, you don't have to divorce to get things to change. At least not as the first step.
A Possible Solution
Focus on the aspect that you think should be different than it currently is. Ask yourself what you are doing to try to make things be different. A different example than the one above would be one spouse wanting the other spouse to stop spending money on frivolity. The old tactic may have been to try to "educate" your spouse on needs vs. wants, or the value of saving vs. spending. The result may have been an increase in spending leaving you feeling snubbed.
As an experiment when spending occurs, de-focus on it: don't say a word; don't react when spending happens; don't lecture or cry. It's scary because the thinking is that if I let this go, all hell will break lose but often, the exact opposite can happen.
When you step out of the equation, you stop being the "nag" or the "bully" and your spouse is left alone with his or her actions. They no longer have you to rebel against and it can create a clearer picture for them about what they are doing.
Give it a month or two. If the spending (or other abhorrent behavior) doesn't subside, you may want to seek professional help in the way of couple's therapy. What your spouse may not be able to hear from you, he or she can hear from an objective third party.
Obviously, you don't want to let things go to a point of disrepair if indeed you do hope the marriage will survive, but changing the way you act and react will change how your spouse acts and reacts. It really is that simple.
