Don’t Jump to Divorce as the Answer. Instead, Change Your Perception

There is a way back to the love you thought you had lost. Dr. Jed Diamond explains.

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For more than 40 years I have been helping people save relationships that seemed to be lost. When people decide to get married or to make a commitment to one another, they all feel loving and hopeful. No one starts off saying, “This relationship sucks…let’s get married.” But over time people lose that loving feeling and believe that ending the relationship is the only answer.

When people contact me they feel angry, sad, and confused. They all long for a relationship that is loving, passionate, joyful, and intimate; but they feel at a loss to know how to have what they so desperately want. They often feel the only answer is to leave, heal their wounds, and hope that next time, if there is a next time, they will be able to find the love of their lives.

I hear similar things from many of the people I have seen over the years:

• “I still love my partner, but I’m no longer in love with them. I can’t stay with someone I’m not in love with. It isn’t fair to them or to me.”
• “We’ve grown apart. We’re no longer compatible. We really have little in common.”
• “I’m worn out. I’m tired of trying to fix a relationship that is broken. What we have now can’t be fixed.”
• “We used to be so in love, but now my partner seems, almost, to hate me. Nothing I do seems to be please them. I feel like a failure.”
• “Things aren’t that bad, but they’re not that good either. I’m not willing to settle for a ho-hum relationship. I want more.”

Many people who come to me have almost given up on finding the love they have lost. The good news is that most couples can find what is missing without having to start all over with someone else. The even better news is that it doesn’t have to be difficult or take months and years of counseling delving into past problems. It just takes a change of perception.

Most of us remember seeing this perceptual illusion in a college class. What do you see here?

In one view we see an old woman with a big nose. In another we see a young woman with her head turned away from us.

Here’s another one. What do you see?

In one view the man appears to be facing us. In the other view he seems to be turned away.

When I talk to the guys, they will say things like, “She’s changed. I can’t stand the woman she’s become.” Or women will say, “He’s not the man I married. He’s withdrawn from me and has become angry and mean.” But I’ve learned over the years that real problem isn’t that the person has changed, though of course we all change through time, but we’ve become hooked into negative perceptions of our partner. We increasingly see what we don’t like and conclude,

“They can’t change. If I want love, I’ve got to leave.”

But there is another choice. We can change our perceptions. We can see things differently. We can open our hearts to love and let go of fear. If you’ve lost hope, don’t give up. Remember, it is darkest just before the dawn. When relationships have seemingly hit bottom, a transformation may be just an eye-blink away.

This is what George Pransky and his wife found to be true.

“During the first three years of our relationship, my wife and I struggled,” he said. “We argued, we tried to change each other and we tried to compromise. We made agreements, and we communicated fully. Nothing worked. It seemed the more we ‘worked’ on our relationship, the farther apart we grew.”

Sound familiar?  My wife, Carlin, and I had a similar experience. Like the Pransky’s we, too, were counselors and wondered how we could be having so many problems when we were trained to help people. Why couldn’t we help ourselves? The answer turned out to be a new kind of counseling that looks at what is positive in the relationship rather than what is negative.

When I was in graduate school I was taught that in order to improve our relationships we had to get to the root of the problem. We had to uncover our traumatic past and talk about the wounds and unhappiness we felt. We had to treat our anger, anxiety, and depression. But what I’ve learned over the years is a total perceptual change.

The more we focus on the negative, the more problems we have. The more we focus on the positive, the happier we become. There seems to be a truth about life: Whatever we focus our attention on, increases. Some call it the “Law of Attraction.” If we want a more joyful relationship, leaving is not the answer for most people.

That’s what Dr. Pransky found. In his wonderful book, Divorce Is Not the Answer: A Change of Heart Will Save Your Marriage, he says,

“A change of heart is the almost magical force that erases the distress in relationships and give you a fresh start.”

He goes on to offer this powerful view of health.

“If you have a physical dysfunction—a bad kidney, broken leg or an ulcer—it takes time to recover. Only in the worst case is the damage irreversible. In contrast, relationship dysfunction—conflict, boredom or resentment—needs no healing time and is always reversible. A change of heart can occur in an instant.”

Too many marriage and family counselors are really divorce counselors. They take a couple down and down and down into their pain and problems with the hopes of getting to the core of what is wrong. Too often, the end result is that each person learns more about themselves, but the relationship comes to an end.

I take a different approach. I help you find those moments of positivity, love, and gratitude in your relationship. I teach you to build on the best of what you have and who you are, not the worst. I help you realize that the love you thought you had lost was really not lost at all. It had just gotten covered by a mountain of misperceptions. I help you recognize that things are actually much better than you thought and easier to fix than you ever imagined.

I’ve learned that it may take “two to Tango,” but a relationship can be saved even if only one person still believes in love and is willing to take the risk to hold fast to what you truly want. More often than not, when one person is able to let go of fear and live more fully in a place of love, it reawakens hope in their partner and both can recommit to the joy, passion, and intimacy they both want and need.

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Photo: Flickr/ tedandjen