Let's Talk Midlife Crisis Podcast

Marriage in Crisis: Navigating the Breaking Point with Dr Becky

• Ashley and Traci • Season 3 • Episode 3

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Marriages don't typically fail overnight—they deteriorate through predictable stages that, when recognized early, could save countless relationships. Dr. Becky Whetstone, marriage counselor and author of "I Think I Want Out," joins us to reveal the revolutionary approach to marriage crisis management that traditional therapy often misses.

Dr. Becky's journey began with her own failed marriage and the shocking discovery that even trained therapists lacked the tools to help couples in crisis. This gap in marriage counseling led her on a five-year journey to obtain her PhD and develop specialized methods for couples on the brink of divorce. What she discovered changed everything—a five-stage model of marital deterioration that works like cancer stages, where early intervention is crucial but rarely happens.

The most startling revelation? Many people remain in unhappy marriages for decades without ever telling their partners how they feel. "Uncoupling begins with a secret," Dr. Becky explains, describing how that unspoken unhappiness festers until someone finally declares, "I think I want out." By then, most marriages have progressed to stage four or five, when healing becomes exponentially more difficult.

Dr. Becky challenges conventional wisdom with her counterintuitive approach: when one partner wants out, the other must stop chasing them immediately. She also advocates creative solutions beyond the binary "perfect marriage or divorce" paradigm—separate bedrooms, living arrangements that provide space, and communication techniques that address the root problems.

Whether you're experiencing relationship struggles or want to prevent them, this episode offers invaluable insights from someone who's dedicated her life to saving marriages that traditional therapy couldn't help. Visit marriagecrisismanager.com to learn more about Dr. Becky's work and how her approach might save your relationship before it reaches the point of no return.


Source: https://marriagecrisismanager.com/

Get Dr Becky's Book I (Think) I want Out: https://www.amazon.com/Think-Want-Out-Wants-Marriage/dp/0757325394/


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to let's Talk Midlife Crisis.

Speaker 2:

I'm Ashley and I'm Tracy. We're your go-to hosts for all things midlife, menopause and moments of pure mayhem.

Speaker 1:

Today, our guest is Dr Becky Whetstone. She is a marriage counselor and therapist and author of the book I Think I Want Out.

Speaker 2:

Welcome. Welcome, Becky.

Speaker 3:

We're so excited to have you. Thanks for having me, tracy and Ashley, I'm so happy to be here. There's nothing I love more than talking about relationships, oh good.

Speaker 1:

Because, yeah, we need a relationship specialist. It's been a while since we've had one of those on the show, so we're excited to have you.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, and I can listen to you. Where are you from? I love your accent.

Speaker 3:

I'm in Little Rock, Arkansas. I'm in Arkansas. There you go, arkansas, ben Bill Clinton and a little bit different than the Beverly Hillbillies.

Speaker 1:

I love it. And for those of you that can't see because we don't do video, she gives me major Reba McIntyre vibes Beautiful.

Speaker 3:

Oh really, oh really. You've never heard that. Okay cool, I'm all for it. Never, no one's ever said that. Oh wow, that's shocking to me.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

Well, there's a first for everything, so tell us a little bit about your background and this book that you wrote. Yeah, well, back background. You know I was a late bloomer in general, you know, but I but as a teenager I had, I loved and devoured advice columns. So I think I my obsession with relationships started showing up pretty early, because I would find them in every magazine I possibly could and read them and try to figure out what the experts were going to say. So I kind of set my sights on becoming an advice columnist and my deal was I was going to succeed Ann Landers that's what I told myself and Dare Abby.

Speaker 2:

I was thinking, dare Abby, when you said that I got my degree in journalism.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, because that's what was in the paper back then. There was Dare Abby and. Ann Landers and Dr Joyce Brothers and then there was in Ladies Home Journal they had. Can this Marriage Be Saved?

Speaker 3:

and that one was just, you know, over the top for me. Wow. So I got a degree in journalism. But when I was in journalism school, those, go to a newspaper and do that. But you had to, you know, go to a small town, get paid nothing, work your way up and do house fires and murders, and and maybe when you're 50, they'll let you write a relationship column. And I said, well then, I'm not doing it. So I just went into sales and stuff after after college. But, um, I got married, housewife route.

Speaker 3:

For for a while we were out of purpose and we went through a marriage crisis because my husband didn't behave himself and so I just had. I was at my wit's end and this is where I had my midlife crisis y'all, because I'd been sacrificing for him, I had been conforming for him. You know, giving up everything for him got very little in return, which, as you know, is the recipe for a midlife crisis. And so I just reached that point where I just said that's it, and I sort of busted out of a cannon and said I can't do this anymore, I'm out, I can't do this anymore, I'm out. So we went to a marriage therapist and said can you help us Because I don't know what I want to do but I don't want to stay with him right now and the marriage therapist didn't know how to help us and so we had to end up managing all of that on our own and, of course, two fearful frightened just created a terrible mess with our marriage and we ended up divorced.

Speaker 3:

And of course, it's been like 35 years now and I I see how it's all played out with our kids and everything, and it really, really sad and it really bothered me that that, um, that there was no one in marriage therapy that could help us. I was like what the hell? Why couldn't they help us? So I did. After my divorce I was like, uh, determined to go get a job at the paper and write about relationships. So I was going to become a career woman. So I went to the paper. I literally bugged them for two years until they gave me a job and let me start writing about relationships and it's like like I beat their door down, bang, bang, bang. I started off as a feature writer for two years and then they finally gave me a column.

Speaker 3:

It was very popular, wrote this column. So then people wanted me on their radio shows and their TV shows to talk about relationships and I became kind of San Antonio's relationship guru. But then everybody would go go well, you don't have credentials, you know, this woman is not even a therapist, why should we even listen to her? And the therapy community in san antonio was very mean, critical. So I said you know what? To hell with all of you, I'm going to grad school, wow. So I was going to go get those credentials so I could shut everybody up.

Speaker 3:

And I ended up going to grad school for five years oh my goodness. And got my ph, got my phd and came out as Dr Becky. And in that period of time I researched marriage crisis and what could have been done to save our marriage. And there was so much incredible, powerful research and I was just furious that marriage therapists didn't know about it. And then when I was in marriage therapy class, they never mentioned it. They never trained marriage therapists how to help couples who were on the brink or thinking about divorce. So when I got out of grad school I just sort of decided that I was going to have to be the one that was going to write a book about it and I was going to start creating a way to help couples in crisis, and so that's what I've been doing for 20 years, and then the book came out in February. Okay, so this is a culmination of a lot of you know stuff, but that's my story in a nutshell.

Speaker 1:

The midlife crisis held me into finding myself and finding my purpose, kind of thing we love to share those stories because you know, as you know, it's a very challenging time to go through and it can be really difficult to find yourself through that.

Speaker 3:

It is. You know, I think it's a when you're looking at. I have a model of midlife crisis in my book. I created a graphic to show people and it's sort of like, you know, for my clients and for myself the beginnings of it happens sometime usually between 28 and 32, because now your brain is fully formed and you're starting to question if, like everything that your parents and the culture taught you, is how you want to be.

Speaker 3:

It's like, wait a minute, I don't think I agree with my parents. Or wait a minute, I don't think I agree with that religion over there. Can I be different? Can I be myself, or do I have to keep doing what everybody told me I should do? So I think people start wobbling a little bit, you know, in in the 28 to 32 um period of time and then the longer they don't adjust to being themselves instead of pleasing others, the longer they do that, then the more severe I think the midlife crisis is going to be down the road. But I had my midlife crisis when I was about 35 or 36.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow, okay.

Speaker 3:

And my deal was I don't know what I want to do, but I know that I don't want to be doing this, and so when I went through the crisis, I went to a bunch of self-help intense weekend seminars where they beat you up and hit you over the head with a hammer and make you figure out who you are and what you're about and what your purpose is. And so I came out of there kind of on steroids you know, it wasn't Tony Robbins, but it was something similar to that. You know where. You just come out of there going I'm superwoman, I can do anything, and so that really kind of set me on that that right path where you know, I didn't, I wasn't afraid anymore to assert myself, so it just blew me away. You assert yourself, doors open up like come on in. You know, instead of I didn't find that much resistance when I went around asking people to open doors, so it was crazy, okay.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, that's that's how it all happened and I don't know the rate of divorce rate these days in our country and and perhaps across the world, but definitely in our country. It's just astonishing and I think that this is so refreshing. Um, as you mentioned, because I've never really heard of that. You always hear of couples going to couples counseling or therapy and things like that, but honestly I would, out of the people that I know directly I think that the success rate is pretty low on that, unfortunately, after time. So this is just so refreshing to hear that you are embracing and helping couples with actions that can actually save their relationship.

Speaker 1:

I was going to say. I think, too, that a lot of people you know ultimately give up because they don't have those resources and, like you said, when you went to therapy, they didn't know how to help you and so you do kind of just feel like defeated, like there's nothing I can do, you know, and so you walk away you know, and back then in 93, 92, 93, when this happened, there was no.

Speaker 3:

Internet was just getting you. How on? It was not common, it was just beginning, and so there was no Googling. There was no. You know, you had to. Whatever you went to the bookstore and whatever was on the shelf at your bookstore is what you had available to you, or you could go to the library or something. So I couldn't find any books or anything about marriage crisis.

Speaker 3:

And of course, what I've learned since then is, you know, marriage therapists are trained to try and help you with your marriage. And if you say, ok, we've tried and tried and we tried. Now we've decided we want to divorce, then people leave therapy, they leave and then they go off into the ether to handle things themselves when they are about to go through one of life's most stressful, horrible experiences. And I'm asking my profession, the marriage and family therapy profession, why are we leaving these people in the lurch? We should be supporting them through their crisis and decision-making and help lead them to the right decision for their family and then support them and their children, you know, through through a over a, a reconciliation or a separation or an amicable divorce process, and see them all the way through out the back till they're feeling better after, after they've all adjusted at the end. So I'm trying to tell people out there to stay with your therapist through your divorce process, because you're going to need them and help you discern what is the best decision for you and your family.

Speaker 3:

Now the marriage crisis stuff that I do. There's some finesse and art to it, because the nature of a marriage crisis is usually one person wants out, the other wants to save the marriage, the other wants to save the marriage, and the person that wants to save the marriage is chasing after their spouse, trying to pull them back into the marriage, and if they do that, it almost always ends in divorce. The person who doesn't want to get a divorce has to stop chasing their spouse immediately and leave them alone, because this whole process means their nervous systems are kicked up, they're in crazy mode, they cannot make wise decisions and the decider who's thinking about leaving the marriage will never come out of it as long as their spouse is chasing after them. So I try to stabilize couples off the bat. Get the chasing to stop, stabilize the couples and get them to where we can have an adult conversation and assess and diagnose their marriage and see what we're working with.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's so spot on, I believe, at least from my experiences.

Speaker 3:

So well, you know, I, I, I, I'm. You know it's cool because my book came out in February and for the first time ever I'm getting clients to come see me who have read my book. You know.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 3:

And they tell me like they think it was divinely sent, because the whole experience I'm describing is exactly what they're going through and it just and if you, my book makes you not feel like you're confused and in the dark, my book says this is normal, this is what's going to happen next, this is what's going to happen next, you know. So they feel like, okay, I'm not losing my mind, you know. Well, it's like. Knowledge is is power right right and I love the step-by-step guide.

Speaker 2:

I think that that resonates very well with individuals, especially if you are in a strange relationship, and whichever side that you're on, um, either side of that right, uh, the coin there, um. But I think that a step-by-step instruction is I don't know why no one thought of it before. Honestly, now that you're saying it, it seems to make complete sense.

Speaker 3:

I say, believe it or not, shock of shocks, a lot of therapists and marriage therapists are afraid of doing marriage therapy. It's you could not believe how many people are afraid of it because of the conflicts you in many.

Speaker 3:

I even have a referee's t-shirt that I put on sometimes when the couples were getting real nasty, just to show them that, you know, go to your corners, okay, I love that, wow. So it can be really heated. A lot of people, you know, don't want to do that, so that may be why people haven't done marriage crisis, because it's the ultimate conflict, you know yeah.

Speaker 3:

I mean talk about the dust being kicked up and people are scared and they're angry, you know, and and so my job is to talk them down from that, get them down to where they're right, you know but I'm able to talk.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know there was a difference between marriage crisis counseling and marriage therapy. Honestly, I never knew that there was a distinction and a difference there well, yeah, it's.

Speaker 3:

It's just interesting that you know if in marriage therapy school they do tell us that you can be you can be a divorce therapist too, but they don't teach you how. In school Some marriage and family therapists, they just help people through their divorce. Okay, but how do you do that? So you know, the truth is, in my class of 10 people in the PhD program, I was probably the only one interested in marriage. There was another person interested in Parkinson's and caretaking, other people interested in child therapy, other people interested in elderly things.

Speaker 3:

So that's the other thing is, just because you're going to a marriage therapist doesn't mean that they took an interest, you know, in that area, and that's why I think it's so important for you to find a therapist whose interest is what you're going through. You can go online everybody and find people that are doing podcasts and writing blogs about their passion subject, and that's who you need to go to. You know there's therapists that specialize in co-parenting, some that specialize in custody issues, you know. So you know, I highly recommend people go to specialists because in grad school they give you like about 250 or 300 academic level research books on all these different subjects and we don't have time to read them all you know. So there's a lot that we should know, that we don't know, because it's just so much to learn, so much to know.

Speaker 2:

Right Wow. Yeah it can be very broad and for our listeners that perhaps would love to be able to come to you marriagecrisismanagercom marriagecrisismanagercom.

Speaker 3:

awesome and we will put that in our show notes, so yeah, marriagecrisismanagercom, and also I write a blog on Medium and you will find that under the Dr Becky moniker and you have to spell out Dr D-O-C-T-O-R. I've written about 160 or 170 blogs there about everything to do with relationships that you could ever imagine, and I'm writing one more every week. Imagine, and I'm writing one more every week. So I'm trying to take all the information and wisdom from my long suffering life and put it in the blog so that, no matter what happens to me, I put that information out there and there's no excuse for everybody you know you to to. You've got. You will be healthy in relationships if you read my blog and do what I'm explaining to you there that's great.

Speaker 1:

That's a great uh resource for a lot of information. So I've heard about medium.

Speaker 3:

It's a really great app yeah, it is a super and y'all, if you hit the paywall, pay the fifty dollars for you, right?

Speaker 1:

because you can only get so far, yeah I mean, come on then.

Speaker 3:

There's so many writers there who are truly outstanding, kind of column writers, you know, writers, it's just on every subject known to man. There's a woman there that all she does is write about affairs. Oh, and she's not a therapist. But she was the other woman in a relationship and she got dumped by the husband eventually and so, like me, you know, with marriage crisis crisis, it lit a fire in her belly and she has interviewed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who were in affairs. She probably knows more about it than any therapist and she writes blogs about it and she cultivates others who write about affairs and puts them all on her page. And and I'm saying like, if you're dealing with an affair, like you're crazy if you're not on medium reading this woman's library of information. By the way, her big key message is the married dudes never leave their spouse.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's right, that's one of her big themes. They never leave.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's great. I'm going to have to check that one out. It sounds interesting.

Speaker 2:

It does sound interesting.

Speaker 3:

Her name is PD Reeder.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

The initials PD Reeder.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

PD.

Speaker 1:

Reeder.

Speaker 2:

Wow, but I am just so happy about you taking all of this initiative and going back to school for five years as well on top of it, and then sharing it with everyone. I feel like it's honestly what is really really needed right now. I think that it's easier just to walk away, and so many people are doing that and you know, breaking up families.

Speaker 3:

I'm asking couples to think out of the box. I'm saying, you know, it's hard to live in a house with one person for decades and decades, you know, and so like, maybe y'all need separate bedrooms. So like, maybe y'all need separate bedrooms, maybe you need to create separate zones in the house so you can each have a lot of individual time. I recommend separate bedrooms and separate dressing rooms and separate bathrooms. You know, and I've had couples that were in crisis and they were able to stay together because the other one moved across the street or moved next door. Wow, and so I'm saying there's so many creative solutions. And the other thing is you can live apart but stay married also, but just see each other a couple times a week and keep your family intact. There's so many creative options and so it doesn't have to be just blissful marriage or divorce.

Speaker 3:

You know, because many times, a lot of people don't seem to realize that most people that are married over the whole lifespan, they white knuckle different periods in their marriage and barely make it. Yeah, you know, and there is something called normal marital hatred, which is a phase, you know, and you come out of it, and so, you know, some people think if they've had a year or two of the downswing, that they need to get a divorce. And I just want people to be, you know, some people think, if they've had a year or two of the downswing, that they need to get a divorce. And I just want people to be, you know, more thoughtful and about and realistic about what marriage is like and what it is now. If you're with somebody who's an addict or or, um, if you're just telling me you don't feel the fire anymore, or something like that, I don't think that's necessarily a good enough reason to break your family apart. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So I'm trying to get people to grow up and not be so childish. Yeah, definitely, definitely grow up and not be so childish. Yeah, definitely, definitely, I mean I can tell, I can give everybody a big hint about that.

Speaker 3:

Okay, it's be nice. Yeah, be kind, be respectful, control your the energy that you bring to the conversations and to your partner and be able to communicate well. And to me, communication is a learned skill. It's a learned skill. So if you haven't been to a therapist to learn how to do it, then you probably don't know that much about it. I write a lot of blogs teaching people how to do it and you probably don't know that much about it. I write a lot of blogs teaching people how to communicate.

Speaker 3:

So there's that. That's one of my biggest frustrations. I see people trying to divorce over silly misunderstandings. It's ridiculous, because they're a failure to communicate accurately. You know, and that's just a epidemic problem is people's inability to perceive what the other person is, is thinking or doing or saying accurately. It's a huge problem. So I thought what you were going to be asking me about was the five stages of a deteriorating marriage, because that was. That was the moment in the library of of uh saint mary's university, when I was studying for my dissertation, that I found in a book and my jaw fell on the ground and I said why doesn't anybody know about this? Because there are five stages that a marriage goes through and it's like cancer Stage one, two, three, four you're dead.

Speaker 2:

Right, okay.

Speaker 3:

And so I'm wanting couples to be aware of the five stages of a deteriorating marriage so that they can get help, like you would for cancer early on, before the toxicity has spread. Most of us marriage therapists see people in stage four or five. I want them to come in by stage two. Stage one is called disillusionment. So you have become disillusioned with your marriage. You go, uh-oh, I think I'm unhappy. And then everybody says well, I know marriages have ups and downs, so I'll just wait and see how it goes. Stage two is wait a minute, this is serious, this is not going away, I'm still unhappy and this could lead to divorce. And then they quickly decide no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not getting a divorce Now.

Speaker 3:

Stage two is when everyone should go to their spouse and say I'm struggling in the marriage and then go to a marriage therapist. You have to do this. You cannot do this alone. You would not go get your cancer treated by your mother or your friend or yourself. But that's what people do when their marriage is on the brink. They go gripe to their friends and their mother and they try to handle it themselves, and it's like having monkeys and trying to fix your marriage. So go get some professional help. Now, if you don't get help, then you're going to hit stage three. That's called detachment, and that's where you say I'm so miserable in this marriage but I'm not getting a divorce, so I'm just going to start going back to school or getting a new hobby or having an affair or do something that takes me away from the marriage as much as possible.

Speaker 3:

And if you still don't do, anything at that point then one day there's going to be a straw that breaks the camel's back where you say I can't take it anymore, and your marriage crisis will begin. At that moment, when they say I think I want out or I think I'm really happy, they wait till the very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very end to speak out right. And I'm telling couples man, you gotta stop this, you gotta stop this man, as soon as you realize you're struggling, get help.

Speaker 1:

I've mentioned, uh, before I see a therapist, she's I don't go with my partner, but I I go by myself. And we've had conversations around my relationship, obviously, and she said to me at one point that she knows couples that go to therapy. There's nothing wrong in the relationship. They're just being proactive relationship, they're. They're just being proactive. They're saying I want to understand how to communicate better so that we're never at, you know, stage three or four or five. So, yeah, I'm with you. I think that it is something that should be communicated. People need to understand to go. It's okay to go early if nothing is wrong yet you know.

Speaker 3:

Well, that's sort of like pre you know premarital counseling is. You know, come in and teach us what we need to know and be aware of. And I love doing premarital counseling, but it's very rare for couples to come in for you know, for the heck of it, very rare. I don't see that very much. Usually, you know, what I see is big problems.

Speaker 2:

Right right.

Speaker 3:

Big problems, the nature of human. You know that was another thing in the research. That blew me away was one of the phrases in one of the research books was uncoupling begins with a secret, and the secret is you're unhappy in your marriage and you don't tell your spouse, and then it sits there and festers and festers, and festers and you go through those five stages and you never speak out. I've got somebody I'm working with right now that's been married over 30 years kids in college, miserable abs, like he's talking about a divorce so bad. I want a divorce so bad. Has he told his wife he's unhappy? No, never, never has he. Has he told her what he needs? Or you know, no, never. And every week he comes back and says bud, iude, I didn't talk to her this week, of course you didn't, you know. But there's just and this is like a super successful man, like you know, mr CEO kind of guy, mr Power man, and he didn't even have the courage to tell his wife how unhappy he is. Jeez.

Speaker 2:

And you would think that that's probably going on a lot more than you would think, right.

Speaker 3:

It's a human phenomenon. Right, right it's a human phenomenon and the best thing he could do. I told him you know what? She's probably going to her therapist saying the same thing. She's probably telling her therapist she wants to divorce you and she hadn't had the nerve to tell you and this would be a good movie script. Yes it would.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it would Gosh well. Thank you so much for joining us today, dr Becky. It's just been such a pleasure. I know that there's so many of our listeners out there that can benefit from. You know what you're doing our conversation with this show, but also in what you're doing, and if you'd like to reach out to Dr Becky, all of the links to reach out to her will be in our show notes, as well as to your book that just came out in February. So congratulations on that and thank you so much.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much. Y'all take care, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Well, that wraps it up for today. Thanks for joining us on let's Talk Midlife Crisis. We hope you got some laughs, a little inspiration and maybe a few new ideas.

Speaker 2:

If you loved today's episode, hit that subscribe button so you'll never miss an episode. And hey, share the love. Send this episode to a friend who could use a good laugh and some midlife wisdom.

Speaker 1:

Connect with us on social media at let's Talk Midlife Crisis and let us know what's on your mind. We love hearing from you.

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