This is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships

by Matthew Fray

The conditions that end marriages and keep the divorce rate sky-high are the results of unremarkable, everyday behaviors. Behaviors most people perceive to be so ordinary and inconsequential that they don’t know to be afraid of them, how to avoid them, how to discuss them effectively, or how to repair the damage caused by them (often because at least one of us spends most of our energy denying anything’s wrong in the first place).

A relationship absent trust doesn’t feel safe because relationships without trust are unsustainable. People require safety. We need safety to function, else we focus time and effort on trying to eliminate the threat or flee to safety.

Sometimes we don’t tell the truth—not to be gross and deceptive in a con-artisty way—but maybe to avoid advertising the shame we’re trying to hide or to politely spare the people we love from our baggage.

their research concluded that divorce is the No. 2 most-stressful life event a person can experience, ahead of things like going to prison, the death of a parent or child, and losing a body part in a horrific accident.

Is divorce or a long-term breakup really THAT bad? Maybe not for everyone. But my divorce was for me. Maybe I was hypersensitive because of my parents’ divorce.

The circumstances and behaviors that destroy romantic love, erode trust, poison our emotional health, and unknowingly trigger the Countdown to Divorce time bombs in our marriages are often disguised as harmless, innocent, everyday behaviors.

I always reasoned, “If you just tell me what you want me to do, I’ll gladly do it.” But my wife didn’t want to be my mother. She wanted to be my adult partner, and she wanted me to apply all of my intelligence and learning capabilities to the logistics of managing our lives and household.

The problems we have in our romantic relationships and marriages are not the results of a bunch of bad people doing a bunch of bad things and trying to hurt one another on purpose. The problem is that there are a bunch of decent and well-intentioned people legitimately unaware that something they’re doing or saying (or perhaps something they’re not doing or saying) is hurting their partner.

unintentional pain and unintentional trust betrayals will end your relationship as surely as intentional ones will, only slower.

I’d invite you to spend more time considering how the things

that happen while you’re busy not paying attention are what will slowly damage, and eventually destroy, your most precious relationships.

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day,” Wallace said. “That is real freedom. That is being educated and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

Divorce is a life ended. A story ended at worst, a page turned at best.

YOUR RESPONSE PATTERNS ARE HABITS YOU CAN CHANGE

“Your identity emerges out of your habits,” Clear writes in Atomic Habits. “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.

“[If you only] go to the dentist twice a year, your teeth will fall out. You have to brush your teeth every day for two minutes. What does brushing your teeth twice a day for two minutes do? Nothing. Unless you do it every day twice a day for two minutes.”

What super-tiny, subtle shift can we make to keep our minds attuned to what matters most to us and help us maintain discipline, better communicate our love for others, and walk the walk in our daily lives?

One of the greatest gifts you can give your romantic partner is to alleviate them of that burden—the burden of being IN CHARGE of shared household responsibilities, and perhaps sparing them any self-congratulatory behavior after picking up the kids from school or scheduling your own dentist’s appointment.

So maybe what we really need for compatibility with someone is about much more than our stated values. Maybe it’s mostly about what we can actually demonstrate that we know and understand.

the diamond-water paradox, diamonds and water best demonstrate the contradiction of water having much more usefulness and intrinsic value than diamonds, yet most of us dump water out on the ground or down drains every day. Meanwhile, diamonds are among our highest-valued financial possessions. It’s the paradox of value, a concept made famous by Scottish economist Adam Smith in the eighteenth century.

Each of us decides what we value, and then we spend our time and money accordingly.

boundaries? Having healthy boundaries means we take responsibility for our behavior and our feelings while NOT taking responsibility for others’ behavior or emotions.