How to Avoid a Divorce

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I will not go into detail about specific problems a marriage might be having, be it the children, the money or sexuality. The scope of this article simply doesn’t provide for it. I will, however, talk in detail about communication problems. Without an effective communication no problem that is shared by two or more people, as is the case when a divorce looms on the horizon, can be solved.

Have you ever felt that you simply can’t get through to the other person? You try to tell and explain, but whatever it is that you say seems to fall on deaf ears? You talk and talk, think about ways how to say what it is you want to explain, and it just doesn’t work? And you have this real negative feeling of impotence, because if you can’t even make yourself understood, how on earth can you solve the problem which has to be solved?

Might it be possible that your spouse feels exactly the same way? He or she can’t get through to you? My hallucination is that this is precisely the case, even though you might have not seen it this way so far.

Let’s step back for a second and do some imagination. Imagine that you stand in a container, visualize a barrel, an aquarium, whatever. You stand in that container and the space within is shared not only by your thoughts, but by your emotions as well. It will be obvious by now that the more emotional we are, the less space we have at our disposal for our rational thoughts.

If we are only slightly ‘charged’ with emotions, let’s say they come up to our ankles; the more space is left that allows us to act on a rational level. Imagine now that the level of emotions goes up to our waist – it is becoming more and more difficult to move, isn’t it? We literally have to wade through that mass of emotions, and we begin to say stupid things or act foolishly.