What do you to when one person wants to leave their marriage and the other person wants to keep working on it?

The would-be marriage leaver may have limited motivation to work on the relationship. They may complain that therapy is “too little, too late.” The marriage may no longer fit who they’ve become. Over time, a traditional marriage can feel like the wrong container for one or both members of a couple. Sometimes marriages adjust to allow for new desires and needs. Sometimes the infrastructure fragments, unable to adapt to change.

For the partner fighting for the marriage, fear and loss may loom large. They’ve built a relationship with their partner — possibly over many years. They rely on it for comfort, connection, stability, and a sense of belonging. The relationship is home. Who would choose to be homeless? For partners in this position, the relationship may have been taken for granted. It can feel like an essential requirement for their very existence, like gravity or oxygen. It’s what keeps them rooted, what allows them to go about their life with confidence and certainty.

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The partner fighting for the marriage may struggle to see the other person’s perspective. This is a time of powerful emotions. It’s hard to comprehend the reasoning of the partner who wants out. Many who leave still love their partners, even if the love has lost its erotic charge or emotional heat. For others who leave, there may be toxic secrets or an affair lurking in the background.

Wanting to leave the marriage doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no appreciation for what’s been created, but it may mean something else has become a priority. Rarely is wanting to leave an intentional act of aggression or cruelty, though it can wreak havoc on peace of mind and well-being, particularly during the uncertain transition phase.

For the leaver, wanting to leave may be their attempt at psychological survival. What they need to feel connected to their life force may not seem to exist within the relationship. This realization may create a painful dissonance which the person hopes to resolve through separation or divorce.

The would-be marriage leaver may be rash in their decisions. They may not make space for the scope of their partner’s emotional and psychological disorientation. The experience of the person fighting for the marriage may well be the polar opposite of theirs. Where the person wanting out is eager to see what it feels like to fly solo, the other partner may feel like they’re being forced to untether their life line from the mothership. The person wanting out seems to be saying, “You’ll be okay” and waving at them from a distant window.

The more self-awareness, vulnerability, and honesty each partner can bring to their positions, the easier it may be to connect and explore options that take both partners’ needs and fears into account.

Terrified and panicked, the partner who wants to preserve the marriage may feel as if they’re drifting into an existential abyss. The assurances they sometimes hear from their partners in these situations can ring hollow and opportunistic. “You deserve real love.” “You’ll find someone who can give you more than I can give you.” It’s better to allow the bereft partner to arrive at their own silver linings and keep these philosophical observations to oneself.

It’s rarely easy or smooth for couples who have different commitment levels to their marriage. The more self-awareness, vulnerability, and honesty each partner can bring to their positions, the easier it may be to connect and explore options that take both partners’ needs and fears into account. Different levels of commitment create a power imbalance in a relationship. Talking about it vulnerably and openly may remind you that you’re figuring things out as a team. Active, thoughtful, respectful communication will minimize impulsive actions and destructive reactions.

The partner seeking to preserve the marriage can:

1. Find the right group/community support through workshops, programs, retreats, or special interests and activities.
2. Make daily time and space for embodying and expressing feelings through dance, art, or outdoor activities such as hiking or exercise.
3. Practice taking responsibility for their 50% of the marital relationship issues through journaling and self-inquiry exercises.
4. Negotiate the physical and emotional boundaries that will help them feel grounded.

The partner who wants to leave the marriage can:

1. Take responsibility for their 50% of the relationship issues.
2. Give the transition process the time it deserves.
3. Honor their partner and their boundaries, allowing for honest, non-defensive communication.
4. Plug into community support.

It can help to establish a time frame and ground rules for the transition process when renegotiating a marriage. This may mean no dating, no solo vacations, and no major solo expenditures. Agreeing on boundaries that fit your living situation, finances, and when and what to tell family members and children may minimize conflicts.

A couple working through differing levels of commitment may need to establish safe and respectful methods for checking in and sharing feelings and challenges. This is not a time to go it alone, although you may not be able to lean on each other in the ways you’re used to. Consider hiring a counselor, mediator, financial adviser, attorney, and/or other guide to help support you.

Change is hard. We resist it, maintaining our longstanding behaviors and belief systems, because familiar is comfortable. We typically seek psychotherapy when our old ways lead to problems that make change necessary.

In conventional therapy, you may spend one or two hours per week developing new skills and exploring alternative perspectives. Once you leave the office, your therapist hopes you will incorporate the work you did into your daily life. Sometimes your therapist will assign you “homework” that reinforces the concepts addressed in your session. You might choose to journal or simply think about what you learned to make better sense of it and to uncover new insights for your next appointment.

This consistent attention to your therapy leads to continuity, the unbroken thread that ties together your revelations from week to week. This is the key to lasting change. You and your therapist plant the seeds for change in your session, and then your independent efforts allow them to take root and grow into the foundation for an improved life.

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Ideally, that is how therapy functions. In less ideal situations, you leave your therapy at the office door and pick it up only when you return the following week. If your needs are minimal, or you just need someone to listen, this pattern could work for you. However, if your goals revolve around healing deep-seated hurts, improving relationships, or breaking lifelong habits, this pattern rarely works. Without consistent effort between sessions, your therapy may feel disconnected from or even irrelevant to your daily life. If you don’t complete the tasks assigned to you each week, you miss the opportunity to practice new skills that contribute to the goals you set for yourself.

When you find yourself forgetting or even avoiding therapeutic work, you might ask yourself what is getting in the way of taking full advantage of your therapy. The most common answer is you don’t have enough time. After work, family, and other commitments, finding additional time and energy to be introspective or to practice new tools seems overwhelming. You feel stretched too thin, and just making it to a weekly appointment feels like the most you can do. If this reflects your situation, you and your therapist can plan how to optimize the limited time you have in a way that feels realistic to you.

If you’re wondering if there’s more to the story, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do you prioritize others’ needs over your own?

Consider how much time and energy you devote to other people. Once you’ve given to your partner, your children, your friends, your parents, and your colleagues, you may struggle to find any remaining resources for yourself.

If your generosity leaves you feeling depleted, you may need to create stronger boundaries, which includes prioritizing self-care and carving out time for self-reflection outside of therapy.

Changing your life requires work. Weekly therapy sessions are just the beginning.

2. Are your expectations reasonable?

When your therapist asks you to practice a new behavior, it is expected that you will feel uncomfortable and may stumble on your new path. Your therapist wants you to challenge your status quo and take small, calculated risks that result in incremental change. Sometimes, though, perfectionism and all-or-nothing thinking may lead you to believe you must implement new strategies right the first time—or else they’re not worth trying at all. When you operate under this assumption, you miss out on the small victories that add up to greater achievement and increased self-confidence.

Perfectionism and the shame that comes with it may also convince you that what you’re learning in therapy should come easily to you. If these new concepts were obvious to you, you might not need a therapist in the first place! Ask your therapist for help when you’re confused, concerned, or unsure about something you’re processing. They can offer you additional guidance, but only when you’re willing to let them know you need it.

3. Are you afraid of something?

Despite your desire to change your life, actually changing it can be scary. Uncertainty tends to accompany change; perhaps you can’t imagine life any other way than what is familiar to you. Not being able to predict what happens next can feel paralyzing and prevent you from moving forward. Perhaps you also worry that you’ll become someone you don’t recognize.

Modifying your outlook on the world, behaving differently in relationships, and forgiving others and yourself has the power to transform you. You and your therapist should proceed at a pace that is appropriate for you, so you can integrate these new ways of being into your identity. Rather than feeling like you have to become someone else, you can explore how to evolve into a more adaptive, flexible, and limitless version of who you already are.

4. Do you really want to change?

Ultimately, you are in charge of how your life unfolds. You have the right to accept yourself as you are and live your life as you see fit. You have the right to determine which relationships to maintain, what behavior to tolerate, and who deserves your forgiveness. If the change you seek clashes with your core values or is the result of outside pressure, you may struggle to motivate yourself to work on your therapy.

Sometimes, therapy will help you realize you don’t want to or are not ready to change. You get to make that choice. You must remember, however, that you don’t get to choose the consequences of your choice. Your decision may create more peace in your life and/or lead to the end of important relationships. Your decision may leave you stuck in an untenable situation and/or open your eyes to the positive aspects of your life that you previously ignored. Whatever you do, make sure your choice not to change is the one that feels right for you.

Changing your life requires work. Weekly therapy sessions are just the beginning. The real work happens between sessions, when you actively engage in the creation of change and commit to making it last.

It is hard to be fully invested in a relationship if you’re already thinking about the messy ending. You are right about the statistics—many marriages do end. There are no guarantees. I do know that very few people go into a marriage with the intention of getting a divorce. Marriage is a leap of faith. It seems pretty clear that you are not ready to make that leap right now—and that’s OK. It’s good to know that is where you are.

What I think is interesting is that you say that you are fine with long-term commitments or even one life-long commitment. I’d be curious to know more about why that feels safer to you than marriage. The “split” rates for relationships are higher than for marriages. There are even fewer guarantees in “nonbinding” (for lack of a better term) relationships. The risks of not being able to trust, of being hurt, of friends taking sides are just as high. If you were to have children with a lifelong partner outside of marriage, custody issues would still be present; they would just look slightly different. You’d still have to figure out dividing up shared stuff (possibly even your home). There are even fewer guarantees in this kind of relationship, yet something about not being legally bound to another person seems less risky to you.

I wonder if the issue may not actually be the act of marriage, but the level of trust required to risk committing yourself fully to another person. It is not unusual for children of divorce to struggle with that trust. They experienced firsthand how marriages can end. It can profoundly impact their feelings of safety and security and limit their willingness to trust in others. You say that, right now, it feels like you have to choose between a very scary “risk-it-all” approach or be doomed to a life alone. There is definitely a middle ground which can allow you meaningful relationships without such high levels of fear. I strongly encourage you to explore these feelings with a therapist in your area.

Best of luck,
Erika

The pages of women’s magazines are filled with articles offering methods for encouraging men to propose marriage and entire websites are dedicated to increasing a person’s marry-ability. Both men and women can be hesitant about marriage, and when romantic partners have different opinions of marriage, the conflict can be challenging to resolve.

It is possible, however, to have a committed and loving relationship without marriage, and some people who are uncomfortable with marriage ultimately change their minds. A disagreement about marriage doesn’t have to end your relationship, particularly if you both are committed to the relationship.

Avoiding Marriage

If you’re itching to get married and your partner resists, it’s easy to assume there’s a problem with the relationship or that your partner isn’t fully committed to you. These issues could indicate that it’s time to consider moving on. But there are myriad other reasons people are uncomfortable with marriage that have nothing to do with the relationship. Cohabitation is an increasingly popular option; one 2013 study found that 32% of couples chose long-term cohabitation over marriage. Some reasons your partner might be uninterested in marriage include:

• Discomfort with the events that surround a wedding, the costs associated with getting married, or family conflicts that can arise when a couple exchanges vows.
• Fear of divorce.
• Fear of losing one’s individual identity.
• Wanting to “test” the relationship a little longer before taking the plunge.
• Disliking the historical implications of marriage, which include viewing women as property and men as little more than providers.
• A desire to avoid an institution in which some same-sex couples can’t participate.

The Role of Communication

As with so many other relationship issues, open and honest communication is the key to resolving disputes about marriage. You might assume you know your partner’s reason for avoiding marriage, but you don’t really know until you ask. Hearing that your partner is concerned that marriage might change the relationship will likely feel a lot better than simply assuming your partner doesn’t want to get married because he or she doesn’t love you.

And for partners who want to get married, explaining clearly and logically why you want to get married can make a big difference. The benefits of marriage include automatic paternal legitimation for children, significant tax benefits, and shared insurance. Pointing these out to your partner could help, but addressing his or her concerns is equally important. You might be able to come to an agreement about when you’ll reevaluate the marriage question and how you’ll address insecurities and relationship logistics in the meantime.

While you might feel hurt if your partner doesn’t want to marry you, it’s important to consider that marriage might mean something completely different to your partner. Consequently, it’s wise to focus on other ways to get your needs met rather than making marriage a deal-breaker. If, however, you can’t stay in a relationship that doesn’t end in marriage, trying to push the relationship toward marriage can cause it to fall apart. It might be better to end things now.

Addressing Potential Concerns

If you and your partner agree to live together without getting married, you’ll have the freedom to pick and choose which marriage benefits you want to take advantage of and which you want to avoid altogether. A simple contract, for example, can outline who owns what property and how it will be divided if you split up. And if you have a child together, you’ll need to ensure that both parents are listed on the birth certificate or that the nonbiological parent adopts the child. You won’t be able to get tax benefits, but you can still combine your lives in a way that works for both of you.

References:

1. Aleccia, J. (2013, April 4). “The new normal”: Cohabitation on the rise, study finds. NBC News. Retrieved from http://www.nbcnews.com/health/new-normal-cohabitation-rise-study-finds-1C9208429?franchiseSlug=healthmain
2. Roberts, S. (2013, April 9). Against marriage: A ring does not define a relationship. The XX Factor. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/04/09/the_case_against_marriage_a_ring_doesn_t_define_a_relationship.html
3. Schwyzer, H. (2011, February 16). Why some men don’t want to get married. Alternet. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/story/149941/why_some_men_don’t_want_to_get_married