When to think about divorcing your spouse?

Since this blog started, there have been around 300 comments, and most of these comments have been people stating that they are "so miserable", but still "want to make it work".This is NOT how a relationship should be, and maybe you should consider getting a divorce. You might be thinking "what?? a divorce? It's not serious, I can deal with it." right? My question to you is why do you think divorce is a bad thing for you? Divorce is almost always a good thing for you, maybe a good thing for your children as well in the long run

Why is divorce a good thing?

1. There has been zero happy relationships that have been ended because of a divorce.That's the truth. I don't think there are any truly happy relationships that have been ended by a divorce. A divorce is a good thing because if you are thinking of one, you are most probably in an awful relationship with a partner who refuses to change.

2. Raising children in an unhappy marriage will affect them negatively a lot more than raising children as a single parent. I know alot of single moms and single dads whose children grow up happy and live "normal" lives. I don't know a single child who grew up happy living under a roof where their parents are constantly fighting and yelling at each other. It's abusive to you and your children if you keep living a miserable life. The key to being happy in a relationship, or life even, is not being miserable and having to live with something you don't have to.

3. It is very liberating. Especially if you had to sacrifice to keep a relationship going, while your spouse never reciprocated. After a divorce you can just focus on you, or you and your kids if you have any. It's not the end of the world, it's just the end of a bad relationship. No more having to blame yourself, no more having to put up with things you were forced to put up with. It's just you focusing on you and how to improve the quality of your life.


Here's a few scenarios where you SHOULD consider ending your relationship with a nice quick divorce.

1. You caught your spouse cheating. They promised to do this and that, but when it comes time do what they said, you get little to no action. If your spouse has even the tiniest bit of respect for you and values your relationship, they'd at least bother to go to marriage counseling with you at least ONCE.

2. Your spouse is overly flirts and you confronted them about it. They repeatedly shrug it off and say "it's nothing", even though it is against marriage and a disrespect to you as a person when they flirt with someone else. If your spouse refuses to even consider talking about this, then you can be sure if an opportunity to have an emotional affair rears itself, your spouse will most likely take it. Overly flirting and undermining YOUR needs and the boundaries of your marriage is a sign that your relationship maybe on the rocks. Especially if this is the first time you've had your relationship "tested" and a compromise needed to be made.

3. You are sick of being lied to. Getting lied to a couple of times, maybe you could look passed that. Getting lied to for years, I say divorce your spouse. To quote possibly the most intelligent man who has ever lived on the planet Earth, "Insanity : doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."- Albert Einstein


Just remember that if it feels like you're forcing it to work, you probably are. It won't last if you're the only one trying to save your marriage.

Save Your Marriage or Ditch it?

When should you consider ending or saving your marriage?

Let's face it, even if you love your spouse with all your heart, you should accept the possibility that you have fallen for the wrong person. It's pointless thinking "how can I save my marriage" over and over and over if your spouse is unwilling. Even if you unconditionally love your husband or wife, if they don't want to be with you there is no way to keep them, and you'll have to accept that. That's as blunt as I can put it, a partnership is only a partnership if both people want it to be a partnership. All the love in the world won't save your marriage if it's coming from only one person in the relationship.

Don't even read any further if you feel that your spouse is not cooperative, has no will to save your marriage, or you simply feel they do not care one iota about what is happening to you and your family. Just look for a divorce lawyer and save yourself a lot of wasted time and energy crying over nothing. I say nothing because there really is nothing about it that you can do. Don't want to snap out of your delusional bubble just because I said so? Go and take a look at the country's(for America at least) divorce rate. If your spouse doesn't want you, go right ahead and leave him/her. They probably never deserved you in the first place anyway. Save your unconditional love for someone worth it.

According to an article in Time Magazine, Jennifer Baker, director of the marriage- and family-therapy programs at Forest Institute, says that the divorce rate is a tricky statistic, and said that the 50% of all marriages statistic is not accurate at all.

Here's some interesting statistics taken from divorce experts on the Time article :

"23% of college graduates who married in the '70s split within 10 years."

"49% of those who married young and did so without a degree lasted 20 years."

I'm sure those statistics did not care to include how many spouses were in "forced relationships", or who just didn't want to end the relationship no matter how unhappy they were. I'm not trying to be mean, but think about how much happier you would be in a relationship where both of you love each other. If you're the only one giving love that is not a real marriage and you should stop trying to save your marriage, and just end it.

"My spouse cheated on me, can we still save our marriage?"
That would depend on your husband or wife, are they willing to work on saving your marriage? Do they accept what YOU want to do to save your marriage? Are they compromising, accepting, or making excuses for cheating on you?

A sign that you can still save your marriage is that your spouse is agreeing with you when you say you want to go to marriage counseling. Your husband or wife should agree to anything you say to help steer the direction of your marriage towards repairing trust. Marriage counseling is what you need, aside from being honest with each other. For some people who can't afford to pay for marriage counseling, I suggest saving up for it. Even just a few sessions of marriage counseling. I can't give you a price because it differs from area to area, but if you are seriously wanting to save your relationship and avoid divorce, go to Google.com and search "Marriage counseling *your city*".


Alternatives to Marriage counseling
We live in the age of the internet, so you probably have thought of looking up online marriage counseling. If you haven't yet, those do exist. Some call it "telecounseling", it's usually for people who do not want to be seen at a "shrink", or just people who are strapped for cash. It's a cheaper, private alternative for marriage counseling. What I can recommend is you try out this eCourse on saving your marriage, by Dr Gunzburz. It's alot cheaper than going to an actual marriage counseling course in real life.

If you are not going to take this ecourse seriously, don't bother signing up. Just drag your spouse to a marriage counselor when you can afford to (which you also need to treat seriously). It's still worth taking a look at the testimonials from couples they have helped. The course is called "Save My Marriage Today" by Amy Waterman, and the link above is the "Blue Print For Saving Your Marriage" by Dr. Gunzburg.

I recommend Dr. Gunzburg because they also offer one on one online coaching sessions, and both their courses, save your marriage and how to survive an affair, are focused on the individual and then the couple; so each of you will get your own assignments and workbook that you will need to complete.

On the other hand, if you chose to ditch your marriage instead of save it, stay tuned for the divorce article with tips on how to do your own divorce and how not to lose your possessions in a bad divorce.

How to save your marriage

1. Marriage counseling - You need to drop your pre-defined notion of what people do in marriage counseling and just go. These are professionals who will help save your marriage. There are also other courses, for divorced people who want to make sure their kids get the best support before, during and after a divorce. For alternatives to this method, see the above links for the online marriage counseling courses.

2. Couples retreat - Same as marriage counseling but you dedicate a whole week, or more sometimes, to get away from it all and go to a place that will destress you both. I'd recommend this much more than just finding a local marriage counselor because in normal marriage counseling, you just head on over to your local marriage counselor, finish your session, or group session if you opted for that, then head on back home. In a regular troubled marriage, it is very stressful in the house and there is lots of tension, especially after a bout with infidelity. In a couples retreat, it's a long period of time where you get to spend AND enjoy time with your loved one. The benefits far outweigh the price couples retreats have over regular counseling. It also makes for a good "surprise gift" if your relationship is in the dumps, but not yet to the point you both are thinking of ending it.

3. Compromise and Planning - Set aside a day for the sole purpose of compromise and planning. Take a day off from work if you have to. This is important and you should treat it as important. This is something you can do as a couple with no help from a professional marriage counselor. List down the things that are causing problems in your relationship and thoroughly discuss it. You should each give a reason why it is causing problems, and what you are willing to do. When my husband and I were having problems, we did this right before going to a couples retreat, which we also again did there.

What I wanted a compromise for was his boundaries with the opposite sex, because he had one workmate who was flirting with him and was getting touchy. I told him that he should not allow other women to be touchy with him, same thing I do and not allow any other man but him to be touchy with me. I told him it makes me feel jealous and he should only allow that with me, his wife. He said he didn't even consider it hurtful and he didn't know I got jealous, and he agreed. It was that simple to get rid of flirting. They're still friends up to now, but there's just no more flirty-touching going on. The reason we went to couples retreat was because we wanted to strengthen our relationship, not exactly save it because we are doing fine. In the retreat we learned to appreciate one another more and made a plan on how to deal with little insecurities that usually end up in small fights.

Unfortunately for my first marriage, my then husband was unwilling to change ANYTHING, and I was unwilling to accept being a doormat and changing everything for him. I divorced my first husband, and my husband now (Mike), understands how I feel more than anyone else because he too was a victim of infidelity. Although we from time to time have problems, it's nothing we can't fix, and ultimately we are both very happy together.

4. Honesty - It's as simple as that. Just be honest with each other. If you have trust issues because you have been cheated on, you will HAVE to open up again and trust your spouse. Slowly, but surely trust in your spouse. A marriage counselor will help quicken this development, but it will still be up to you whether you believe your spouse can be trusted again or not.

No amount of counseling or retreats will convince someone who doesn't want to believe their spouse is capable of change. For those people, you should think about getting a divorce. Don't look at divorce as something negative. If you are MISERABLE in your relationship, divorce is a GOOD thing.

Got caught cheating on your spouse, now what?

So you got caught(serves you right), and now you're thinking s/he is always going to think I'm a cheating husband/wife, what can I do to gain their trust back? Here are some things you should know if you want to genuinely save your marriage and repair the broken trust. And of course never cheat again.

Common things cheating spouses say or do after they get caught :

I love you. Sure it's sweet when you say it when YOU DON'T CHEAT, but it's just not going to cut it after you cheat on your spouse. You might even incite a meltdown or get your spouse to yell at you for saying that after you did the opposite of what a lover does. Don't do this.

It's not that I X it's because you think Y. NEVER EVER try to convince, argue or talk your way out of an affair. Your husband or wife will never change their feelings on what happened, especially if they caught you with evidence from a cellphone spy, or video cam. You'd have to be extremely dense to even attempt to do this after you got caught cheating.

Be over the top. Try to imply your spouse is exaggerating what happened, it was just sex I don't love her, or it was nothing you're being too sensitive about this, I didn't cheat on you, we just used the phone. Do this and you will most likely never get his or her trust back.

Overly Pessimistic. If you get caught cheating and you act overly pessimistic and think you will never gain her trust back and save your marriage, you will never gain your trust back and save your marriage. You are at fault, and you have to earn her trust back. Don't act like this, and you will eventually gain it back.

Blaming your spouse. Probably the most common of all the after affair responses, the blame game. Hasn't work, will never work, don't even try it.

Acting depressed and threatening suicide. May work for a short period of time, but not because you fixed the consequences of your affair, but because you guilted him/her into staying with you. What are you going to do when your spouse stay with you until you are better, then leaves you after that, threaten to suicide again? That won't work, don't be pathetic and do this. Suicide is cowards.

Involving relatives to help persuade your spouse. No. Just don't do this. You shouldn't try to persuade your spouse that everything is okay even if you cheated, which makes involving relatives to help persuade them even more a wrong move. You may even get your spouse to leave the house. You are just asking for a divorce.


Lies. "I really won't cheat on you anymore" "This is the last time I do X and I won't even talk to Y anymore". This is just wrong, do not do this. Anyone who has been cheated on knows that your words won't mean anything until you gain trust back. How do you gain trust back? Actions, not words. You can sweet talk your husband or wife all you want, if you don't show improvements in action you aren't going to see improvements in trust.

Believing everything will be okay. You go to church, confess your sins, and then think everything will magically be alright when you get home. Sorry, god won't do anything for you. It's like people praying for a car, or a new house, or more money. Just won't work.

Bribing your spouse. You start buying your spouse things, you start doing things for your spouse you don't normally do, you say you'll do anything to make it up. Not going to work. If your spouse tells you to go to marriage counseling with her, you better go. That's a positive step, but just buying your wife/husband new things won't do anything.


Those are the things to avoid doing after you've cheated on your loved one, now here are some things that will actually help :


Accept that YOU were wrong. If you've been cheated on by your husband or wife, you know how painful it feels. Blaming them will cause them even more pain. When your spouse is so depressed and they feel like there's nothing else BUT depression, they will do what any human would do, cut you out of their lives. So don't blame them.

Accept what they want to do. If your spouse loves you enough to stay with you after you have betrayed their trust, accept what they want you to do. You shouldn't haggle or beg, accept. They want you to come home at 7PM, accept that and do it. They want you to attend marriage counselling with them once a week? Accept that. They want you to send them a text message once in a while whenever you have free time? Do it, I don't see why you wouldn't want to talk to your spouse, you did marry that person.

Tell your wife or husband what caused the affair. Sometimes this can be something as simple as that. You were not getting X so you went to Y to get X. After telling your spouse this, DO NOT FORCE YOUR SPOUSE to do it, find a compromise. If you can't find a compromise, wait it out and try again. You should know that someone who has been cheated feels very vulnerable, depressed, and USED. So let him or her come to terms with the affair you had, and s/he'll most likely want to find even ground.

Act happy. Yes, even if you aren't. When s/he makes you do something, do it and act happy. Don't feel like you are forced to do any of it, and do it like it was your idea and you want to do it. If you accept everything she wants to do, but do it in a manner that implies you hate doing it, you may as well get a divorce and save both of you the time.


Are you willing to do all of these? Or do you want to get a divorce? You should think about that because cheating on someone twice, or staying with them til you can find someone better is just cruel and a waste of time for your spouse.

If you are serious about wanting to save your marriage, you might want to read this book or even enroll at an online course. You could also contact a local marriage counselor by googling "marriage counseling *your location*". Nothing says you are serious about saving your marriage more than actions. Reading a book on how to save your marriage, enrolling in a course, or telling your spouse you were wrong and want to take her to a local marriage counselor is one of the best ways to make up for having an affair.