One of the most arduous decisions you may ever have to make is whether to stay married to someone who has cheated on you. For many people, the decision to not stay in the marriage is pretty straightforward, most often due to moralistic views about infidelity and the covenant of marriage. More often than not it’s complicated, and deciding whether to divorce or salvage a marriage can be heartbreaking and confusing. Marriage is a huge investment for many people, and as with anything in life, the greater the investment, the greater the loss. Marriage is tied up with many dreams, expectations, and fantasies, so divorce is a hugely difficult decision that should be taken very seriously.

Here are some issues that can get in the way of making a sound decision about whether to divorce:

Fear
Fear is at the core of most bad decisions. When we make choices in life based on fear, we are using the most primitive part of the human brain, a part designed to help us respond to dangerous situations for survival purposes. Human beings are the only species with a more evolved part of the brain that allows us to assess, reflect, and consider a situation before acting on it. This is the part of the brain we want to be using when making decisions about whether to divorce. Slowing things down, not acting hastily, and talking with a professional will help you achieve this goal.

Having Children
Many divorcing couples base their decision to stay in a marriage on their children. While it is extremely important to consider the impact of divorce on your children, it is helpful to not make them the determining factor. Children can easily be used as scapegoats to help parents avoid looking at all the options, even if those choices do not offer the most ideal consequences. There are many divorced households in which the children actually do better, so staying together for the children is not always the only and best solution. Meeting with a child therapist and reading up on the impact of divorce on children will help you make an educated decision.

Low Self-Esteem
Staying in a marriage because you are afraid there is nothing better out there is an issue of low self-esteem. Not feeling worthy of something better leads people to stay in bad marriages at the expense of their own happiness. Working on building your self-esteem and being clear about your value will help you make a proper decision about staying or leaving. Feeling empowered and complete with yourself is a valuable goal regardless of where you are in life, so use this opportunity for personal growth.

Black-and-White Thinking
Thinking in terms of right and wrong is the most obvious form of black-and-white thinking. It is easy to slip into a moralistic or righteous place after an infidelity, but it’s just a way of coping with the painful truth. Black-and-white thinking is very limiting and can lead to making a decision that is not founded on the whole truth. It is important to approach the decision to divorce with flexibility and openness to all options. Staying in the gray, as opposed to rigidly clinging to the black or white, allows for a more efficient and genuine decision.

Anger
Anger, not unlike fear, is not the best state of mind to be in when making a decision about your marital situation. Anger is a defense mechanism we use to gain control in a powerless situation, and it can cause us to make rash decisions that are not based on fact. If you respond to the circumstances of your marital conflict with anger as opposed to a calmness and clarity, you become blind to the possibility of potential solutions or answers. While the anger you feel may be justified and expected, it does not serve you in dealing with this important decision.

Uncertainty
Uncertainty breeds the tendency to cling to what we know. When it comes to the unpredictable future that is inherent in divorce, the first instinct is to hold on to the past because it’s familiar. The decision to stay or leave a marriage can be clouded by the unpredictable nature of your future without your partner, but the truth is that your future is unpredictable whether you are married or not. However, it is important to remember that the best predictor of the future is the past, so use your past experiences, successes, and failures to provide you with an accurate assessment of what you are capable of doing going forward. This will help you make a choice that is founded on the realities of who you are.

Deciding to stay in or leave a marriage can be torturous. Often, the heart and mind are conflicting when it comes to marriage and divorce, so it is normal to feel confused and uncertain about what to do. It can also be confounding to make a decision about something that doesn’t appear to have any positive consequences. Consulting a professional, becoming aware of your thinking and feelings, and taking the proper amount of time and space is integral to making the best possible decision for your future.

Slow down and listen.

When we communicate, sometimes we ignore what our partner is saying. Instead of focusing on our partner, our thoughts are consumed with what we plan to say next. If you pay attention to your partner’s words, and then you reflect back what you hear them say or feel, then they will feel heard. As a result, you will be on the road to a resolution of the issue. Does someone in your life, maybe yourself, constantly repeat a message over and over? It is probably because said person does not feel heard.

Try reflective listening and see if you can stop that person from repeating. “Reflective listening” means you state back the jest of what you heard or the emotion associated with the communicator’s message. Keep it short. If that is not what the speaker meant for you to hear, then the speaker will say, “No that is not what I wanted you to hear.” The speaker then repeats the statement, trying to change it in a way that the meaning can be more clearly understood. We talk and listen through our life filters. What one person says and intends to be heard may be totally different than what the receiver hears. Reflective listening is an advantageous tool because it confirms if the message was heard in the speaker’s intended manner. (more…)

The “empty chair” technique is one of my favorite anger tools to use with clients. When I first explain the idea and how it works, I tend to hear people say, “I don’t want to look stupid.” Too often, we spend so much time worrying how we will look to others and what they will think of us—but I digress. In this technique, we want to imagine the person we are angry with and use our minds to essentially “put them” in a chair facing us. This is our opportunity to speak directly about what we feel, with absolutely no concern about how the absent target will respond.

Too often, clients will tell me they worry about the target’s response if they do share their feelings. They worry about possible retribution or intensifying the target’s response if they get too upset. Another concern for some people is that they will hurt the target’s feelings and push them away. For instance, a client wanting their parent’s approval may fear that if they express their anger with their parent, their parent will only reject them further or maybe totally disappear from their lives.

This exercise seems like it should be a piece of cake, and yet the resistance to it is amazing. Clients are embarrassed to share, concerned what I or others may think. I remind them that these fears may be related to the fact they are not used to sharing in the first place—so it makes sense that they might not be comfortable at first. Others will find themselves “stuck,” not knowing how to start or what to say. In these situations, I might help them start by taking a few of their past statements about the target and modeling the technique. I then ask the client what I am missing, allowing them to continue. In my “sharing” aloud, I might be loud and even boisterous, modeling that it is okay to express what they are truly feeling.

Once the client starts sharing, pent-up frustration seems to easily spurt out. Ironically, what I tend to hear is clients’ surprise that they had so much to say. I remind them that once they allow themselves to be comfortable sharing, they are allowing thoughts and feelings that have been stuffed for years to get their due and be released.

I will ask clients to continue this exercise as needed. For example, if you are in the car and thinking about a past frustration, it is okay to talk aloud as if directly to that person. “But what if someone sees me?” The fact is, other drivers will think you are just singing along to the radio. Of course, you can do this at home or while out alone on a walk. What tends to happen next is that clients will say how relieved, or even tired, they feel as the feelings are released. Furthermore, clients will often report finding it easier to share their thoughts and feelings later, with the person truly there.

When we use the empty chair technique, we can be as angry as we want. Don’t worry about how you say it; just get it out. After the steam clears, you may want to keep some of the core statements to later share in real life with the person—but now is not the time to have to worry about how it might come out later. Again, just get it out.

The first in a series of articles dedicated to understanding, appreciating, and coping with our anger.

“Sticks and Stones.” I am sure most of you have heard this saying and think you know the ending. It is said to go “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” I think our parents taught us this, thinking it would help us ward off teasing by others. Unfortunately, this misguided saying is far from true. You see, in reality, sticks and stones may break my bones but WORDS CAN DO SERIOUS DAMAGE. Broken bones heal and yet harmful words may stick with and haunt us.

Many clients come to me struggling with their anger and just want to “fix it.” They hope a few tools will do the trick. Sometimes, this is all it takes. More often though, it is not that simple. As we delve into a quick history, it becomes clear that their anger has been around for a long time. In fact, it has grown over time. Realistically, we cannot expect life-long patterns to be broken overnight. I firmly believe it is valuable for me to help clients understand where their anger comes from. For most of us, anger is directly related to deep-seeded pain from growing up, and I want to help look at sources of pain throughout our lives.

When clients bring up how:

1) their parents weren’t there for them
2) their parents handled their own anger inappropriately
3) they were never taught or encouraged to communicate their feelings
4) they don’t show sadness and believe tears are a sign of weakness

I know how that translates into unresolved sadness and pain which, if not expressed, tends to come out as to anger.

I tend to hear people say “if I don’t think about it, the thoughts/feelings will go away.” This is not the case. In fact, stuffing our feelings will only last so long. Like a volcano, when we stuff our feelings and hold them down, they will eventually erupt or leak out. Exploding over someone spilling something or cutting in front of you, and then not understanding why you are getting that upset, is a problem. When I hear how angry someone gets over “nothing,” I want to look at where the anger is really coming from.

Our anger does not just appear out of thin air. More often than not, when we focus on how the anger has come to be, I can help clients grasp at least a few deeper issues within their past that may be tied to current anger. Of course, I am always wanting to explore with them how their denial of sadness and pain (to generalize, something that, especially we guys, don’t like to show) may have found a way into anger (a feeling we guys may be more expected and comfortable showing).

Too often, clients believe others are “making” them angry. Thinking about your anger (feelings, thoughts, actions, etc.), this in indeed yours. Own it! No one makes us do anything unless we decide to do it. No one makes me sad, happy, angry or anything. The other person can do something, that I may not like, and then I get to choose how I want to respond. Yes, at times, someone’s behavior will lead me to feeling upset but, again, I decide if this will happen. I am indeed in control. Why give up yours? Own your feelings. This will help you understand how many choices you have and how to next respond (or not).

It is important for me to normalize client’s anger. Typically, when I ask people if anger is bad, the answer I hear is “YES.” No, I say. Anger is a normal feeling. It is just what we do with anger that can be positive or problematic. Be clear on this; we all get angry. We all get happy, sad, anxious, etc. sometimes. Feelings are a normal part of our existence and we need to express them.

Upcoming articles here, will focus on not only how to face our pain and best express it, but also on tools to best cope with painful feelings and the anger we may have inside. To start, though, I want to highlight how imperative it is to learn how to calm both the mind and body. One of the best ways to do this is via a commonly used tool known as deep-breathing. Sounds simple but you would not believe how we may fail to take the necessary full breaths, especially under stress.

Taking a slow, deep breath through your nose, holding it a second or two, and then slowly expelling the air through your mouth should not be just a few second process. When we focus on this and take the time needed, it will be difficult to be angry as it helps stop the racing thoughts that tend to go hand-in-hand with anger. Again, this is not a race. Just the opposite. Calmly breathing helps the body and trains our minds to slow down. Furthermore, we don’t want to wait until we are upset to do this. The more we are calming ourselves during the day, the less likely we are to get hyped up in the first place. Try practicing this a few times daily and get ready for more next month.