…You have tried and tried, for days and even years to work things out.  You’ve even got help.  But you’re still stuck. 
…There are good times, but there are mostly bad ones.
…You don’t think anyone can possibly know what you’re going through—and you feel alone.
…It seems like your world is crashing in on you, but you have to act as if it’s not to others you don’t want to worry.
…You feel trapped in your routine and can’t imagine how to find time to figure out next steps.
…You know you deserve something more, but you can’t help focusing on why you got yourself in this situation in the first place, and figure you must be to blame.  You think you are the one that needs to fix things. 
…Etc. Etc.

I had a client once who, while working on her career changes, kept mentioning how her husband wouldn’t support her making the work changes she needed.  She worked harder than he did, she said, and he was irresponsible with handling their money, yet he had the final say on how their money would be spent.  He doled out her meager allowance—from the money she made.  She was intelligent and competent, but somehow she felt he knew what was better for them than she did.

Since these concerns of hers continued to crop up in our coaching sessions, I suggested she make a firm commitment to talk with her husband about these matters and we talked about questions she might ask and we role-played a possible conversation.  I let her know that not dealing with her marital problems was inhibiting her career movement that she came to me for and more importantly, that she owed it to herself to be happy and live a fulfilled life.  I asked her if she felt it was time to decide whether or not to stay in the marriage and work on it, or not and she agreed it was.  

A few days later she emailed me that she was firing me for “telling her she should get a divorce,” something I never did.  Perhaps this action she took gave her a momentary sense of control and power over her life, but it no doubt didn’t change her relationship problems.

As tough as it feels it is to move forward when you already feel beaten down, as challenging as the unseen future may be, as tired as you feel from the emotional ups and downs and the thinking and figuring what to do – you have to find the personal reserve of energy to take positive steps and do the right thing for yourself.

I’ve been divorced.  I know the pain of seeing something you thought would last forever dissolve.  I know the embarrassed feelings of covering up what feels like a failure on your part.  It’s not.  It’s a learning and it’s a change for the better, if staying with your partner cannot be peaceful or loving.  If you haven’t taken steps to get support and build your own self-esteem and give yourself self-care, start their first.  Believe in yourself and trust that even though it may seem scary, you really do know what is the right thing for yourself.

Psychologist, John Gottman, has a marital couple model that is a homestudy workshop, “The Art and Science of Love,” that you can use to ask yourself necessary questions and gauge the strength of your relationship.  See Michael S. Logan’s article about this and other related relationship articles below it on About.com.

Tags: change or divorce, marital problems, nurturing relationships

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 at 10:10 am and is filed under Personal and Professional Growth, Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.