Are you sure you want to split up? Read this before you divorce!
By Jean-Claude Chalmet, as told to Anna Maxted for The Times, January 14th, 2023.
Therapist Jean-Claude Chalmet explains what he tells unhappy couples to consider — and how to come back from the brink.
For most of the year, couples can distract themselves from their resentment, boredom, or the fact that they’re living parallel lives. But over the festive season, they are forced to spend time together, and it brings all that simmering misery to the boil. No wonder January is a boom time for divorce inquiries.
But the fantasy of separation is very different from the reality. Studies show that more than a third of couples eventually regret dissolving their marriage. So how can unhappy couples be sure that ending their relationship really is the better solution, or when — and how — to revive a marriage? Here, the psychotherapist and couples therapist Jean-Claude Chalmet shares his advice.
Nine questions I always ask someone who wants a divorce
People often equate divorce with freedom, but fighting your ex, worrying about money, and trying to protect your children from the fallout doesn’t feel liberating. Very often, divorce is decided by emotions alone. So I take couples to the brink and dare them to jump. Before they do, I ask them to consider nine questions.
Can there be space in your marriage for independence and fun? How will you cope alone without economic or practical support? Have you tried to work at your relationship? Are you willing to risk damaging your children, for what advantage? What would it take for you to be better understood and emotionally supported by your partner? What has changed since the time you couldn’t keep your hands off each other and could talk all night? What stops you from being able to express what you need from your partner? Do you even know what you need? And are you sure your partner can’t meet those needs, if given the chance?
Divorce isn’t a lifestyle choice, even if some people make it look glamorous
You look enviously at friends who’ve divorced and bounced on to happy new lives. In reality, there’s no bouncing. Reaching this point often takes years of sacrifice, heartache and grief. Achieving a functional relationship with their difficult ex and adapting to a more modest financial situation — which is quite likely — is tough. People don’t tend to broadcast this. From your cosy vantage point, you imagine divorce as a lifestyle choice, but often there’s little bandwidth for fun. If money is already tight, divorce won’t improve that. There will suddenly be two homes to run on the same budget, and heartbroken children to deal with. Research from Legal & General finds that on average women’s household income falls by 33 per cent after divorce, while for men it’s 18 per cent. Before you pull the plug on a relationship that may still have life in it, ask, can I afford this? Do I understand what downsizing entails? Am I prepared to take the kids out of private school? Am I really ready for my entire life to be turned upside down?
If you have children, divorce is not getting rid of your annoying partner
People fantasise that divorce will rid them of the other person they’ve grown to detest. Once you’ve embraced this dream, you absent yourself emotionally from the relationship, hastening its demise. But the fantasy is misleading because if you have children together, you’ll be co-parenting with this person for years to come. You may see less of your partner, but you’ll need to put more thought and strategic effort into your relationship.
Successful co-parenting, post-separation, means teamwork. It means never badmouthing the other, relentlessly putting your children first, attending school meetings, plays and matches together to promote a sense of stability and family. You might not have to pick up your partner’s socks any more or share a home, but you’ll still need to collaborate, compromise and maintain a united front — which is just as challenging. Regardless of any intense anger, bitterness and hurt, you must exert self-control and find a way to get along. Even if provoked, you must be the grown-up, the bigger person, able to regulate your feelings and behaviour to protect your children’s emotional lives. If you can’t, and there’s hostility, open or surreptitious, your children suffer. So take note: to do this properly and well, you won’t be waving goodbye to your ex any time soon.
At least one third of people regret divorcing
About a third of divorced couples regret ending their marriage, according to research by avvo.com, a free legal Q&A website. Some men find that they acted too hastily and miss their wife, or that their subsequent relationships also fail. This is usually because their attitude is that if something doesn’t work, rather than attempt repair, you can throw it away and buy something new. Because men are taught to be problem solvers, they believe they’ve found a solution, but you can’t problem solve emotions. So they repeat their mistakes with every partner. As we therapists say, if you haven’t done the work of understanding yourself, you don’t repair your wounds, and you will bleed all over the people that didn’t cut you.
But it’s not only men who can have a false impression of marriage. If we expect a good time all the time, we’ll be bitterly disappointed. Unreasonable expectations cause problems, as we don’t appreciate what we have, we only see what there isn’t. We express our love in different ways. One woman complained to me that her husband “never said anything nice”. Yet he showed his love by putting money in the joint account each month, coming home with flowers now and then, and organising family holidays. She took it all for granted. (“Isn’t that normal?”) One of the biggest regrets couples have is the financial consequences of divorce, cited by 24 per cent of respondents in research by the law firm Seddons and the Marriage Foundation.
Relationships are more rescuable than people think
Only one in three couples who come to my practice goes through with divorce. But how do we know if a relationship is recoverable? When I ask clients whether they believe the hurt in the marriage can be healed, often they snap back defensively, “No”. Their hurt is masked by anger or anxiety, and that fear gets in the way of communication. You can’t be honest. Once partners shared a common language, but when there’s unspoken, unhealed hurt, it’s as if one person speaks Russian and the other Chinese. Often I act as a translator, enabling couples to better understand each other and empathise, meaning that they either separate with grace, or their relationship can rise from the ashes.
Repair is possible when both are willing to hear and understand the other’s pain. They must believe their partner hasn’t intentionally hurt them — but also both must take responsibility for the hurt they’ve caused. Then, they must be prepared to make amends and do better. It’s scary, as admitting your hurt gives your partner the power to hurt you more, by reacting negatively. But someone has to take that risk. Most marriages fail because there’s a lack of intimacy, a lack of feeling safe, an inability to be vulnerable, a lack of understanding, and an inability to see the root cause of the problems. Self-reflection is key. Ask, what was my contribution in this? We’re so ready to see our partner’s faults, but rarely admit where we went wrong.
Don’t be afraid to say the unsayable
Instead of fighting over trivialities, or avoiding each other for a decade and complaining to friends, why not admit what’s really bothering you? That you feel ignored, undervalued, taken for granted, a bank in human form. It takes courage. People don’t speak up, because if their partner has a way of making them not feel good enough, it doesn’t feel safe to talk. A therapist’s presence adds safety. But couples can create safety between themselves again. It’s a delicate, risky process, but trying to talk openly without anger or fear is the way to build trust.
What if one was to say the unsayable? “You’re away a lot, and I have to be both parents, housekeeper and do my job. I want to support your career, but can you understand that I feel taken for granted, unfulfilled and alone? Our physical and intimate life suffers, and I don’t feel secure enough to initiate anything because I don’t know if you are interested. I know you think you’re giving me the best of everything, but I’d gladly give up some of that to have more of you.” If you can’t say it, write it. The aim is to start a conversation — not by airing every grudge, but by daring to show that you miss being close.
Indifference signals the end
If a couple have grown indifferent, I do start talking divorce. Trying to revive the marriage would be like waking the dead. Often people just sit there. Nothing moves them to engage. But indifference isn’t civil. It’s controlling, and anger and aggression lie beneath it. One partner is usually more cold and calm, triggering feelings of rejection in the other. It becomes competitive. Neither wants the responsibility of initiating the break-up so they’re pushing the other to take the decision. There’s little talking but the tension is like a volcano waiting to erupt. They make each other’s lives so wretched that eventually one person explodes.
Yet often they tell me, “We never fight in front of the children.” Without exception, the children know what’s going on and are miserable. The atmosphere in the home is toxic. The aim is to be seen as the innocent party by finding fault with the other, and trying to prove it’s the other’s fault. I ask, “Do you really want to continue this charade?” But what confirms it’s over for them is the question, “Is this what you want to teach your children about how adults should be in relationships?”
Don’t underestimate the time it takes to rebuild after divorce
Even if you initiate divorce it takes time to rebuild yourself. Divorce brings a sense of loss, abandonment, failure, a grief for what might have been, and all of these emotions need to be worked through. It comes with loneliness, stress, social readjustment (and friends drifting away), and a profound shift in identity. These are heavy-hitting changes and situations that affect our psyche.
Even if you have some idea of what to expect, it’s impossible to steel yourself against all of this. Depression might well be a part of divorce after the period of elation that you’re out of a bad situation. Being a single woman living with children is tough. Being a man living apart from his children is tough. Women often have to deal with the fact that often men quickly re-partner, and start second families. There can be rivalries, for love, affection, money. It’s a long, hard process, not for the faint-hearted.
If you’re separating and have children you’ll probably still need couples therapy
If divorce is the best option, couples with children must put their offspring at the centre. I strongly advise finding a skilled couples therapist who can help you to communicate and negotiate this thorny path together with mutual compassion and understanding. Crucially, the therapist makes it possible for each person to listen to and comprehend the feelings of the other, and how they felt in the relationship. This enables them to move forward and relate with more empathy. So often people don’t feel heard in their hurt which leads to enduring bitterness, and a desire to keep punishing their ex. Inevitably the children suffer most. So when I help couples whose marriages can’t be saved by facilitating a collaborative divorce, I see my role as protector of the children. You should too. Imagine that in the future you must be comfortable with your conduct, and accountable to your adult offspring.
If your partner is reluctant, say, “Please let’s try this for the sake of our children.” (And note — couples therapy is never about assigning blame.) It’s worth the expense, otherwise you’ll pay later. If you think your relationship is bad now, wait till you start fighting and being spiteful to each other through the kids. The Seddons research found that, in hindsight, 24 per cent of divorced couples would have increased communication. If people mismanage divorce, children can become withdrawn or aggressive or anxious and depressed. They try to defuse the tension, become Mummy’s little helper or Dad’s defender. They struggle with eating issues, or their school grades plummet, or they try to be perfect. They don’t feel good enough because they’ve been told once “this isn’t your fault” but never again, or parents insist “we’ll love you the same; it won’t be any different” and it’s World War Three. My mantra is: divorce happens, it doesn’t need to be war. I advocate the principle of the family with two homes.
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