Marriage: Split, Survive, or Save?

I think the part about splitting is, you know, you're having all these struggles with your relationship and it's like you can pack the relationship up in a box and, you know, put it out to the roadway and someone will whisk it away and then that's the problem is done.

When the day of separation comes you actually get another box and in that box you have the financial problems and the property division and the parenting schedule and making parenting decisions and then layered underneath that are all the relationship problems that you thought you were putting out to the roadside. Welcome to Family Life Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson and I'm Dave Wilson and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today.

So I'll never forget the day. I'm driving with my dad to a band rehearsal for our church. Yeah, and describe a little bit about your dad. Like where was he in your life?

Well, I mean I'm in my 40s probably at this time. We had started our church five or ten years previously. My dad and I were not close. He left when I was six for a girlfriend actually. Ended up being remarried. But now it's sort of back in my life. We would see him maybe once or twice a year.

Yeah, didn't see much. And it was sort of fun because he was a drummer. He paid his way through college playing the drums.

I'm a guitar player going to this rehearsal. I'm thinking this cool moment he's gonna watch his son in rehearsal. But out of nowhere I get this thought and I'll never forget I look over and I go, hey dad, did you regret the divorce?

Because they had been married 25 years. Yeah, and I had never talked to him about this. So it's sort of a scary moment for me to bring this up and I don't know why. I don't know where I had this thought, hey dad, did you regret the divorce? Thinking, I don't know if he'll answer this. Before I'm like done with the question he responds blank yes.

Like visceral. Like he had thought about this many times and I remember going, why? And he goes, because I missed you. I missed your whole life. And it was one of the most regrettable decisions of my life. Which was so healing for you because you really had no relationship and you kind of assumed like he didn't care about you.

I did not expect that answer. But as I bring that up now I'm thinking every marriage especially in a situation like that comes to a fork in the road. Where you're gonna make a decision about when it gets hard are we gonna fight for it or are we gonna end it?

Obviously my dad ended it and then regretted it you know years later. And I tell you what, we do not want that for you. We don't want that for any family. And obviously that's our mission here at Family Life. We want to help marriages, families.

We want to build godly legacies. And one of the tools God's given Family Life that's been around for generations is what we call a weekend to remember getaway. Where couples come, pre-married couples, married couples, couples been married decades.

Come to a hotel to a getaway and take from Friday night through Sunday morning a look at them. You put energy into your marriage and really leave the weekend with God's game plan for your marriage to make it work so that you don't end it. Guys this is so big because it really did I feel like it really changed our marriage. It gave us God's blueprint of why he wants us to be married and it will help you thrive. It will help you avoid pitfalls. You'll experience God's good plan for marriage.

I wish my mom and dad would have gone to one. It might have saved their marriage but we want to save your marriage. And so this is a decision that can literally change your legacy. So here's how you can sign up and if you sign up right now it's half price. Did you hear that? Half price. I don't know about you but I'm a I'm a guy that's all about half price deals.

So go to familylifetoday.com and you can sign up for any weekend to remember getaway in any city. And I'm telling you it's gonna change your life because this is a decision that is critical not just for your marriage but for your legacy as well. And so we get to talk about that today with Toni and Carrie Newhoff and she knows well because she's a divorce attorney in your in your former life right?

Yes. Where you sat with couples sort of who are wrestling with that very issue. So you wrote a book called Before You Split. So I can't wait to hear your perspective because you've you're in a marriage to Carrie but you've also sat and watched couples wrestle with the same kind of questions my mom and dad had to wrestle with. So so Carrie and Toni thanks for being with us back again on Family Life Today.

It's great. We've been talking earlier this week where Carrie you're an author, you've been a pastor, you're a podcaster, you're well known, you guys are church leaders. And Toni you have a podcast what's your podcast called again? It's the Smart Family Podcast.

And what's it about? Well we help young parents with parenting solutions, marriage advice, basically we want to help people love being home. Hmm that's good like we all need that. Here's what I didn't know because I've known Carrie for a little bit. I didn't know you're the magic behind the new hoffs right here. Toni's the magic. You always know.

She is. I mean so many people you know listen to Carrie and read his stuff but Toni I didn't know as much about you until we got you know your book Before You Split. And it's I mean we've had a great conversation talking about your marriage almost ending, struggles you know bringing baggage as you call it mud into your marriage and working through that. Today I want to talk about something you wrote in your book and it's really about that fork in the road when a couple is struggling and you know we've talked about your struggle, our struggle, there's a decision and you call it you have a choice to either split, survive or save.

Yeah so let's talk about those three options. You know first of all you can pick either one you want to start with but as a couple wrestles with that how do they negotiate what to do in that fork in the road? Splitting I think is obvious to people because you know we all know someone or maybe we've even gone through a separation ourselves but I think the part about splitting for people who haven't gone through it before themselves that isn't familiar is you know you're having all these struggles with your relationship and it's like you can pack the relationship up in a box and you know put it out to the roadway and someone will whisk it away and then there that's the problem is done. The issue though if you have kids in particular is that when the day of separation comes you actually get another box and in that box you have the financial problems and the property division and the parenting schedule and making parenting decisions and then layered underneath that are all the relationship problems that you thought you were putting out to the roadside. So splitting is often a source of disappointment and disillusionment I found for the clients I worked with. Yeah if I can just jump in there's one story you tell that haunts me every time and it was just a particular client I'm sure you've heard it more than once who came in your office and it was a dad he was in the middle of a messy divorce and everybody gets poorer and everything gets complicated and you think you're gonna get access to the kids and it doesn't work out and one of the things he said you write about this in the book is if I had known how complicated this would be I would have worked harder on my marriage and you saw that time and time again because people go oh this is hard but they don't realize that divorce is harder and so I think that that has been a really powerful motivator for me and made me really grateful that we didn't choose that option but I think for any couple that's on the bubble right now yeah this is hard but divorce can be harder like you really can be. Yeah you sort of think it's a solution to a problem and it's really an exchange of problems right? Yes it's a great way to think about it Dave. I do want to just inject a side note here that there are some families I worked with where they needed to separate to allow healing to happen you know in cases where there's safety risks where there's violence or a substance problem that's out of control you know you you've I'm sure you that's a come across those cases too Dave yeah where it needs to happen so that people can heal. That's a good point unsafe is totally different than unhappy yes and I'm talking about unhappy marriages not unsafe marriages but yeah you're totally right but an unhappy marriage like ours was unhappy it wasn't really unsafe it wasn't harmful mm-hmm on the side of the split decision to divorce or end the marriage as you said there's these other problems you may not as a parent understand the depth of the consequences I know that you know obviously my mom and dad split up and I'm 32 years old I'm a pastor of a church now I would say most people would probably look at me and our family and say oh they got it together they have a happy family they're successful they're doing good things and you know I'm sitting on our couch in our family room I have a seven-year-old maybe no five five five year I get all the numbers wrong six and four yeah you know Sunday afternoon I just got done preaching and I'm sitting there with Ann and there they are playing and I turn to her and I just say these words sort of flippantly can you believe my dad left me when I was that age hmm not thinking anything of it's just a comment and Ann looks at me and goes you know you got issues with your dad right I'm like I don't have issues with my dad you know it's just like I was so blind to it and she said you're gonna have to someday forgive him and again it's a long story and our listeners have heard that probably multiple times here but I didn't forgive me in a week I actually thought I would you know I preach this stuff I know Ephesians 4 32 you know forgive as you have been forgiven I'm gonna forgive him by this weekend four or five years later as I go through a process I forgive him but I don't think my dad or a lot of parents ever think about that side of it that this decision to split is gonna have fallout that could be decades later that it's still being dealt with and yet your dad was really abusive he was an alcoholic and he was physically abusive and so for your mom to pull you guys out yeah it was a safety issue yeah but you're right the baggage the wounds there's just that death of a family carries a lot and everyone that's listening that's gone through it you understand and know that like it's not easy is it yeah no and like we talked about in the first conversation earlier this week when Tony threw that ring down her wedding ring and basically it was an ultimatum that was an incredibly painful moment and there were more painful moments to come but in our case again unhappy not unsafe yeah let's there wasn't an addiction involved there wasn't abuse involved there wasn't an affair involved there wasn't any of that involved it was just we didn't like each other anymore and now like I am so grateful because the joy exceeds at this point the pain that we had to go through so that's just a little sprig of hope for those of you who find yourself in an unhappy place rather than an unsafe place but that's split and then there's save and survive yeah so I'll start with survive there so surviving is I would say staying together in your relationship with your your emotions disconnected and this is also a common place for couples to end up I know as newlyweds you think no that'll never happen to us but I've done surveys of church groups before I've done marriage talks and the issue that keeps rising to the top is feeling disconnected or lack of intimacy so like roommates your room yeah roommates or feeling like you're in a like family business contract at the weekend to remember marriage getaway we call it emotional isolation yes mm-hmm that's another great way to describe it and for anyone who's listening right now who maybe sees themselves in that position in their marriage first thing I want to say is don't panic it doesn't mean that your marriage is over and I think that's what I've seen especially in my client practices that you know people say well the love is gone so it's over you know once the love is gone what what is there left and you know that's just not the way it has to be we had reached the point where I wondered whether it was even possible for me to be in love with Carrie again and I know that sounds ridiculous but you know it actually did happen no and I can say absolutely now it would have been I I would have missed out on so much if I'd followed those feelings out the door and so yeah there's ways that you can rebuild your connection even if you feel like it's broken right now it's so interesting because right now we're in an era you guys have read this that there are more people getting divorced once their kids are gone yeah because they're probably thinking I've been living in this isolation I've been living we just been surviving and I don't want to just survive anymore our kids are gone and so I'm gonna go find life well and people are living longer and they feel younger older like I'm in my 50s and I'm like I actually think I feel physically better than I did when I was in my 20s yeah right like I don't know what that is so there was that idea that life was over at 50 or 60 and now people are going well if I got three or four decades left right and then you're looking at this stranger in the house that you don't like anymore and you're right when the youngest goes to college the divorce rate spikes and there's this part of me that thinks oh man you guys have already put in this these 25 30 years you know you're gonna go through this and this is what I say if you get remarried and this doesn't happen every time but every marriage still goes through that reality phase of you have to go through another crisis you have to learn how to love each other you have to learn about the other person's baggage situation is gonna go away and that's just normal that's what's expected and that's what happens in a marriage so I'm like man don't just survive you can get out of that pit because as you guys I thought there's no getting out of that pit this is just where we are but you really are offering you're saying no there's hope you've been there yes yeah there are very practical ways to rebuild that connection and it doesn't have to be a mystery and that's part of what I what I tackle is one of the reasons that I was really motivated to write and and then beyond surviving yeah is the option of saving so saving your marriage is reaching the place where you feel like you're in sync that you have each other's backs you're deeply satisfied and you do have that connection yeah all I want to say about saving your marriage is that it's possible so possible to go from surviving to saving and surviving in your marriage for a temporary period while you work on rebuilding your connection and seeing what you can do to rekindle the love that you obviously did share at one point in time is yeah in my opinion absolutely possible in saving and recovery for us was like a multi-year process so we decided to survive not split and then you know it took a few years but it's interesting you know I was thinking about this while you were talking Tony I've only broken my hand once and that was about six months ago and when you break your thumb I was skiing it really hurts like I'd never broken anything I had a cast I had to have surgery plastic surgery three pins inserted into my hand and that kind of thing so that was pretty like overwhelming you you thought about it day and night and it was really painful but now I'm at the point where 99% of the day I forgot that I broke my thumb a few months ago and every once in a while I go to grab something I'm like oh yeah it kind of hurts and I think that's what it's like like at first it's really painful everything is work there's a lot of skills there's a lot of okay the counselor told us to do this we should do this intimacy is shared experiences we should do a hobby together okay we'll do a hobby together but then eventually becomes a way of life and just enjoyable and then every once in a while you're like oh yeah that hand was broken at one point in but you kind of forget about it 90% of the time I don't know does that metaphor ring true Tony yeah I think as far as the pain goes in that acute period where you know you you know that you need to get out of this painful version of your marriage but you know you don't know exactly what these next steps look like and you don't even have any guarantee that it's gonna work frankly in the in that phase it's so important to actually leave yourself the margin and make up your mind that this is actually going to take your energy time and probably some resources you know probably some money if you're going into counseling you know chances are you'll need to invest in that and deciding that okay this is worth it I am going to build that extra time into my calendar because it's not something that you can just force into the margins of your life and expect it to work very well yeah you have to make it a priority hmm it's kind of like if you're sick you've got a broken leg you've got to put the splint on or the cast on or get the crutches out and you've got to do some work to rehab that yeah and I love the the research you cite in your book from Linda weight with a team of they studied 645 unhappily married spouses and they studied them at the beginning and five years later am I getting this right and just said yes you know couples that got divorced compared to couples that fought for their marriage in 50% of the ones that fought for said we're happier now than we've ever were and never thought we'd be this happy and only 19% of the divorce couples said we're happier so I mean you read something like that you're like wow it really is worth fighting for you know it's gonna be hard it's gonna it's gonna be costly it might take everything I got but it's worth it you can actually get to you guys are living example you're in a place that's better yeah we'd be in that category yeah we would too yeah and it's cheaper than divorce like a good counselor is cheaper than a good divorce lawyer or a divorce like it's just it's gonna be expensive and and listen as a pastor when I sat in that seat for 20 years I talked to couples who had problems and the number one thing they would say is we don't have money for a counselor really and or we don't have money for date night and I'm like I wish I could get some of those days back we had a fund that would help them but it's like guys this is an investment like an investment actually has a return and the return that we have I'm not talking about money but just in terms of joy and happiness and actual friendship one of the things about you know this coronavirus pandemic we've been through is my goodness you better like the person you're in lockdown with and we have three meals a day I'm not on the road anymore and like we never run out of things to talk about we're not that couple sitting at a restaurant who has three words for each other over the dinner you know we developed that best friend and we have some habits that we've implemented and strategies that have helped us with that yeah you have you have some tips that I thought were really good and the number one tip was avoid the blame and shame game that's a good tip talk about that the blame and shame I can't even think of a couple that I worked with where blame wasn't a part of what was going on and and I have to say that between Carrie and I absolutely we were stuck in that trap of blame and it sounds like it's all her fault it's all his fault and even for people who say well I know I'm not perfect I have some weaknesses they still have the underlying belief that well 95% of the blame rests with my spouse yes maybe 5% of it is mine and and having that I call it a victim story mentality and so not a victim in the sense of unsafe or violence or anything but just that that victim narrative that puts me in the posture of being helpless and I like to describe it as putting on a pair of glasses that are wrong for you that victim story narrative becomes a lens that you look into your relationship through and it causes this blurriness that prevents you from seeing the nuances and the details and most importantly your own role yeah like what it is that you're contributing and so the effort to ditch those victim story glasses is so so important just to take a posture of becoming making it your pursuit to become more self-aware and even to open yourself up before God and ask for the light of Christ to illuminate whatever it is that I'm bringing to this mess that we're in right now the thought that came to my mind as you were finishing that was you know how you watch a sporting event and afterwards there's a big loss but the coach comes up and goes yeah it was on me it's it's my fault you know he just takes it he takes the blame and he's probably thinking no you know just other people but I thought well what would happen if we did that as spouses like I just want you to know like I'm owning this I have not been great at this and I'm really sorry I want to apologize I'm owning it I think that would go a long way and I think just to say like Lord that takes some humbleness of going before the Heavenly Father of saying I'm gonna own this and I'm gonna I'm gonna say Lord what do I need to do I think that's a big thing a big prayer well here's a question for you if I want to save our marriage and my spouse isn't interested what do you do I like the answer that I believe dr. Gary Chapman gave to this kind of question where he said what is it that you can do for a defined period of time that is different from what you've done in the past so I think sometimes a spouse checks out because it has just been too painful and maybe there are unresolved grievances and it's just a real heaviness in the relationship that is shutting them down but if there was something that changed that dynamic for example I just want to tell a story about what happened with us when we were starting to get out of the really tough years of our marriage and one day Carrie and I were having this argument I remember it clearly and he stopped in the middle of it and he came over and he looked at me in my eyes and said that's it you deserve someone who cherishes you and from now on I'm committing to be that one who cherishes you Wow and it was a game-stopper at the time because it was completely different from how our arguments had been going down in that vicious cycle of conflict where typically Carrie would pursue me and try to resolve the problem and I would withdraw and we'd end up in tears and heated but this was completely different and it was more importantly I think it was a different posture that Carrie was really committing himself to and it did start to change the trajectory of our relationship well done Carrie yeah I hear that story Carrie and I'm like wow you're the man dude way to go you know what it was I remember that moment and I don't even know what we were arguing about but I remember thinking because I had talked to a couple of friends I remember talking to my mom and dad once about you know Tony and I are not getting along we're not air your dirty laundry in public while it's going on kind of people but you know you have that inner circle and I was getting feedback from a few people my mom included who was like you know Tony is really an awesome person you are not seeing things correctly and I had a couple of friends give me that kind of feedback too and so she's at me whatever you were at me about that day and I was at you whatever I was about but but I thought about it objectively do you know how many men would love to be married to this woman hmm and then I thought just be that guy and I couldn't emotionally in that moment be that guy but I could go over to her and say hey I'm sorry you actually deserve because Tony's a good person she's got faults one or two just very small little blemishes but I'm head over heels in love with her today but like at that time I'm just like you deserve someone who cherishes you and then I thought to myself I hope I can be that guy and I think most days I am now which is great and the feelings come back right like your emotions catch up to your obedience so if you're saying but the spark is gone which you hear a thousand times that's your number one complaint we thought when you started surveying couples it'd be like we're fighting about money sex it's like parenting parenting it's like no we just don't I don't feel anything for him anymore and it's like listen your emotions catch up to your obedience so I knew the obedient thing to do would be to deal with my own junk try to love my wife as Christ loved the church and try to be that guy who cherished her and it didn't take 15 years but here we are 15 years later and like yeah we we're having a good time and a great time to the point where we do actually say to each other if it gets a whole lot better on the other side of heaven I don't know what that would be because this is pretty amazing and that's you know we still have our moments but their moments and you know and intimacy is shared experience I would contribute to the solution side find things you love to do together when you were dating there was stuff you did you went to movies together you hung out with friends together you built a campfire together in the backyard you went hiking in the mountains I don't know whatever you did you know you you enjoyed it and we have found since our kids left home and they're both independent like we haven't a huge amount of time together and rather than building separate lives Tony does have a few friends I have a few friends but rather than building separate lives like we just found a whole bunch of stuff we enjoy doing together shared experiences and that's what intimacy is what are some hobbies what are some fun things you can do together so we hike we cycle together we're boaters Tony for our 30th anniversary Tony wanted a canoe and it was one of those how expensive is that thing oh you want a nice one okay great and then I'm like now I'm gonna have to go canoeing and I think I said to you this is something I'm getting this for you I'm happy to pay for it this is something you do with your friends and then one day I'm like okay I'll go out canoeing with you and you know what I like it I don't even know why I like it but I really enjoy it and now that's one more thing we can add to a life-giving activity that we really enjoy together and you know your life is full of those experiences together with your kids with your friends and like there's a deep and authentic friendship that you just can't replicate I mean you've got three decades plus into this one you can't manufacture that overnight with someone else that's really good you guys I like ending with that your emotions will catch up with your obedience yeah and I thought you know what you just illustrated for us is when you know the book of Revelation I know Carrie's probably preached this I have as well when Jesus says to the church has lost their first love what's he telling to do exactly what you just said he says repent and do the things you did at first so repents a new posture I'm not going to do the things I did I got we got to do this differently and do the things you did at first oh man when you were dating when you were falling in love you've stopped probably doing those things go back and bring that energy back into your marriage and watch where it goes and then we get to sit here and listen to you go you're more in love now than you were 20 years ago and nobody thinks that's possible and it is and it's it's it's literally God can do that and we would say that too and to the guy who's thinking of leaving like you're gonna date this new person you're gonna go out with why don't you put all that energy into your current relationship why don't you treat her like you did at the beginning and things will start to change or for leaders why don't you put all the energy you put into work why don't you take some of that and put that same level of intentionality into your home life it's going to get better yeah and I would just say this thank you guys for for being so honest and leading all of us on a journey to a place where God wants us to be it's been it's been incredible yeah thanks for being with us has been incredible yeah thank you and Thank You Dave I think maybe the key word in what David and Wilson have been talking with Carrie and Tony Newhoff about today is the word intentional the word that they just used most of us get to a season in our marriage where we put our relationship on the back burner it's on autopilot it's supposed to just hum a long fine in the background without any attention or maintenance or care and just like everything else in your house there's going to come a day when that thing that you've had on autopilot is gonna break down we have to take care of our marriage we have to invest and we have to be intentional and that's one of the reasons why there are couples I know who every year make it a point to attend a family life weekend to remember marriage getaway it's marriage maintenance it's their two and a half day escape where they can focus on their relationship and one another and get some of the dust and cobwebs out of the relationship and freshen things up a bit I mentioned that because we're about to launch the fall season of getaways we've got about 30 events happening in cities all across the country this fall and right now if you register to attend an upcoming getaway you'll save 50% off the regular registration fee that offer is good through Monday so there is no better time than today for you to go to our website family life today calm find out more about the getaway find out when it's coming to a city near where you live and register online or call to register 1-800 FL today is the number that's 1-800-358-6329 take advantage of the savings and then get away this fall for two and a half days and focus on your marriage at a family life weekend to remember marriage getaway if you have any questions call us or go online to family life today calm and the information is available there we hope to see you at an upcoming getaway and don't forget Tony's book which is called before you split find out what you really want for the future of your marriage for those who are at a point where you're thinking maybe this is over maybe this marriage can't be saved the book before you split is the book to read before you make that final decision and you can order it from us online at family life today calm or you can call to order 1-800 FL today is our number that's 1-800-358-6329 1-800 F as in family L as in life and then the word today now tomorrow we're gonna hear about a movie that is opening in theaters this weekend the latest movie from the Kendrick Brothers it's a documentary about fatherhood it's a powerful film and Alex and Stephen Kendrick join us tomorrow to tell us all about it we hope you can be with us for that as well on behalf of our hosts Dave and Ann Wilson I'm Bob Lapine we will see you back next time for another edition of family life today family life today is a production of family life a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most