Mary screamed. She did not like herself screaming. She hated it. But she couldn’t help it. She screamed at Tim. It was nasty.
Tim retreated to his phone. In fact, he walked out the door and retreated to his phone.
But the reality is that Tim did not do any of the things Mary was screaming about. He did not call her the next day when he would be coming home late. And he was late. Boy, was he.
He did not go with her to her mother’s, something he grudgingly used to do.
But he did call her a name a day later. And felt good about it. Got her back. Ha.
Well, that good feeling lasted about 15 seconds. Then he felt grouchy, angry, and disconnected.
Needless to say, Mary let loose on Tim all over again. She was so angry at this latest injustice that she was practically frothing at the mouth. (Oh, she really, really hated herself for being this way. Even more than she was angry at Tim.)
It is no surprise that a day later found her nicely dressed sitting opposite a divorce attorney. In the quiet of his office, she cried. He wisely had a stack of tissue boxes in the supply cabinet right next to his Pepto Bismal. He wondered why he hadn’t just gone into Real Estate law.
Mary was lucky to get a kind-hearted divorce lawyer. It meant that he would try his best to make this go smoothly rather than racking up tens of thousands of dollars on needless paperwork and court filings.
And Tim was lucky that Mary really didn’t – in her heart of hearts – want the divorce. She just wanted to be loved, admired, listened to, made first, and important.
She told the attorney she would return when she was ready, but perhaps she was not ready after all.
At dinner, she confessed to Tim that she saw an attorney. “I cannot do this anymore. I’m done. Absolutely done,” she told him. “This needs to be fixed or we are done.”
Tim was frightened. This is not what he wanted. Ever. Tears stung the back of his eyes but manly guy that he was, no one saw them. Too bad. They could have helped.
In a thousand different ways, this scenario replays itself across the world. Sometimes the man is the one who files, but usually it’s the woman. Sometimes, they don’t go ahead to file, but when they do, there’s no turning back. It’s a huge step to file. You’ve argued and screamed and cried. You’ve tried.
And then you just gave up and figured there is no other choice. Even after 20 or 30 years. Because if screaming did not get through, what would?
So the better option is to tell him you went to an attorney and that you’re going to file, but not actually do so. Yet.
The people in that category are the ones I’m helping. For some reason, that wakes up the non-listeners, the ones who hear the screaming and manage to blot it out.
So you’re probably wondering how in the world I can help people who are just about teetering over the cliff like that. Actually, it’s rather easy. It’s also quicker than you think. Here’s why: Imagine some three-year-olds playing in the sandbox. One takes a toy and the other hits and then cries. These are not great strategies to retrieve the toy. You know it and I know it, but they don’t know it.
People caught up in a never-ending cycle not only don’t know how to get out of it – what to say different, what to do different – but they don’t even know how to not react automatically. Their bodies have taken control of their reason. This is an absolutely normal process in the stress response and it cannot be fixed by reason. That’s why CBT (cognitive behavior therapy) has such a poor showing when it comes to high levels of visceral arousal.
Rather, tools are needed to heal oneself first. And ironically, the better the individual is healed – body and soul – the more easily that person will be able to reach out with kindness and empathy to their spouse instead of shooting from the hip.
In fact, my tools work on both people at the same time. They “get” what their partner is going through because they’re going through it too. So instead of the old rivalry – who could injure the other person more – they suddenly are filled with regret for their past behavior and compassion for their partner. And themselves.
Is this process easy? Well, it takes work. And commitment. It takes willingness to listen and put their trust in the process. It takes resources of time and energy. But it’s a whole lot nicer than divorce. Way cheaper, too.
To learn more, book a call https://drdeb.com/book.