Ep33 The Final Straw: Identifying When a Marriage Cannot Be Mended

Navigate the turbulent waters of marital strife in episode 33 of the Better Relationships podcast, where we confront the daunting signs that a marriage may be beyond repair. This episode doesn't just highlight the challenges; it also offers a beacon of hope for those teetering on the brink of decision.

I dive into the telltale indicators of a crumbling partnership, from the minor irritations that morph into insurmountable obstacles to the crushing weight of unresolved resentments. Discover the six harbingers of a troubled union: communication breakdown, constant conflict, lack of intimacy, trust and respect issues, emotional withdrawal, and the perilous road of seeking fulfillment elsewhere.

But it's not all about the signs of decay. We explore the essential elements of a healthy relationship mindset and behaviors, emphasizing the importance of mutual respect, connecting communication, managing your energy, and the art of quality time. Understand the significance of being an equal partner, and why unmet or uncommunicated expectations can lead to profound discontent.

Through the lens of the five sovereign relationship needs—love and belonging, freedom, fun, power, and safety and survival—I offer you a framework to assess the vitality of your marriage. This episode is not just a diagnostic tool; it's a guide to help you make informed decisions about your future, whether it's to salvage what's left or bravely start anew.

If you're struggling to see a way out or to find a glimmer of hope, take a moment to reflect on your relationship with the help of our couple's healthy relationship quiz at couplesquiz.drdarhawks.com. For those ready to take the first step towards healing or closure, this episode is your companion in the journey towards clarity and peace.

Remember, you're not alone in this. Reach out, and let's work towards a resolution that prioritizes your well-being. Tune in, and together, let's find the path that leads you to the relationship you deserve—or the strength to forge a new one.

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Hold tight to hope and join us on The Better Relationships Podcast, where we transform despair into decisive action and confusion into clarity.

Transcript

>> Intro: 0:24

Welcome to the Better Relationships podcast, where Dr. Dar Hawks, the relationship healer, shares the advice and insights you need to create the healthy, happy and harmonious relationship you deserve.

>> Dr Dar: 0:45

Welcome to episode 33 of the Better Relationships podcast. My topic today covers the signs a marriage cannot be saved. When small things get on your nerves in your relationship, it's really easy to sweep them under the rug, but when they pile up, they become this giant boulder under that rug that can no longer be ignored or avoided. Admitting your marriage has problems is challenging and so hard to do, but when you keep running into that boulder, it's almost impossible to ignore it. I believe a healthy relationship requires becoming and being a healthy partner where you've invested self growth and inner work to be emotionally, financially, mentally, physically, relationally and legally healthy. There's a lot to unpack in each of these areas of personal health and well being, but I do think and feel that you'll understand what I'm saying and mean by that. I also want to note that each of those areas are very unique to each person and each couple because we all have varying degrees of emotional, financial, mental, physical, relational and legal needs. Having a healthy relationship mindset is about having selfrespect, esteem, acceptance and love. When you have a healthy relationship mindset for yourself, you can then give and receive it with your partner. And with a healthy relationship mindset, you don't beat yourself up, blame yourself or compare yourself to others. Instead, you take responsibility for your thoughts, feelings and actions, and you hold your partner accountable for theirs. You also focus on things that you can do to make things better or improve yourself or your relationship, and are focused on forward movement instead of past grievances. Practicing healthy relationship behaviors includes respecting each other's boundaries, needs, goals and desires. But it's also about being supportive of each other, not trying to control or manipulate each other, collaborating on day to day responsibilities, including building legal, mental, emotional, financial, spiritual and relational health together. It also includes working together as a team through any struggles life brings, as well as through the good times. A healthy relationship also requires using connecting communication that requires learning how to speak to each other in ways that builds emotional connection, appreciation, curiosity and support. It's a different skill from being taught how to read, write and speak. It requires empathy, compassion and open mind and being curious to learn about your partner's inner world and them learning about yours. As humans, we're really great at talking and speaking and communicating from the perspective of being an individual, but communicating to connect with your partner and them with you is a very different thing altogether. Another requirement for a healthy relationship is managing your energy. This involves self awareness and ownership of your moods, thoughts, feelings, energy levels, and well being needs. It also involves not trying to manage your partner's moods, energy levels, thoughts, feelings, and well being needs, because that is their responsibility, not yours. You can support them and, be a support structure and service provider to help them, but it's not your accountability or responsibility. Informing your partner of your needs and then supporting yourself to fulfill them, even asking your partner for support if it's needed is a healthy approach to managing your own energy. The last one is having quality time. Balancing your alone time with spending time with your partner, doing things you both enjoy or that matter to you both is essential for building a healthy relationship. Having interests you share with each other as well as participating in each, other's interests, even if you aren't particularly jazzed about it, builds intimacy. And being able to sit in the same room with silence for hours while you're doing whatever it is that you're doing. And sharing space with each other is another way to have quality time. Now, I'd like to share some signs with you of marriage deterioration. Recognizing the signs of decay in your marriage truly is the first step towards making an informed decision about yourself and your well being, the future of your relationship, and what steps you need to take to move forward. Often my clients who participate with me in my savior marriage immersive programs are very stuck in the past and in the problems of their marriage, and they can't find a way to dig themselves out. Consequently, hiring and working with a third party is really a healthy thing for them to do, and they leave smiling with, ah, an action plan around what there is for them to focus on and to do together and individually to help improve their situation. Here are some signs to be aware of. Number one, communication breakdown. There was a time that you used to talk about everything. You looked forward to sharing your day with your partner, but now it feels like there's a concrete wall in the way of opening up to each other. You come home from work and immediately immerse yourself in chores or dive into a television show because it's easier to do that than interact with your partner. Or your partner makes sure they are busy all the time, so there's no time to talk, much less work on your relationship. And the thought of talking about the relationship and ways to make it better is the last thing you feel like you want to do. Number two, there's constant conflict. You've argued every now and then, but now your disagreements are turning into frustrating, even exhausting battles. Even over the small things, it feels like a fight and a challenge. You now find yourself thinking about which battles you want to pursue versus drop. You feel like it's just not worth the effort or the energy. This is a sign that the underlying issues in your marriage are too deep rooted to easily resolve on your own. You're both avoiding each other even on the basics of home responsibilities, and talking about your relationship is the last thing you want to do because it just causes another battle. You both may be blaming or criticizing each other, and no one wants to keep having conversations that result in blame or being criticized, being shamed or guilted or result in a fight. It's like walking into a brick wall over and over and over again, except the scratches and bruises are in your heart and in your mind. Number three, lack of intimacy. Intimacy is essential in a happy, healthy marriage. If you feel emotionally distant or affection is lacking or you're just not connecting on a deeper level, it may be a sign that emotional intimacy in your relationship is fading. Emotional connection to me thrives when you both have empathy and understanding for each other, acceptance and appreciation for each other, and being supportive. Even in the midst of extreme differences of opinion or preferences. It's okay for you to own your opinions and preferences and understand your partners without having to agree. If communication breakdowns are happening, lack of intimacy and emotional connection are sure to follow, along with deterioration of trust and respect. Number four, trust and respect issues. Trust is the glue that holds your marriage together. If trust has eroded due to infidelity or ongoing deceit, rebuilding it can be very difficult, but not impossible. Bringing up the past, repeatedly asking each other whether you can trust each other on a daily basis and not fully forgiving each other are all signs that you need help to rebuild trust in your relationship. And when trust erodes, respect follows. Rebuilding trust requires having an action plan, agreeing to it together, creating that action plan together, and then agreeing to it, and then taking those steps in your action plan on a daily basis. Loss of respect starts with the small things. For example, your partner agrees to clean the dishes in the kitchen on nights that you cook, only to find the kitchen messy, with dirty dishes filling the sink in the morning on your sleepy walk to the kitchen for a hot cup of coffee. When that happens, not once, but three or more times, that starts eroding respect, which then diminishes trust. If you can't trust your partner to be true to their word, then the road to not respecting them is much shorter. And when you don't respect or trust your partner. The relationship is on a tightrope that's about to break. The fifth one is emotional withdrawal. This can show up as disinterest, avoidance, indifference, or a lack of investment in your relationship, and definitely a lack of quality time together or even in the same house or room. If you or your partner has emotionally checked out, then there is a high chance that the lack of trust, respect, communication and connection has eroded the marriage. By the time you emotionally withdraw from your relationship, the other signs have already been happening for a while. Emotional withdrawal also happens when blaming, shaming, guilting, manipulating or controlling each other occurs. It's a way to keep yourself safe from these toxic behaviors. If you emotionally withdraw, you may feel that staying in the relationship is the only option for you, or that leaving is just too hard to figure out or manage. But the reality is you've got to determine what is best for your health and well being first and foremost, and secondly, whether or not your relationship can be improved. When couples try to work and improve their relationship on their own, I find that they tend to do that from the perspective of the problems that they've been experiencing, and it's very challenging to find solutions and collaborate as a team when you're in the midst of struggle. So if you're choosing to stay, even if it's in the short term, it's worth investing time, energy and making an investment in professional support to learn skills to make things better for you in that situation and to get professional support to determine if leaving is best for you. You will definitely learn and receive new insights and skills by doing that that will benefit you not only at home and in your personal relationships, but also your work relationships, so the investment is worth it. The 6th sign is unresolved resentment. this involves holding on to things that you're unhappy about that happened in the past and not being able to forgive your partner or yourself and not having an action plan to help you move from the past and move forward with your partner. This can poison your relationship mindset and marriage. Your partner may do things that remind you of the past situation, causing an emotional or heated reaction. Your ability to move forward requires healing your experience of those past issues before you ask your partner to make changes or help get your needs met. And you do that by actively working through and making changes to your own relationship mindset and behaviors and communication, while also collaborating with your partner to do the same. Your actions and behaviors going forward is what provides the healing and restoration of trust, love, commitment and connection along with your partners. The 7th sign is all about going solo or being a single individual. We all know how to be single and an individual really well because most of us have been an individual and single for more amount of time than we've ever been in a relationship and marriage. Successful relationships and marriages require mutual and reciprocal effort from both parties. If you find yourself being the only one trying to make things work, even with professional support and your partner, or you remain disengaged, disconnected or apathetic, it's a sign that your partner or you may not even want to continue with a relationship, much less work on it. It could also be that your partner is going through something emotional or health related and just cannot cope or deal with the relationship stuff. Having support from your healthcare, mental health or professional therapy or coaching will help you determine if your relationship is salvageable or not, and to determine whether you want to invest the time and energy that it would take to move forward with the actions to save it. The 8th sign is looking for outside fulfillment. If one or both of you are getting emotional or physical fulfillment outside of your marriage, it's a clear sign that the relationship is not fully meeting each other's needs. Infidelity is a symptom of deeper issues in the marriage and not the root cause of the breakdown. Now, infidelity isn't just about cheating or getting into another relationship with another person. Infidelity could look like spending all day on Saturday at Sunday and evenings during the week at, the golf course. It could look like throwing yourself into work to avoid communicating and connecting with your partner, or being at home. It could look like throwing yourself into hobbies and interests to avoid being at home as well. I have said that for some people, it seems to be easier to jump into another person's arms or to the golf course, or spending time in other activities with all the newness, excitement, attention, distraction and romance than focus on working through difficulties. I m have also said that that's a way to end your relationship without taking responsibility, or having to acknowledge the problems or your part in them, or even stepping up like an adult to discuss and end things amicably before diving into someone else's arms or bed, or throwing yourself into an activity that keeps you from being at home or where your partner is. If your partner finds out about infidelity, which they always will, at some point in time, it will always make for a, worse, more resentful and angry experience than it would be by addressing the problems and working to resolve them first. Whether you stay together or not. I call that adulting in relationships. The 10th sign is unmet or uncommunicated expectations. When I went through my coach training with Thomas Leonard, the founder of professional coaching as an industry and a discipline, he said something that has stayed with me all these years. He said, uncommunicated expectations always lead to upset. I have expanded that to say uncommunicated and unagreed to, expectations always lead to upset. Every time I have worked with a couple in either my savior marriage, immersive, or in my relationship coaching huddles, I uncover at least five expectations each partner had for each other, and they made the assumption, or had a belief that their partner knew about it, even though they had not spoken or made agreements about it. So here's an example. I'd ask them, do you have a no cheating policy that you've written and agreed to? They would both say something like, no, I just think that when you get married, you're making a commitment for life, and faithfulness goes with that. We shouldn't have to talk about it or make agreements. I'd say, well, have you talked about what faithfulness means and really defined that for yourselves? They'd say, not really. Doesn't that mean that you're just together in a, committed, monogamous relationship? I'd say, not necessarily. And I'd say, well, if one of the issues you're both having is about cell phone texting a coworker of the opposite sex, or flirting with the waitress at a restaurant, or disagreements about what cheating is and is not, wouldn't it be beneficial to discuss it more so that you both can find some common ground? That's when they both would look at me quizzically, tilt their heads, and all of a sudden they would say, yes, that makes sense. We would then create a safe space to have a conversation about defining what cheating is and is not to each of them individually, and help them learn how to communicate when they feel cheating of some sort is happening, it's usually emotional, at first, and how to support each other through it. After that, we would both create a written no, cheating policy, which they both sign. The policy doesn't get shelved, never to be touched again. They instead agree to have a regular check in on their policy at least once a year. Now, I admit this example is related to having a discussion about a difficult topic of infidelity, but it's a very relevant example around unmet or uncommunicated expectations. The 12th sign is an essential one, and this happens when you don't feel like you're an equal in your relationship. Treating each other as equals is respectful and healthy. But most couples I've coached in the last two decades have said they don't see each other as equals. It's essential to have conversations with your partner to identify areas you feel equal and respected versus not. And then create a coordinated plan with each other to address the areas you don't feel like. You're treated like an equal. Much like a business partnership where both partners have an equal stake in the business, but with different roles and responsibilities. So too does, a marital partnership. It's not a situation where you clean the dishes and clean the kitchen on three days, and I clean them on three days, and then we clean it together on one day. Equality isn't about that. It's about a sense and a feeling of accomplishment, achievement and equality together overall and looking at your strengths. If my strength is not loading the dishwasher correctly, but my partner's is, and they agree to handle the dishwasher while I handle the hand washing items, that's a sense of equality. But it's not about the number of dishes that go in the dishwasher and the number of dishes that I'm hand washing. That number doesn't have to be the same. I hope you understand what I mean by feeling like an equal. It's important to work with a relationship and marriage coach who has the skills and who can listen to your differences and help you find common ground so that you can make and honor agreements with each other instead of making assumptions. A large body of my work with couples involves the five sovereign relationship needs. So now I'd like to take a look at the signs. A marriage may be unsalvageable through the lens of the five sovereign relationship needs. Those needs are love and belonging, freedom, fun, power and safety, and survival. Recognizing these signs from the perspective of the sovereign relationship needs is helpful for making informed decisions, for yourself and about the future of your relationship. To learn about your primary and secondary sovereign relationship needs, I invite you to take the needs quiz at needs. Drdarhawks.com. M so let's look at love and belonging first. In a healthy marriage, love and belonging are the cornerstones tied to mutual respect and trust for each other. If there's a pervasive sense of emotional detachment, a lack of intimacy, a lack of shared experiences, or an inability to connect on a deeper level, it could indicate that the foundational need for love and belonging is compromised. Constant conflicts and emotional withdrawal can create a void, leaving you feeling isolated, lonely, unfulfilled unsatisfied, and even resentful and bitter. The second sovereign relationship need I want to cover is freedom. A successful marriage respects and nurtures each partner's need for freedom and autonomy. If one or both of you feel trapped, controlled, or unable to express your individuality in your marriage, it can create an environment of suffocation. If you feel stifled, controlled, manipulated, shamed, guilted, or restricted in your marriage, it can lead to resentment and a deep desire to break free. Unilateral decisions, lack of compromise, and a feeling of being trapped will erode your relationship quickly, and at the core, is about being insecure. The third sovereign relationship need is fun. Laughter, shared experiences, and a sense of playfulness are healthy for a vibrant and enduring relationship. If your relationship was formed on the foundation of fun originally, then the day to day becomes boring, routine, and lacks joy. I have had many clients who have said they have fun, communicate well, and have a deeper connection when they go on vacation. But once they get home, they have problems being together. It turned out that they formed their relationship going on vacation and only doing fun things together. They base their relationship on the fun needs solely, but did not build fun into their day to day life together once they became a committed couple. With the exception of planning vacations together. A marriage that has lost its lightness, its sense of playfulness, can feel dull and uninspiring. The absence of fun can lead to emotional disease. The absence of fun can lead to emotional distance and the feeling that the relationship has lost its vitality. The fourth sovereign relationship, need is power. A healthy marriage involves a balance of power and decision making. However, if the power struggles persist, with one of you consistently asserting dominance, manipulating, guilting, shaming, blaming, controlling, or dismissing the other's opinions, it's a sign of a toxic power balance. I find that when there's unhealthy power dynamics in a relationship, couples tend not to listen to each other, hear each other, or understand each other's perspectives, and then they don't try to find common ground in order with which to move forward. With. This imbalance can be a severe impediment to the mutual growth and satisfaction necessary for a thriving, healthy marriage. And this is where working on your relationship towards treating each other with respect and as equals matters. The fifth sovereign relationship, need is safety and survival. Emotional, physical, financial, mental, and spiritual safety are paramount in a marriage. If trust and consequently respect has been shattered and there's ongoing conflict or even abuse, it directly threatens the safety and survival, aspect of your relationship. Both of you have a need to feel secure, safe and supported for your marriage to thrive. Any persistent threat to this safety can be a clear sign of irreparable damage, and it's usually emotional damage, which is even more detrimental. In the most extreme cases, a marriage may become irreparable if there are persistent threats to safety and survival. This includes emotional or physical abuse, betrayal, and a breach of trust and respect that undermines the very foundation of your relationship. If the sense of safety within your marriage is consistently compromised, it gets exceedingly challenging to rebuild and move forward. Ultimately, understanding your sovereign relationship needs will provide you with a framework for evaluating the health of your marriage, your own health and well being, and determining whether the necessary elements for a fulfilling and sustainable partnership are still present or can be built. If you'd like to explore your relationship more, to evaluate and self assess how healthy it is and uncover areas of concern and gain deeper insights, I invite you to take my couple's healthy relationship quiz. You can do that at couplesquiz drdarhawks.com. I hope this has been helpful for you. I know it's a very difficult topic. It's hard to look at. It's painful to look at. It can create sadness and a feeling of, like there's just no way to dig yourself out of it or not see any hope at all. Please know that I'm here for you. Please reach out and I will catch you next time in the next episode.

>> Credits: 29:07

If you enjoyed today's episode and found it helpful, please subscribe to the better Relationships podcast on your favorite platform and share it with your friends and family. Together, we can create a community of healthier, happier and harmonious relationships. To better understand your unconscious needs and unlock better communication, take the sovereign relationship needs test at relationshiptest me so you can have a more fulfilling relationship with your partner. For additional resources, information, and to share your thoughts or questions, visit drdarhawks.com. That's drdarhawks.com and if you'd like to schedule a coaching session with Dr. Dar, visit relationshiphuddle me. Until next time, keep communicating with curiosity and an open heart. The advice in this podcast is not a substitute for the professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment provided by licensed medical or mental health professionals.