It only takes ONE to make a marriage, but TWO to make a divorce.
It only takes one to make a marriage,
but two to make a divorce.
© Al Turtle 2004
After many years of working with couples, I have come to this conclusion. It takes two people to start a Marriage, or an intimate partnership. It takes both to decide to divorce and carry the splitting through to its end. But it takes only one of them to lead the way into a great relationship. The idea is that either one of you can stop a divorce from happening.
This idea has, over the years, proved to be my most upsetting contribution to couples work. More people have written me about how angry the thought makes them. Great! Get angry, but please engage this idea, and its truth.
So many people who are divorcing, point their fingers at their partner, placing blame and responsibility as far away from themselves as they can. And I certainly don’t want to blame the “blamers”. The pain and distress of a Power Strugge is awful. No one likes it. Getting away from that pain and that distress are very important. I am completely with you all on that.
But how much of the pain and distress is a result of what you are doing? That’s a pretty good question. And here’s what I have found is the awful answer! 100%. I don't mean that you are responsible for all of the the trouble and that your partner is not responsible at all. I mean each of you is 50% responsible for the mess and 100% responsible for your part. That’s my belief. Sounds crazy? I don’t think it is. But it has taken me years to see it. I was kind of slow.
While both people contribute to the distress, who is resolving it? If one of you really (and I really mean REALLY) starts doing the work, to become a really cool, responsible partner, the other will have to follow suit – in time. But as long as both of you are waiting for the other to start changing into a really cool, responsible partner, nothing will happen. No wonder people feel so frustrated.
The usual problem, I see, is that neither of you know what to do that works. I like to think that to have a great relationship takes 10 skills and requires that you solve 10 problems. That’s it. Now, when you start off, both of you have, say, three of the needed skills – three out of ten. And you have tools to solve 3 of the problems. You use those three skills and you solve those three problems. Now you are left without 7 skills that are needed and this lack begins to drive you crazy. And now you are left trying to solve 7 problems for which you have tools that don’t work. You do what you think will work, and it doesn’t, over and over and over. Aaaarrrggghhh!
Here’s the deal. The traits of a really cool, responsible partner are measurable, learnable, trainable, specific. That’s my belief. You don’t have to wait for your partner. Learn new skills. Change yourself. As your partner sees the change, they will be forced to change also. That doesn’t mean you will force them. It seems to me more like the principles of passive disobedience that Gandhi taught. If you become a really cool, responsible partner, who the hell wants to divorce you? Get it!
If you change, they have no reason left for them not to change except one – perhaps they are stuck. So give em a really, cool responsible partner’s kick in the ass.
But most people are not so much stuck as they are just not seeing a reason to change or a way to change. If you start, lead the way, show the way, and get out of the way, I believe they will follow. I say, “Divorce the relationship, not your partner!”
I can hear you saying, “Yeah, yeah. BS!” And thats ok with me that you don’t like this idea. I’ve just learned differently.
Who does not want a great relationship with a cool, responsible partner? If you are struggling with your partner, part of the problem is your partner may look to you like a pain in the butt. Why should you please them? Why should you stay with them? I know this point of view. However, you probably look like a pain in the butt to them, too. Why should they stay with you? Think on that!
But if you turned yourself, trained yourself, into becoming a cool, responsible partner, now what? All bets are off. And you have nothing to lose.
So get to work and get a kick out of it when you see them changing too.
Feels great.
I'm also interested to hear more about this, so thanks for this comment! I took interest in Jung and his ideas about the individuation process, and I've recently witnessed my ex go through a really rough period seeming to connect with his very traumatic childhood experiences. Surely I see things I could have done better in hindsight, but I also see that I did very well even if I didn't have the support of Al Turtle's writings, and the work of Marshall Rosenberg before. It has been a source for development and learning for myself, improving my own relationship with myself most of all (and my children and others). But what I see is that my ex has somehow suddenly flown away in a struggling his own Imagos… I've been assisted by two wonderful women so as to try to connect and have a dialogue around the kids, but they've also been helpless in regards to the view of me that my ex relate to _as_ me. They've asked for the foundations for the views, what I have said and done to give rise to that view, questions that have rendered my ex rather helpless as little such foundation could be found (as far as I or they could see) in or about _me_. Finally my ex dropped out from the meetings at the councillors, continuing to create a very strange view of me and our marriage with his new partner which in turn has placed our children in a very tough emotional and psychological situation. I have been elevated to the Great Enemy, somehow.
As I've studied psychology (and cultural science), and known about his traumatic childhood, I've managed to keep myself pretty well away from participating in this sudden total turn around of his in relation to me. Al's pages has helped me greatly, me seing that no matter how I related… my husband has had a Slave-Master way to relate to me through these years. Mostly he has played the Slave role, and yet I could also see the Master talk having come forth in his also elevating me, declaring to everybody how wonderful I am and how Right! (And I have thrived as a cat from those pleasing veiws, even if constantly trying to crawl down from that uncomfortable pedistal from which he was also repeatedly thrown me in seemingly senseless revolts…)
I can see how this strategy began to… crumble eventually. Particularly as I turned to NVC (Non Violent Communication) so as to improve our relation, both between us and between his daughters in a previous marriage. As I see it now, I figure that the whole situation became very threatening to him. It challenged his previous strategies from childhood and provided an opportunity to… cange… Result – a midlife chrisis bringing up all the difficulties from childhood, I beleive. He is presently fighting all the horrors of his childhood, I beleive. And I have come to represent a lot of it. His very being tied to me through the children is… a “helping” factor, I think. I am very scary. Particularly as I know him well, us having had a (in spite of the mentioned constant… “disturbances”…) very close friendship over the years. (I had strategies to counteract the Slave-Master strategies of his, and he expressed much love for that my ability, even if that also became a sign of my “superiority”… sigh…)
So I see such an eye striking example of what you speak about – that the Individuation process sometimes implies us having to detach from a marriage, even in cases when a partner would be willing to stick together and do the work to accommodate the other in the marriage. Because that very willingness of the other might trigger the “fight that has to finally be fought”… That struggle to separate as an individual… and grow… if one hasn't managed to go through with it well before…
Maybe? And maybe, as a good friend, we can only remain as a good partner by accepting it. A somehow, in heart, staying together by accepting the divorce, the parting.
What do you say, Al?
Al,
In this article, you write that you think a great relationship takes 10 skills and requires that someone solve 10 problems. What are the 10 skills to be learned and the 10 problems to be solved? Thanks
I really have to question this assumption that it takes two to divorce. If one person chooses to leave the marriage (which often happens at midlife) because someone is scared to death of losing their youth and looking at their spouse only reminds them that they are, in fact, aging. If someone decides that they must “pursue youth” and leave everything that reminds them of their mortality or their aging behind, I would submit that the left behind spouse is POWERLESS to do anything. Why? Because the reason for leaving has nothing to do with the marriage.
Your logic only works IF the reason for leaving the marriage has something to do with the marriage and the left behind spouse. I would submit that in many many cases that occur at midlife while the marriage might not be “perfect” and certainly could benefit from the use of some of your communication skills, that the person has tried, convicted and sentenced the left behind spouse as being the “reason for their angst” when, in fact, the reason has a lot more to do with fear of losing their youth, a fear of “missing out”.
There are some forces and reasons that are, simply, beyond the reach, influence and control of the left behind spouse. I do believe that someone in the throes of a mid life crisis is undergoing a crisis of identity, NOT a marriage crisis (although their mid life crisis will inevitably create chaos and crisis in the marriage).
I believe your profession naively fails to recognize mid life crisis as something real (although, Jung sure did) and altogether different than a marriage crisis.
I've just observed way too many situations where one spouse in the throes of their mid life crisis has decided to leave and that's that. End of discussion. Mind's made up. Nothing to be done about it from the left behind spouse's side of the equation.
Dear Cricket,
I see you posted this next to my article on “It takes one to make a marriage, two to make a divorce.” First let me share that I am imagining your pain and shock and frustration and deep sense of betrayal. Hope I got that. My gosh how that all must hurt.
Let me mirror you message just a bit along with some thoughtful additions. I gather you and your husband fell in love somewhat over 27 years ago. During those year things went on in him and in you. Some of what went on in you led to expressing anger. Most of what went on in him, you didn’t know about – he kept it to himself and/or you didn’t see it.
Over the past 15 months or so, he began to speak/act up more than before and neither of you knew how to get to the bottom of the upheaval and fix it. For you, at least, the experience got worse. I am going to guess that you both experienced a bunch of anger being felt and expressed.
I imagine that you still don't really understand what is going on in him. I hope you want him back.
I wrote an article for you. Using Turtle Logic. This is about how I see problems in relationships and how I go about working with them.
Good luck.
MY husband walked out after 27 yrs of marriage. We had a very hard and difficult 15 months prior to his leaving. I was completely blindsided that he left. Now we are in the middle of a nasty divorce and a divorce that I don't want so how in the world do I stop the divorce and repair the marriage. My husband and I went to marriage counseling for 5 months. Three weeks into the counseling the marriage counselor told my Husband I was angry at him and had been for a long time. He later said that is when he quit the marriage. He than planned the divorce from the point on and led me to believe he wanted the marriage to work. I am angry at how nasty he has been to me and the underhanded things he has done in this divorce but I still love him and want to be married to him , so please what do I do to stop this divorce?
cricket