Too Late For Marriage Counseling If We’re Already Considering Divorce?

It may come as no surprise that after 25 years as a last-ditch marriage therapist, my first thought at the end of Frozen II when Anna and Kristoff decide to get married was, “Sure, nice castle, but we all know you’ll be in therapy in five years.”

And when I see couples divorcing – people who often have had every advantage, every opportunity to succeed —my first thought is, “Sure, nice castle(s), but why didn’t you CALL ME??”

I mean, apart from the fact that they probably don’t have my number.

(214) 357-4001— It’s right there on our Lifeologie Counseling Dallas page.

And that question — is it already too late for marriage counseling if we’re talking about divorce? — tends to show up right on schedule in midlife. By the time couples reach their 40s and 50s, the stakes start to feel different. Kids are older, careers are established, and the quiet realization creeps in that life may be half over. That moment can create a powerful psychological pivot: people begin asking themselves whether the next chapter will look exactly like the last twenty years. For many couples, that awareness exposes the slow erosion that’s been happening for years — the loneliness, the emotional distance, the sense that two people are managing a household rather than sharing a life. Midlife divorce often isn’t about one dramatic crisis; it’s about the growing urgency to feel fully alive again before time runs out. And that’s exactly where the real conversation begins.

change occurs when pain overcomes fear

Read that again. I’ll wait.

So … change occurs when pain overcomes fear. It’s true. It’s a rule in the universe. Like gravity.

Which means that tolerable pain leads to longer, crummier marriages.

Also true. Also a rule in the universe. Also like gravity.

And it’s REALLY hard to know what to do about a mediocre marriage. On average, couples let a problem simmer for seven years before they seek therapy. Many of the couples I see have been married between 20 and 35 years. Meaning they’ve sometimes seen half a dozen therapists before they get to me.

Why didn’t therapy work the first half a dozen times? A few reasons.

when couples counseling doesn’t work

1. When someone asks my musician dad, “How does that song go?” he always answers, “it doesn’t go, you have to push it.” Same deal with couples counseling. The counseling doesn’t do the work. YOU do. Sometimes people just don’t do the work. It’s too uncomfortable. Too easy to tolerate the mediocrity.

2. Second reason is a little embarrassing. I’m outing my entire profession here. Lots of marriage counseling out there just isn’t helpful. The interventions are trite and artificial. And they don’t stick. The couples I see need more than communication scripts and date nights. Sorry, but it’s true.

3. Finally - pain hasn’t yet overcome fear. The fear of change, fear of the hard work, fear of failure — all that fear — motivates people to do just enough to relieve the most acute pain but not enough to go the full distance and find real happiness. The truth is, most marriages die after a slow decline that erodes a relationship into tolerable but dissatisfying mediocrity.

common fears about couples therapy

And people fear couples therapy for some REALLY good reasons.

1. - see #2 above.

2. People imagine that the goal of couples therapy is to tweak things so that they can tolerate the relationship they’re in. They imagine pasting their current situation together with old Band-Aids and bent paperclips so that they can stay married.

3. People think that staying married is the mark of success. And that makes sense, right? But here’s one of life’s real challenges. Anyone can stay married. Being married is another matter entirely.

I can say with certainty that many people stay married because they don’t want to get divorced. Not because they want to stay married. The catastrophe of divorce, of breaking up a marriage or a family, is much scarier than trudging along, keeping it together, “not giving up.” So they keep trying — just enough to keep going but not enough to make it better.

feeling lonely, but not alone

And yet… when the slow decline has clearly begun, I wonder what would happen if bored, lonely couples listened to their boredom and loneliness more than they listened to their fear of divorce or their fear of change? More than their fear of public failure? More than their fear of ruining their kids’ lives? More than their fear of selling the castle(s)? What would happen if they’d let themselves translate the low-grade pain into a legit sense of urgency? What would happen if that low-grade pain led to intelligent intervention?

The truth is, by the time people are sitting on my couch seeking last-ditch marriage counseling, not only have they tried literally everything they can think of and mowed down three or four other therapists, they are in so much pain that they are finally unafraid to do whatever it takes to end the madness. By the time people are sitting on my couch, they’ve been living in their crummy marriage for as long as they can possibly stand it. And finally, one day, something or someone snaps, and that’s it. Boom.

My clients are tired. They’re pissed off. They’re discouraged. They’re bitter. They’re fresh out of answers. In fact, after all that pithy cheese-ball therapy, they’re convinced there are no answers. And … here’s my favorite part … they’re motivated. They literally do not want to be in this marriage one more day. And that’s a good thing.

Score one for intolerable pain.

My pitch to my clients in that first session? “Hey guys, I agree with you. This marriage sucks.. No one gets married hoping that it will turn out like this. Let’s end this marriage. Burn this thing down. Right here, right now. What time is it?” And I look at my watch. “Okay, it’s 4:30 on Wednesday the 2nd. Let’s do this. Let’s end this marriage TODAY. “

This is the part where they blink at me in stunned silence. Because, you know, they’re paying me not to say stuff like that.

Then I say, “This is the question I have for you. Are you interested in creating an entirely DIFFERENT marriage without changing the personnel? Are you interested in doing the hard work to be better, healthier humans and finding out if you can create a better, healthier marriage with better, healthier versions of yourselves? Because we all agree this marriage has to go. We’re not saving it. We’re pulling the plug. The patient is dead.”

The answer — after they get their heads around the possibility of ending the relationship without leaving the marriage — is, “Yes. Of course. Where do we dump the body? ”

This is the part where I remind them that therapy is cheaper than divorce. And now they’re REALLY in.

So we roll up our sleeves and get to work. It’s time for some intelligent intervention.

What do I mean by intelligent intervention?

Good marriage counseling is like four-dimensional chess. Lots of moving parts with a simple unifying premise: all behavior makes sense in context.

All. Behavior. Makes. Sense. In. Context.

So I roll out my four-step plan and we get to work finding the context that makes it all make sense, and we begin deconstructing the relationship, piece by piece. So we can create a new one. Piece by piece.

4 steps to making last ditch marriage counseling work

Step 1: We work to understand the recurring patterns and problems in excruciating detail. Excruciating. Detail. I’m looking for something well beyond the story they’re telling themselves. I’m looking for cracks in the foundations of the relationship that, over time, have made it a non-load-bearing structure. I’m looking for functional flaws that make it nearly impossible to succeed within this crumbling structure they’ve created and maintained for so long.

Step 2: We work to understand the history of the two humans who are staring at me and at each other with all that fatigue and discouragement on their faces. We look in all the nooks and crannies of their family stories and find the dirt and take a good hard look at it. We find out, for example, if one of their families had a dominant family member whose mood determined the entire atmosphere in the house. (The answer is yes.) And we discover that they’re still organizing in the same way they learned as kids. Walking on eggshells. Fearing silence. Withdrawing. Resenting. Pick your poison.That stuff started somewhere as a survival tool and has evolved into a self-defeating pattern that creates constant confusion for everyone in the system.

Step 3: We roll out the multi-partiality and properly apportion responsibility, empowering both partners to effect real change in the marriage. This is a life-changer. I do it with all my clients. The most empowering thing you can possibly do for yourself in a flawed relationship is to understand how your flaws contribute to your complicity.

Step 4: We work to construct a new relationship in which everyone is consciously choosing to be a self-responsible grown-up and build a relationship in which their old behaviors no longer make sense and in which old emotional patterns and functional patterns no longer run the show.

And the truth is, it’s not as hard as it sounds.

So maybe you’re are done. Baked. Shot-out. Waving the white flag.

But that’s exactly when to call for help. Because there’s a good chance that the pain has finally overcome the fear. There’s a good chance that, since you’re finally ready to end the relationship they might be ready to create a new marriage. From the ground up. They might finally have a chance at a really juicy, interesting life together.

And of course, therapy is cheaper than divorce. They could keep the castles. There’s a win.

Dallas Fort Worth couples, remember (214) 357-4001. That number again… (214) 357-4001. You can also request an appointment with me for last-ditch couples counseling in Dallas.

For couples outside of Texas, visit our Lifeologie therapist directory to find a therapist near you who specializes in helping couples find their way.