How Long Will It Take To Save My Marriage?

Is there a timeline for saving a marriage?

If you are asking "How long will it take to save my marriage?" the honest answer is that there is no magic formula or set number of days. It relies entirely on consistency over time. In this video, Dr. Joe Beam explains that saving a relationship is not an immediate event. It is a process of changing the negative narrative your spouse has about you by consistently doing the right things, even when it feels like it is not working.

In this episode:

Dr. Joe Beam breaks down the typical pattern of marriage dissolution and shares the hard truth about separation. Did you know that once a physical separation occurs, the likelihood of divorce rises to between 75% and 80%?

Dr. Beam explains why this happens using a concept called Negative Affect. This is when your spouse interprets everything you do through a negative filter. Even when you try to change or work on your PIES (Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, Spiritual attraction), your spouse might attack you or criticize you.

Why do they do this? Because your positive changes are messing up the negative narrative they have created to justify leaving.

You will learn:

• The typical "devolving" pattern of a marriage heading toward divorce.
• Why you should avoid or delay separation if at all possible.
• Negative Affect: Why your spouse sees you as the "bad guy" regardless of what you do.
• Why your spouse might get angry when you start working on yourself.
• The vital importance of consistency over time to change their mind.

It is unfair that you have to do the heavy lifting right now. However, if you are the one standing for the marriage, you are the one who has to change the dynamic. It is not easy, but we have witnessed "hopeless" couples turn it around even after years of struggle.

If you're struggling in your marriage, don’t wait. Get our FREE resource: The 7 Steps to Rescue Your Marriage 👉 https://marriagehelper.com/free

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Transcript

Why Fast Breakups Are Rare

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So I think what I'm going to do here before I take the next call is try to explain some things like this. You see, a marriage that falls apart that quickly is typically unusual. There's there's more of a pattern, and there's research that documents this as being the typical pattern. Now, yours may be different, but when we say typical means it occurs for a lot of people. And the first is that they're going to live unhappily together for a period of time. That most marriages that are going to head towards separation or divorce start that way. That for a while things have not been good. They continue to live that way. And then things get bad enough that they seriously consider a dissolution. Like, okay, I don't know that I want to be in this anymore. And that might be one of you. It might be both of you, but that you go through that for a while. So it starts with, I know I'm unhappy, and finally evolves into, or maybe devolve is the better word, devolves into, I don't think I want to stay in this, which then will devolve into a separation, which then will devolve into a divorce. It's based on which search research you believe, but if you separate, the likelihood of divorce is running somewhere between 75 and 80%. Now, and that probably sounds discouraging to Jen because she just told us her husband's living someplace else, and you're saying, Dr. Bean, you're taking my hope away, you're taking Jen's hope away. No, what I'm doing is telling you that it still can be done, but it is tougher. You hear that? Now, the reason I'm saying this because some of you have not yet separated. That it may be on the table, it may have been talked about or discussed. And I'm suggesting to you, if at all possible, you delay that, prevent it from happening at all if you can. Because once you actually separate, the likelihood of divorcing is going to increase pretty dramatically. Okay. Now, hear me again. I'm not saying all hope is gone. But you need to know that once a separation takes place, it is more difficult to salvage the marriage. You say, well, why? It kind of comes back to our push-pull kind of thing, but let me give you a little deeper explanation to push-pull than I typically do. Push-pull can go like this. There's a thing called positive affect and a thing called negative affect. Now, negative affect is I'm so used to you doing things that evokes negative emotions within me that I begin to expect nearly everything you do to evoke negative emotions within me. And if you do something in passing that happens to evoke a positive emotion in me, then I give it a transient classification. Like, well, yes, that was nice, but that's not who he really is. That's not who she really is. And so I'm going to see that it's just a blip on the screen, not something that's going to continue to happen. And so people who have a negative affect toward the other will mostly interpret everything negatively. And then we'll tend to look at the whole world negatively. Sometimes they'll look even at where they live negatively, or the house they're in negatively, or the job they have negatively, not just the marriage, but things around them as being negative. Now, not everything, because if they're being lured away by a pull outside the marriage, and let's say a poll is another person, or a fantasy they're pursuing, or this fantastic job they think is going to solve all their problems and issues, then they won't be negative about that thing yet. But if they're living with a negative aspect or a negative affect, I should say, then they'll be seeing a lot of different things negatively. And therefore, if you do something that evokes a negative emotion within them, they'll attribute that to an internal factor. Not just that, oh, well, they messed up and did something wrong, but that's who this person is. This person is selfish. Oh, you hear this a lot. This person's a narcissist. Oh, give me a break. Or this person delights in hurting me. And so they begin to think that anything you do that really does draw this negative emotion out of them, that they see that as being something having to do with who you are, not something that you do. Now, as you might expect, and I know this is going to sound discouraging, but stay with me till the end. As you might expect, once you get that mental image of the other person, once you make that hypothesis, if you will, that the other person is a bad person and wants to hurt you, it's difficult to change that view. Because anything that occurs, unless it's just a rare positive thing that they actually did like. And then again, like I said, they'll attribute that to just, eh, that just happened. It's not who here she is. But as they begin to develop more and more that you're a bad person, then anything you do, they will twist into proving that you're a bad person. If you just forget to say hello when you walk by them, it's like, see there, this person hates me, doesn't like me, doesn't want anything to do with me. Now, I realize everything I'm saying is probably taking your hope away and making you feel that, oh my goodness, that's how it's happening in my marriage, and you're telling me there's no hope. No. We specialize in telling people the truth, even when the truth hurts. What that means is I want you to face reality because dealing in a la-la land, living in a fantasy land, is not going to help you one bit. We talk about acceptance as acknowledging reality. And sometimes you don't just need to accept what the other person is or has done or is doing. Sometimes you need to accept the reality of the situation that you're in. Okay, I'm going to acknowledge reality. Okay, so it does make, it does make it harder. But it helps you also know what you're fighting against. Okay. That's why when I did this, rather than getting a positive reaction, I got a negative reaction. People talk about it all the time. I started working on my pies, and my spouse, rather than being drawn more to me because I'm working on my pies, it has now become very critical that I'm working on my pies. You know why they're critical? Because you're messing up their narrative. The idea they have about you in their head, the way that they're viewing you through this negative effect, when you start changing that, it messes them up. And often, often then they will attack you. Why are they attacking you? Because they're trying to still convince themselves that you're this negative person with all these negative effects, aspects, and they want nothing to do with you. And so you say, well, then good grief, why am I doing? That's why we tell you that when you do things such as work on your pots, that you don't watch their reactions because if you're doing it to get the reaction from them that you want, if they don't give you that reaction, you'll stop doing it. And what I'm trying to help you understand here is that sometimes you're going to get that negative reaction, not because you're doing the wrong thing, but because you're doing the right thing. And you need to keep on doing the right thing because, because that that narrative in their head has become so strong and they've evidenced it with all kinds of things. Well, she did this or he did that. Even going back years. Well, back in 1972, they really do sometimes go back years. I've watched it, it's fascinating. And now that you're not meeting that expectation, now that you're changing your behavior, it messes them up. Well, I'll quit saying it that way and put it this way, it confuses them. Because their narrative doesn't work anymore. So that's why you don't stop doing it. Even if they criticize, even if they complain, even if they attack, you don't stop. Because what you want to do is amass such a great amount of positive evidence that eventually their narrative about you begins to change. You say, Well, that's not fair. Why does all the work put on me? You're right. It's not fair. But this is the person over here, your spouse, who wants out. So they're not going to listen to anything I tell them. If I say you need to do this, this, this, and that, they're going to say, But I want out of the marriage. Quit telling me what to do to save the marriage. And so the only person I can talk to who really wants to save the marriage is you, which means that you're the one who would have to do these things consistently over time. As consistently as a human being can. You will not do it perfectly. Nobody does. And don't freak out when you mess up every once in a while. It's consistency over time as much as any human being can be consistent, consistency over time. And that's why sometimes people get so frustrated with us when they say, well, how can I get him or her to see the error of their ways and come back right now? Well, I can't. Now, God can, and maybe he will answer your prayers that way. Some situation might occur where all of a sudden they just come to their senses. But typically it's going to have to go through a process where that they change the narrative about you. Now you're saying, but what about the narrative they have about the other person they're involved with if they're involved with another person or the fantasy they're chasing or whatever it might be they're doing out there? What's going to change their narrative about that? That will eventually change itself because of the fact that it's not as perfect as they think it is. He or she is not as perfect as they want them to be. And eventually they start realizing that that narrative, which has all been based on positive affect, everything about it is good, everything about this person is wonderful, everything about that new career is going to be awesome. Amazing, amazing, amazing. That that eventually starts to crack. Because nothing is perfect. No one, no thing. And you can't affect that anyway. And the more you try to affect what's happening out there, the worse it's going to get. And so what do you do? You work on you. Now, again, have I made it clear that it's not always easy? Have I made it clear that it really requires an amount of work? That's why in our workshop, I'll often ask people, are you sure that you really want to do this? Because there are going to be days when you're thinking, why, oh, why, oh why? I mean, why don't I just go do something else? Why don't I be happy? Why don't I kick him to the curb, as as Jen just said a few minutes ago? It's because of the fact that if indeed the person that you still love is still in there. In other words, he or she may be doing some really crappy stuff right now. Stuff that makes you think, who in the world is he? Who is she? I don't even know this person. If you believe that the good person is still in there, and if you still love the good person that is in there, then it's worthwhile to rescue these people if if you're willing to do the work. But there's no magic formula. There's no pill I can give you, and there's no pill we can give you to sneak into his or her coffee. It really is about you doing the right thing. And understanding that right now they may have a negative narrative about you. Okay. Rather than bemoaning that, acknowledge reality. Accept that. Okay, that's where we're starting. Gonna make it a little tougher. But because I know what to do, and that's what we teach you. Because I know what to do. We can go through this and and with time and consistency, this whole situation can change. Now I can't guarantee you that it always will. But I can tell you been working with couples that we've been working with couples for 30 years. And we have witnessed it again and again and again when everybody thought it was impossible. Everybody. As a matter of fact, sometimes after the first day of the workshop, I'll tell my wife, Alice, that couple doesn't have a hope. Sometimes even I give up. And by the third day of the workshop, you see them turning around, things changing, and they're still together now 15 years later. And it's like, do the right things, and you'll get the right consequences, the right results. It may not be every result you want, but it's going to be good. And that's what your hope is placed in. If I do the right things, good things are gonna happen. Hopefully with my marriage, but on the rare chance that maybe it won't work there, there's still gonna be good things for me, for my children, for people that I care about. And that's what we're suggesting. Well, I'm sorry about that little rant. I hope maybe it made some sense to some of you. And I truly hope, truly hope that it gave you hope in the right sense, in the sense that it's not magic, it's not immediate. It's it's an effort over time, consistency over time.