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separated
ok - you are
separated - or maybe thinking about separating from your
spouse. now what?
and does this
necessarily mean that your marriage is over?
perhaps,
surprisingly, the answer to that last question is "no."
in fact, according to a recent report published in the
"journal of marriage and the family," approximately five
million couples, or 10% of all currently married couples in
the united states, have experienced a separation and
reconciliation in their marriage.
those five
million couples used the period of time of their separation
to cool down, think things over, gain some perspective, and
find some resources that allowed them to put their marriages
back together again. many of them used that time as a
chance to do some real learning - learning about themselves,
about relationships in general, and about what went wrong in
their own relationship.
personal
note: at about the 14 year point in our marriage,
carol & I separated. she took our daughter and went
back to live with her parents. this lasted three weeks
and gave me (dick) a chance to gain the perspective that I
really wanted to stay married. talking to a co-worker
helped me to realize that I enjoyed carol's companionship
and enjoyed watching my daughter grow up. I took the
initiative and called carol and told her I wanted her back
and wanted to reconcile our differences.
during that
three weeks, carol had an initial consultation with a
divorce lawyer. she said the lawyer asdked her to
start making a list of our possessions, and kept saying, "we
will take this from him. we will take that from him."
carol went home from the consultation saying to herself, "I
wouldn't do this to my worst enemy." it was at that
point she decided that she did not want to divorce.
after my phone call, carol's brother encouraged her to
return home an reconcile our differences.
reconciling
was not easy and it was not quick. we loved each other
and were committed to making the relationship work, but we
lacked the tools we needed to make it happen. unknown
to us at the time, we needed communication tools and
conflict resolution tools, and to understand each other's
personality/temperament. resources that we have listed
on this website provided the tools to do the job.
for me(dick),
the tools that helped the most were
-
florence
littauer's personality plus - this helped me understand that
I needed to quit trying to change carol to make her more
like me.
-
marriage
encounter dialogue - this technique helped me to get my side
of the story out on the table, and for the first time I felt
that carol really listened and understood my side of the
issue(s).
we have now
been married 37 years. if hardheads like carol & I can
succeed, we are convinced that you can succeed too.
here is our
first piece of advice for you in separation. use this
time to stop fighting with your spouse. stop fighting
and stop deliberately trying to hurt each other. call
a cease fire, and you, the one who is reading this, you be
the one to go first.
why? very
simple, actually. your marriage is at a very critical
junction right now, and at some point you and your spouse
are going to have to make a very important decision, one
that is going to impact you and your children (if you have
children) for the rest of your and their lives - namely, are
you going to try to put this relationship back together
again or are you going to get a divorce. and the more
calm you each are when that critical decision is made, the
more likely you are going to be to make the right decision
for all of you.
our second
piece of advice is that if you think divorce is even a
possibility for you, that you call 1-800-489-7778 and order
the video and workbook entitled "choosing wisely-before you
divorce." most people who divorce have no idea what
getting divorced really means. this set will allow you
to make a much more informed decision than you would
otherwise make. the cost of the set is only $60.00,
which is miniscule compared to the magnitude of the decision
you are now facing.
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