Careful. Divorce seems like the easy solution, but it creates a whole new set of problems on top of the ones we’ve got and no one’s learned anything. You say, to justify divorce, “I don’t want my kids thinking fighting like this is normal” and then you divorce and teach your kids there’s no way you can work things out and to run from your problems. Then you marry someone else and you still hadn’t learned to work through your problems and the communication issues start up again. Oh, and your new spouse can’t stand your kids. And you only see your kids half the time. And they don’t want to come home (What’s home? Your house or your X’s? Neither.). Great. Either way we’ve got a bunch of people losing.
Most of us didn’t grow up learning how to handle negative emotion. Either mom and dad fought all the time, or they never discussed anything of substance or one person dominated and the other shut down. Those are the three major patterns that don’t work and all of them lead to hurt in the home and often to eventual divorce. Maybe it’d be better to figure out the one way, the only way that really leads to marital contentment and that would be for both parties to be able to say what they need to say without animosity and where both parties feel like they are being heard.
‘Cuz here’s the deal: Neither of you are dumb! If one of you was dumb, you wouldn’t have gotten married. The whole advantage of marriage (well one of them at least) is two heads are better than one. We’ve got a built in checks and balance system here. You don’t know everything. Your spouse doesn’t know everything. So you compare notes. Then you make a decision based on your collective wisdom.
You say you can’t do that? That’s where we come in.
But hang on a second here: Sometimes it’s not just a question of technique or personality or style or gender difference. Sometimes there’s an elephant in the room. Sometimes there’s unresolved hurt or ongoing hurt lurking in the corner driving the anger. Sometimes there’s hurt from the past before the two of you got together that keeps rising to the surface. Sometimes the couple doesn’t spend any time together so when they do they have a chip on their shoulder because they are lonely and resentful they are on the back burner. Sometimes the couple isn’t connecting sexually and the indifference that creates is driving sour moods. Sometimes a person is too committed to work or their children or a hobby or another friend or the church or a cause or exercising or video games or that stupid phone or Facebook or ? leaves the other spouse feeling they are in last place and you know what? They’re sick of playing second fiddle. Sometimes both of them are just flat out selfish! Sometimes both of them think or one of them does, at least, that we can’t disagree and if we disagree we have to talk until we agree or we wear each other out, and then, of course, one of them will have to give up their position to make peace and then we have a loser and if one of us loses we both lose because we are in this together. Sometimes a really bad habit like porn or alcohol or drugs or gambling or ? is driving the anger. Sometimes fighting is just a stupid bad habit and neither of them know any better! Sometimes the issue we’re fighting about isn’t even the issue and there’s something else entirely going on! YIKES!
These are all things we can work on. You can’t fight in my office! The calmness and respect actually changes people! If we can be calm in Bing’s office, maybe we could do this at home?! This is what we do. Fighting isn’t the way to go. Divorce only adds to your problems and freezes any hope of rising above your problems and learning from your mistakes and becoming better people.
Finding a way to resolve your differences without bodies in the ditch would be a better route.
