These are the three rules that I’d advise you adopt in your marriage, whether you work with me or not.
They are non-negotiable in my office – Once I start working with my couples, we discuss these right away.
Session one, literally.
I learned this one from the one and only, Terry Real during our in-person training a decade ago.
He called this the “I Pass” rule.
Which is for you to use when you are unable, unready, or unwilling to talk about a particular subject at the time that your spouse approaches you.
Or me, in this case, in one of our sessions.
I want to preface this by saying – and I’ve said this in the past so you may have already heard it – We can’t make another adult do something they don’t want to do.
Nor should we want to.
Whether that adult is the person we married or not, this applies.
We can ask them for something, but if they don’t want to talk about something – I don’t want them to talk about it.
And I am certainly not going to try to make them talk about it.
‘Cause that never goes anywhere.
Well, not anywhere good anyway.
Now, and I say this to the couples in my office too — if it’s something where I feel like we should come back to it, I might make a note and try a couple weeks later and ask again.
If it’s still a “no”, I might try one other time, and if it’s a ‘no’, we might talk about why it keeps being that, but —
I will not make you talk about something that you don’t want to talk about.
And it’s a good rule to have at home too.
As we start working together, I am really specific about this one hard rule I have.
We don’t joke about divorce.
No bringing divorce up in passing.
We’re done yelling that word at the top of your lungs during a fight when you both have lost all your capacity to be behaving like an adult.
No lighthearted versions of it in conversations around beers with your buddies or your girlfriends – “Oh, my husband/wife would divorce me if they knew that I was saying/doing this.”
None of that.
We don’t threaten with divorce either.
Divorce – as far as I am concerned – and I want you to get on board with that – is OFF the TABLE for the entirety of our time together.
And I encourage my clients to keep it off the table literally – as in, I am not using that word in our conversations, on purpose – AND – I am not going there in my mind either.
I am not considering it.
Am not sliding into that territory, not even on a bad day.
I don’t re-visit it as as possibility next time I see my BFF.
We put ‘Divorce’ in a box, put it up on the shelf – we don’t even put a sign on the said box – OR better yet – take it out with the trash for the next 6 months.
Or however long we end up working together – The D word, as part of our vocabulary, and as a concept both – IS OUT.
We cannot work towards clean teeth as you’re brushing- but then every thirty seconds slip in an oreo cookie in there and think it will not be affected.
If you want clean teeth, you don’t eat Oreos while you brush.
It’s that simple.
That’s how I set up my clients with this one – and I encourage you to do the same.
Whether you are currently actively working on your relationship in my office or somebody else’s office – OR you are just living life together, committed to each other, committed to your marriage.
IF – and only if – that time comes and you find yourself in a place where that is where you’re leaning towards – THEN, and only then do you bring that up.
And then we talk about it and address it accordingly and do what we need to do with that.
Talk about it in a cool, calm and collected place and tone and figure out a solution.
Now, you may have talked about this and even agreed on this at home, at your kids’ birthday parties, and all the other places and times.
We ain’t gonna bring up and talk about what’s not working in our marriage when during a dinner party, or a extended family birthday event where all the 23 cousins and their families show up.
Most of you even agree to not spill any of it at work.
Some of you don’t even have the conversation – it’s just sort of assumed.
And that’s fine.
That you don’t talk about it and that you are on the same page about not spilling your guts to all the people everywhere.
Here, on this couch – It’s different.
This is where I INVITE you to bring all the dirty laundry.
We’ll get it out of the baskets, throw it on the floor, sort it by color and temperature – figure out what needs to be washed, what needs to be dry cleaned and all that.
That’s why you are here.
This is THE PLACE to bring all that here.
And I am saying that because – every so often – someone forgets about this rule and I end up finding out something major happened 2-3 months ago, and we haven’t been able to deal with any of it – YOU haven’t been able to deal with any of it either – Because it was never brought up in the first place.
The only way I can be helpful is if I know.
If you keep it to yourselves, I will be left clueless as to what’s going on and certainly will be unable to address it with you, and help you clear it up.
And it’s not going to be serving you either way because you’re just collecting and making the resentment grow by the minute every day that you don’t bring that up with one another.
So – bring all the muddy clothes, bring all the torn stuff, bring all the ‘my two year old took the permanent marker to these light colored pants’ – Bring all of it.
And then we can deal.
We can clear it up.
We can do repair that’s necessary.
And we can help you heal and move on.
Move on and let it go.
There may be a time where the event is SO fresh, in your mind and in your body that you might be unable or not ready to talk about it yet.
Maybe the incident happened the morning of our session – And you know that you cannot bring yourselves to talk about it in the cool, calm and collected manner that’s needed quite yet.
Notice, I said – quite yet.
You might need some time to process and cool down.
Bring the heat down and process your emotions.
That’s when I’d want you to say to me – so that we can put a pin in it:
“Something major did happen this morning, but neither one of us is quite ready to address that in a constructive way yet.
Can you make a note and can we circle back to it next week?”
That way we can do just that.
Put a pin in it, and address it as needed the following session.
But I’m helping you remember – and make sure that it doesn’t go un-addressed and un-noticed for weeks or months even.
Does that make sense?
Like I said above – Even if you and I aren’t working together on your marriage right this second – maybe you’re considering of contacting me – you can adopt these three rules for your marriage.
Right now.
Right where you are.
Decide that this is how you’re gonna roll, too.
Get on the same page and see to it that you understand the why behind all of it – and then put it to work.
It will do you good.
The both of you.
Now, if you are looking for help with your marriage RIGHT NOW, ’cause you know you’ve been hemming and hawing long enough already — you can schedule an initial phone consultation with me right now, find a time that works and let’s talk.
We can get this marriage of yours back on track.
