When divorce is not the answer: 4 therapies to consider

How to tell if your marriage is worth saving…

• You actually still love the guy and he loves you.
• You think he is willing to work with you in therapy.
• You think his affair will blow over and you’re willing to wait.
• He has remorse for what he’s put you through.
• You want to give it one last try.

…or not

• He’s abusive, verbally or otherwise.
• He’s in love with the girlfriend and plans to marry her.
• He doesn’t care about your feelings.
• He’s willing to go to counseling only because you drag him.

Reasons you might want to make it work

1. Finding another partner won’t be easy. If you know you don’t want to be alone and there’s enough positive energy left in the marriage to save it, consider marriage counseling (with or without your partner).
2. You share a history and family, even if you’ve grown apart. For some, that bond is more important than any negatives about the marriage.
3. You might still be one another’s support system. I recently ran into a woman in her seventies who expressed her dissatisfaction with her marriage, saying that she and her husband had nothing in common. In fact, she thought he was pretty obnoxious! However, she was sticking it out because they still took care of each other and she couldn’t imagine life without him. They were each other’s support system despite their lack of compatibility.

4 therapies to consider

1. Retrouvaille
   French for “rediscovery” or “return again.” One intense weekend and six follow-up sessions in a classroom setting. It’s run by peer couples who have saved their own marriages through Retrouvaille. Listening to actual people who’ve experienced all the pain you have and have managed to get through it has an immediacy that professional marriage counseling lacks. Very effective for cases in which one partner feels uncomfortable opening up to a marriage counselor. In Retrouvaille, the couple communicate only with each other, and there’s no need to reveal anything to the group.
2. Imago Relationships
   Started by Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., author of Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples. Hendrix believes we all suffer from childhood wounds resulting from one caregiver or another not providing what we needed at the time. He thinks we end up marrying partners who remind us of that inadequate caregiver (often with opposite attributes from our own) because only he can repair the hurt. Imago therapy aims to bring those childhood scenarios to consciousness and actually use them to heal ourselves and each other. The goal is for you and your husband to become passionate friends, with a love based on reality, not on childhood needs.
3. The Gottman Institute
   John Gottman started as a researcher and studied couples for 15 years, including some 700 couples whom he followed over time. In his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert, Gottman points out that the foundation of a sound marriage is friendship between the partners, and that in successful marriages, the partners:
   1. Know each other really well.
   2. Regularly express appreciation to each other
   3. Turn toward each other instead of turning away.
   4. Make comments and share small things.
   5. Allow their partner to influence them.
   6. Realize which problems are solvable — and which ones are not.
   7. Create shared meaning.

   The Gottman approach is statistics based, which might have special appeal to some men who aren’t very open to marriage counseling to begin with.

4. Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)
   Emotionally Focused Therapy, or EFT, is a very psychoanalytic approach that concentrates on discovering what’s going on underneath the negative emotional cycles that destroy marriages. I would choose EFT if I had it to do over again. I am always more drawn to the softer, gentler approach that promises to dig underneath the facade.