The Benefits of Couples' Therapy - Even if You Get Divorced

We first sought out a couples' therapist when our daughter, now 18, was an infant. We were unhappy, our marriage lacked intimacy and we were worried about our prospects. Of course, many parents of newborns are unhappy -- they're sleep-deprived, their futures are filled with inherent uncertainty and they have little time to think about anything other than diapers, feedings and more diapers.

But we knew something deeper was amiss. We were both graduate students at the time, so we went to counseling services at our university. Our first therapist was a nice guy, and he was clearly determined to keep us together. That is not so unusual or necessarily a bad thing. We didn't present with the kinds of problems indicating a need to separate right away. There was no physical or verbal abuse, for example. We didn't hate one another, and we were not yet ready to admit that we were not in love. But when we talked about what was bothering us, our therapist had the habit of reframing our problems as less serious than we perceived them. In so doing, he committed perhaps the cardinal sin for a therapist -- trying to talk us out of our feelings. For example, when we talked about not having any sexual attraction for one another, our therapist said, "lots of people become less interested in sex as they get older." We were in our early 30s and had been married for fewer than two years. We had not lost interest in sex. But we spent more time trying to explain ourselves and then questioning his agenda than we did dealing with the real problem, which was that weren't interested in each other.
Our therapist thought we had merely lost something that had once enlivened our relationship. He gave us "exercises" designed to help us connect physically and communicate better about our wants and needs. Of course, many couples who once had a vibrant sex life become less attracted to one another over time. Or, they put physical intimacy on the back burner because of the exhausting details of everyday life, work, and parenthood. But by the time we went to therapy, we knew we didn't click in that way and perhaps never really had.

As we finished our graduate work and prepared to move, we took a break from therapy. In our new home in Maine, our daughter then two, we were more focused on settling in to new jobs and a new community. However, as the adrenaline of starting anew wore off, we were forced again to face the deficits in our relationship.


Our new therapist came highly recommended. She was an exceptional person -- a versatile professional with a direct, unsentimental New England manner. She put us on notice in our first meeting, letting us know that it made no difference to her whether we stayed together.

She also instructed us to write the story of our own individual "love histories," to be typed up and delivered at the next appointment. Our therapist immediately grasped that neither of us could be fully honest with one another in the room - we were just too afraid of hurting each other's feelings. She knew we were comfortable expressing ourselves in writing and that this assignment would save us weeks of time with her. We plunged with gusto into our respective accounts, handed them in, and waited for the verdict. At the following appointment, she shared with us her highlighter-filled observations about the recurring themes in our stories. With what we came to know as her trademark incisiveness, she reduced our histories to simple, ruthless (and spot-on) conclusions about each of us: "Anne, you've never gone for what you truly wanted, and Jonathan, you've never known what you wanted."

Obvious though this seems to us now, the extent to which her observations explained our fundamental dilemma was astonishing. For one thing, our therapist was able to take all the guilt and shame out of the question of our marital struggles. There were reasons for our problems that had nothing to do with whether we were good, decent people. Confused? Yes. Somewhat cowardly or immature with regard to owning our true feelings? Admittedly. But bad people? No.

As our therapist saw it, her job was to help us figure out what was best for each of us, whatever that was. She assured us that we would remain committed parents regardless, and that our daughter would be OK. Initially, she did work under the assumption that we would want to stay together, because that's what she thought she heard from us. As in Chapel Hill, we were tasked with intimacy-building exercises between appointments. In retrospect, it's hard to imagine a more sure-fire way of draining intimacy from a relationship than repurposing it as "homework." Needless to say, these again went nowhere.

One day our therapist asked an important question: "Why would you want to be someone somebody settled for?"

We could have protested that we had not settled, we had truly been in love. But we had no answer or protest to make: we knew it was true. We were not happy and could not remember a time when we gave each other the kind of intimate connection one needs from a lifelong romantic partner. We clung to our marriage primarily out of fear of what divorce would mean for our precious daughter -- we didn't want to ruin her life by getting divorced.

But although our daughter was still young, we feared she would become ever more aware of the disconnect between what we were saying about love and what we were living out on a day-to-day basis.

It would be disingenuous to say that we divorced "for her" -- we didn't. But we knew that staying together would not have guaranteed her happiness either. And we resolved to do everything in our power to keep our marital failure from becoming a parenting failure.

Once we recognized that, ending the marriage was the clear choice for us. And though we have had our ups and downs since, one of the true gifts of the divorce has been the way our relationship has matured.

Our therapist challenged us to develop a new paradigm for dealing with one another. "You're going to be 'related' as long as you're raising your daughter," she said. "You have the chance to have a very good post-divorce relationship. The bomb that is at the center of all relationships -- the relationship's ending -- has been diffused. You don't have to be afraid of that anymore. You can be honest with one another, you can face disagreements without worrying that the other one will leave you. You have the chance to have a much deeper -- in some ways, a more intimate -- relationship now."

We both felt deep guilt about what this would mean for our daughter, but we both knew it was also the right decision. Our therapist didn't direct us to that decision. Instead, she showed us how owning our own feelings and our pasts, rather than blaming the other, would allow us to build stronger relationships with one another, and with others. Our daughter, on the cusp of college, has turned out OK. And we've managed to establish a healthy, supportive parenting partnership.

Couples therapy didn't keep us married. But it certainly "worked."

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Getting Divorced After 60

By Ruth Alexander BBC News

The number of people divorcing in later life has been increasing at a time when divorce rates overall have been falling. What's behind the phenomenon of the "silver splitters"?

"When I proposed to her, I almost straight away regretted having done that."

But the engagement was announced on the front page of his local paper and Peter felt he couldn't back out. "I was weak-willed at the time," he says.

Peter married in 1967. Thirty-six years later, at the age of 64, he did back out.

"I just bundled what I could into the car and went. I do remember her standing on the doorstep. And I did feel sorry - even guilty - then that I was hurting her, really."

It's the kind of private moment of pain that's part of a national trend.

Divorce among people aged 60 and over in England and Wales has risen since the 1990s, according to the Office of National Statistics - while among the rest of the population, it has fallen (with a slight rise in 2012).

In 2011, nearly 9,500 men in this age group divorced - an increase of almost three-quarters compared with 20 years earlier. The trend for women is similar. And it's not just because there are more older people now.

The catalyst for Peter was a relationship he started with his piano partner, Anne. Practising duets for the church choir, they fell in love.

"We are good friends, and that's something I didn't have with my first husband," says Anne, who ended her first marriage when she was in her 50s. "And we can laugh when things go wrong."

Research suggests a big driver of the increase in "silver splitters" is increasing life expectancy.

And people want more from their retirement, according to solicitor Karin Walker, of law firm KGW Family Law in Woking and the family law association, Resolution.

"People are looking very much at the latter third of their life and what they want to do with it," she says.

"Certainly clients I've had say they want to take up a pastime they've not done before - perhaps cycling or travelling. And very often their spouse isn't keen to participate in that, and that can cause friction and a parting of ways."

Age gaps can put marriages under strain in later life, according to Barbara Bloomfield, a counsellor for Relate in Bristol and the counselling supervisor at Relate Cymru.

"Let's say there's a 10-year age gap. Ten years is nothing, it's flattering, when you're 20 and 30. When you're 70 and 80 it's a totally different thing," she says.

"And I think often where there's an age gap the younger party can think: 'Oh my goodness, the rest of my life is going to be spent looking after him or her.'

Another factor is wealth. The baby boomers tend to have good pensions. Their property's worth a lot. They can more afford to divorce in retirement than people used to be able to.

"From the point of view of wives as well, where hitherto the wife really couldn't find herself in a position to leave home - those first 24 hours where she didn't know where to stay, didn't have any money to pay for a hotel - it all became rather daunting," says Walker, "whereas now women are much more financially independent and are much better able to take control of their lives."

David, not his real name, was 70 when his wife of the same age packed a bag and left.

"You go through phases - anger, you go through regret, you feel discarded as a husband, you feel you perhaps should have done a bit more and talked, but it takes two to talk and that didn't happen."

He believes the suicide of their son, a number of years earlier, and episodes of ill health may have taken their toll on the relationship.

"She'd been unhappy for years and I hadn't noticed, and therefore she wanted to have financial independence - a clean break, and go and live on her own."

Walker says divorcing in your 60s or 70s can create more discord in families than if it had happened earlier in the marriage. She thinks children can take it worse when they're adults.

"I worry about loneliness," says Dame Esther Rantzen, the founder of Silver Line, the helpline for older people.

She suspects this is an issue causing more pain to older divorcees than may be apparent.

"When they're taking this big step, they may be losing more than they realise. They may also be losing contact with their children, because divorce often means people side with one parent or another.

"And in all this, I think there is certain amount of stigma. They feel ashamed that that sacred pledge they made those years ago they haven't fulfilled. They're not staying together 'til death us do part' and this may mean they're ashamed to ask for help. Let's discuss it, and say this is one of the things that happen when you get older."

Peter is happy with his new life with Anne, whom he married in 2011, when he was 72. But his divorce came at a cost. Relations with some of his family are now tricky.

"If somebody came to me now, before they'd left their wife, asking what they should do I think my answer would be see if you can make it work, in other words don't do what I did."

Why?

"Because of the hurt."

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Bishops crack open door on divorce

But meeting fudges key issues of Catholic Church's approach to sex, love, marriage

VATICAN CITY • Catholic bishops have wrapped up a divisive synod by approving a compromise report reflecting a stalemate in the battle between the Church's conservative and liberal wings over its approach to sex, love and marriage.

The document, which Pope Francis is free to ignore or implement as he sees fit, fudges the key issue of whether divorced and remarried believers should be allowed to play a full role in the Church.

And it confirms the pullback from the more explicit opening to lesbian and gay believers supported by progressives when the review of teaching on the family was launched last year.

But it also leaves Pope Francis with room for manoeuvre should he wish to defy his conservative opponents and push on with his attempt to make the Church more relevant and more welcoming towards believers who find themselves in breach of its rules.

Pope Francis, who recognised in closing remarks that the three-week synod had exposed deep divisions in the Catholic family, now has to decide on which way to go, if and when he updates guidelines on Catholic teaching.

The text, approved last Saturday, advocates a "case-by-case" approach to the most controversial question, the handling of divorced and remarried believers, saying they need to play a greater role in the Church, but stopping short of explicitly ending the current ban on their receiving communion.
People in this situation need to be treated with discernment, allowed to play a greater role in the Church and not made to feel as if they have been excommunicated, the document states.

Underlining how controversial this section of the text was, the paragraphs related to divorced and remarried believers just scraped the required two-thirds of synod votes to gain approval.

The document includes only one brief article on the Church's approach to gay believers, framing the question in terms of how priests can help support families who have "persons with homosexual tendencies" in their midst.

It reiterates that the Church believes every person, regardless of their sexuality, is worthy of respect and a reception which takes care to "avoid every sign of unjust discrimination".

But it strongly reiterates the Church's opposition to gay marriage, saying: "There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and the family."

The emphasis contrasted sharply with first drafts last year which spoke of recognising the value of loving same-sex relationships, to the outrage of those opposed to any dilution of Church teaching that homosexuality amounts to a kind of disorder.

In closing remarks, Pope Francis said the synod had been about confronting "today's realities" without "burying our heads in the sand".

He said the divisions that had emerged reflected important cultural differences which the Church should embrace in the way it applies its teaching - an ambiguous comment that will concern conservatives.

"We have also seen that what seems normal for a bishop on one continent is considered strange and almost scandalous for a bishop from another," he said.

Pope Francis, 78, also appeared to take a new swipe at the conservatives who had accused him of rigging the synod's organisation to try to engineer progressive conclusions.

"The different opinions which were freely expressed - and at times, unfortunately, not in entirely well-meaning ways - certainly led to a rich and lively dialogue," he said.

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Creatively Channeling the Pain of Divorce

by Joanna Brown 

From The North Shore Weekend newspaperContrary to the stereotype of the strong silent type, Evanston resident John Frank has LOTS to say about divorce. His two-act play, which will be staged two weekends in November, is the tip of the iceberg.

“Men don’t talk about how they feel; they just kind of soldier on and people around them think, ‘oh, he’ll be fine.’ But there is, in fact, a lot of pain that men don’t talk about,” said Frank, who divorced after 16 years of marriage to his first wife. “For example, only seeing your kids every other weekend is a terrible way to live. I have no trouble talking about that.”

And so it was that he wrote Boys in the Basement, described as “a unique look at divorce from the perspective of men who have lost their families and everything they once held dear.” It is inspired by the network Frank developed over the years after his divorce.

“In the suburbs, a divorced man is kind of a non-person. I created a network of divorced men friends, as we were all sort of stuck in limbo,” he said.

Frank explained to me that the script tells the story of the tenants in an apartment building – efficiency apartments, that is, located close to several of the tenant’s children and therefore the tenants’ ex-wives – who meet nightly in the basement of their building to share stories over beers.

Among the tenants Frank described there is a player, who is twice divorced; a younger guy who is working up the courage to talk to women; an attorney (played by Frank) who is having an affair with his second ex-wife, though she has gone back to her first husband; a new tenant, who thinks he still has a chance to reconcile with his ex-wife; and the landlord, a still-married guy who flaunts to his tenants that he knows what it takes to be successful in marriage.

(There are a few women in the building, too, who cross paths with the gentlemen throughout the play.)

“It’s about the fine line between love and hate,” Frank said of his play, “how quickly love turns to hate, and how men deal with loss. In many ways divorce is like death, as it changes your dreams and your life so quickly.”

Frank purposefully recruited a female director, Mary Reynard, to counter the male perspective from which he wrote the script. But he is firm: the play will wake audience members up to the man’s mindset during and after a divorce.

“I want people to think about how the other person feels when they’re fighting and finding ways to separate themselves. I want people to think about how traumatic divorce can be and yet how people can go on, and whether there can still be true love.”

Frank believes in it – heck, he remarried in 2007 – but he admits that it’s hard.

“We’re still people and we still have feelings. Some will change and some will never change, but that’s just how life is.”

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New Law Eases Path to Divorce for Many Couples

Michael DresserContact ReporterThe Baltimore Sun

 

A new law will eliminate Maryland's one-year wait for some who want to divorce.

 

When spouses in Maryland agree to split up and amicably hammer out a separation agreement, state law still makes them wait a year to file for divorce.

That will change Thursday — at least for some couples — when a new law eliminates the waiting period for those without minor children who mutually consent to divorce and agree on a property split. Couples with children will still have to live apart for a year before they can file, even if they have resolved custody and support issues.

The change is the result of legislation sponsored by Sen. Robert A. Zirkin and passed in April by the General Assembly. Zirkin, a Baltimore County Democrat, said the measure will help thousands of Marylanders to move on with their lives.

Lindsay Parvis, a Montgomery County attorney who co-chairs the Maryland State Bar Association's section on family law, called the change "a huge development."

She said it will be a relief for many people to know they can move forward "rather than a law telling them they have to wait 12 months."

The current law starts the one-year clock on the day one spouse moves out of the common home. If the two later stay under the same roof for even a night, the clock resets to Day One.

New state laws to help Marylanders clear arrest records

 

Parvis said the law will get the courts out of the business of asking eligible couples about that aspect of their lives.

Del. Kathleen Dumais, a family lawyer and vice chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said clients come to her with settlement agreements and are shocked to learn they have to wait a year.
"They just look at me like I've lost my mind," said Dumais, a Montgomery County Democrat. "It just seems so crazy."

There are exceptions to the waiting period in current law for cases in which a spouse has committed adultery or been abusive. Lawyers point to cases where couples didn't want to raise adultery charges in an uncontested divorce, but did so to avoid the waiting period. In other cases, spouses accuse themselves of adultery to expedite a ruling.

Dumais, who helped steer the legislation through the House, said some delegates were concerned that Zirkin's original bill did not include enough protections against one spouse taking advantage of the other. She said the House committee added an amendment excluding parents of minor children from expedited divorce and another requiring that both spouses attend the court hearing in person.

Currently only one spouse has to attend the hearing on an uncontested divorce.

The House passed the bill 104-34, with most Republicans opposed. The Senate, which earlier passed the bill 40-7, accepted the House changes and Gov. Larry Hogan signed the bill.

Lawmakers acted after hearing stories such as that of Rachel London and William Atwell.

In joint written testimony, London and Atwell told senators that after deciding in June 2011 that they no longer wanted to be married, they quickly reached agreement on a property split and the support and custody of their 4-year-old son. But because neither could afford to leave their Anne Arundel County home immediately, they lived under the same roof in separate bedrooms until Atwell could move out in October of that year.

It wasn't until a year later they could file for divorce, which was granted in November 2012.
"Allowing us to file for absolute divorce when we were ready more than a year before would have decreased the stress, burden and uncertainty," they wrote.

Under the new law, a couple in their position still would not be eligible for a quick divorce because a child was involved. But Dumais said the legislation nonetheless represents meaningful change.
"What I find in family law is that baby steps are important," she said.

Zirkin, who said divorce law is a small part of his practice, said he hopes the legislation will encourage separating couples to reach agreements.

"It creates an incentive for people to work it out," he said. "Because the last thing you want in a divorce is people fighting over every last thing."

And if couples aren't fighting it out, that could save them on legal fees, Zirkin said.

"If this bill works the way it should ... it's a bad thing for divorce lawyers — which is a good thing," he said.

Sen. Michael Hough, a Frederick County Republican, said the amendments made the bill less objectionable, but he still is opposed.

"Right now there's a cooling-off period that's in the law," he said. "I just don't want to make it so you can get a next-day divorce, and that's where the law is headed."

The bill was one of several that passed this year removing obstacles to divorce. Another that becomes law this week shortens to six months, rather than a year, the time someone must live in Maryland to file for divorce here — an issue important for military families who move frequently.

Zirkin said such changes are part of a broader re-examination of Maryland's approach to divorce.
"We have a lot of remnants of very old common law and very old statutes," said Zirkin, who chairs the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. "This is not the end in terms of modernizing our law."
Other new laws

These are among new Maryland laws effective Thursday:
Rape kits: Requires police agencies to report backlogs of untested rape kits to state.
Mental health: Requires Baltimore and county police to create units by next Oct. 1 trained to deal with mentally ill people.
Police review: Expands mission and changes membership of Baltimore's civilian review board.
Public information: Creates new compliance board with authority to enforce public records law.
Speed limits: Allows state highway officials to set speed limits up to 70 mph.
Human trafficking: Allows someone charged with prostitution to use as a defense being a victim of human trafficking.
 mdresser@baltsun.com

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Study looks at why women are more likely to initiate divorce

By Yanan Wang

Sunday, Sept. 13, 2015, 9:00 p.m.

 

Expectations for a spouse are much higher than they used to be. 

For most of Western history, marriage had little equality. Wives bore the brunt of child care and housework, depended on their husbands for financial support and enjoyed little social autonomy while men openly had affairs. 

Fast-forward to the age of rom-coms, Valentine's Day and a $50 billion wedding industry. It's all based on finding, marrying and keeping “The One.” 

“Today, Americans want not only a spouse who is reliable and reasonable, but also someone who is their best friend, and a great lover, and someone who pays the bills ... but is also really fun,” said Stanford sociologist Michael Rosenfeld. 

According to research that Rosenfeld recently presented at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting, these heightened expectations can leave women feeling worse off in marriage than men. In a survey of 2,262 adults in heterosexual partnerships over the course of five years, Rosenfeld found that women initiate divorces 69 percent of the time. 

On the whole, they also reported less satisfaction with their marriages than men. 

Scientists have known for decades that wives are usually the ones asking for a divorce. But Rosenfeld's study also surveyed people in nonmarital romantic relationships, from casual flings to couples who had lived together for several years; in those relationships, women and men initiated breakups at equal rates. So, there's something about marriage that makes it harder on women.

“The expectation is that marriage has a whole bunch of benefits and positive characteristics for women that it didn't have in the past, but the truth is much trickier than that,” Rosenfeld said.

Though he stressed that most women surveyed were happy with their marriages, many of those who weren't cited controlling husbands and a loss of independence as causes of discontent. 

He also speculated that, although most men today espouse egalitarian values, many probably still harbor subconscious expectations of a wife's traditional role in the household. This could explain why, after all these years, women still shoulder twice as many domestic responsibilities as men. (In contrast, studies have shown that couples who equally divide their child-care duties have better sex lives.) 

Rosenfeld's survey checked in with the same individuals every year for five years. In cases in which someone was married the first year of the study and divorced in the last, his team was able to gather details in the breakup's immediate aftermath. 

One woman, who was 23 when the study began in 2009, initially reported a “good” (4 out of 5 points on the satisfaction scale) relationship with her husband-to-be: “He is very clever, fun, and sweet. I respect him and feel like we are equals on values, intellect and humor.” 

She noted, however, “It is not ‘excellent' because I wish that he was more romantic. He's very practical.” 

Four years later, the couple got divorced. In early 2015, she said, “I used to be a very happy, optimistic person, and it was like he was slowly starving my soul.” 

She realized that the relationship had become emotionally abusive and promptly filed for a divorce.

Rosenfeld said respondents' stories had echoes of “The Feminine Mystique,” Betty Friedan's feminist treatise about unhappiness among middle-class housewives. Instead, many of today's disgruntled wives have full-time jobs — and, hence, no practical need for husbands who don't make them happy.

So, while the institution of marriage hasn't completely shed its inequitable roots, women can afford to be a lot choosier. 

Yanan Wang is a staff writer for The Washington Post.

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How Your Spouse's Ashley Madison Account Can Impact Your Divorce

Emma Johnson

Now that hackers leaked the email addresses of 37 million users of Ashley Madison, the dating service for married people in search of an affair, New York City divorce lawyer Morghan Richardson’s “phone lit up like a Christmas tree,” she says.

“People are struggling to deal with how this information may impact their divorce and their life — if at all,” says Richardson.

Here is how catching a cheating spouse can affect your split:

1. Power. “I often hear from the wronged spouse: ‘I knew he was cheating! Now that I have proof I can get the house, the kids, the …’” says Richardson. The reality is that most states have no-fault divorce laws. That means that a judge doesn’t care why you are splitting up. Their job is to make sure that the money is split fairly and custody and visitation are in the best interest of the kids. In cases of infidelity, the “wronged” spouse is so hurt and angry, they assume that a judge will take that into consideration. They won’t.  On the other hand, it is common that the cheating spouse will feel so guilty, or won’t want the divorce, or be afraid of losing face to friends and family that they concede to their husband or wife’s demands.  Guilt is a powerful negotiating tool in divorce.

2.  Finances. Again, just because they were cheating doesn’t mean you get more than your share of money money. Divorce, technically, is not about reparations. However, document through credit card and bank statements how much money he spent on the site, and if he was successful, how much he spent having the affair (hotel rooms, gifts, dinners, etc.). This spending is called “marital waste,” which can be recaptured during the divorce proceedings. If he bought her a Cartier watch with marital money, he better be prepared to pony up at least half the cost.

3. Custody. “My husband listed a number of ‘unconventional’ sex preferences. How can I use this in my custody fight?” For the most part, what happens in the bedroom is not for the eyes of children — 0r the ears of the court. Your husband’s 50 Shades of Grey disclosure on his Ashley Madison profile is not likely to be equated with bad parenting. Of course, most custody fights are about character assassination and depending on the preferences listed, his BDSM admissions may help tilt the legal scales in your favor.

4. Settlement. “My wife is really angry. I was just curious when I signed up. I don’t want a divorce.” Again, judges don’t care, and courts have no interest in making couples stay married. Your wife can get a divorce if she wants, period. Second, don’t let your guilt or desire to “win her back” force you into a divorce settlement that is not in your favor. Giving her the sun and the moon now will lead to impossible to pay for deals that crush you. Finally, think about getting your own therapist to cope with the process, and your own guilt. You are far from alone in your infidelity (studies of American couples show 20 to 40 percent of straight married men will have an affair), though you may be finding yourself alone in trying to save this relationship.

5. Legal Fees. While infidelity doesn’t contribute to the legal process of divorce, the discovery of an affair nearly always skyrockets the emotional hurt. And when people are angry, they need to fight. And fighting in divorce means higher legal fees. If a husband wants to try to punish his unfaithful wife through a contentious divorce and driving up her legal fees, hopefully it won’t take him long to realize he’s punishing himself by racking up the same costly fees with his lawyer.

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