Almost twenty years ago, I became a marriage therapist, and by the time I got my license, I was already working on and designing marriage crisis education and interventions for couples. I did this because there was such a need for it. There is literally no place for couples in high relationship stress to go when at least one person isn’t motivated to do marriage therapy and/or sitting on a fence of ambivalence, tilting toward a divorce decision. In the past, couples were sent home to fend for themselves. Now, there is a place in the middle, between marriage therapy and divorce, where couples can go to ensure they are making wise decisions for their family while getting the mental and emotional support a person needs when their lives are on the brink of enormous change. Almost every person I’ve talked to over the years who had children told me they didn’t want to divorce unless they knew they had done everything they could to save their marriage. Knowing that you did brings a person peace of mind moving forward.

My divorce story educated me about what couples need (and don’t need) and gave me direction.

Back in the 1990s, my kid’s dad and I would go to a marriage therapist in San Antonio who was very well respected. I was a housewife, he was a physician, we had two young children, and neither one of us knew anything about healthy relationships much less know how to handle our marital problems. The therapist wore a suit and was very stiff and formal. I can’t remember him saying anything very helpful concerning our relationship issues. He certainly never took a deep dive in trying to understand us. We’d go, nothing changed, and then we’d stop going. When I got fed up again, and we’d return …

How our marriage began.

When we fell in love and married, my husband was as loving and supportive as a person could be. He was openly enthusiastic about us, physically affectionate, and I could not believe how fortunate I was. I still remember us sitting together on the floor of the little house he rented the day we got married by a justice of the peace. We leaned on each other, we had to touch. My new husband said, “When we have children, and they’re older, we will be the envy of all the other parents. Our love will stay this way our entire lives.” That’s exactly what I wanted, but this amazing emotional connection and idealistic romantic relationship lasted less than six months. A few weeks after we married, we left the United States for six months in Sydney, Australia, and six more in New Zealand, where he was going for a knee surgery fellowship. The doctor he would train with found an amazing beachfront apartment for us in Balmoral Beach, one of Sydney’s most beautiful and desirable areas. When we got to the apartment, the bedroom had twin beds. The first thing my husband did was scoot them together, tying the legs with twine.

We were happy there in the beginning. Dave went to work while I explored the area and found different cooking recipes using the wonderful local fish markets and small shops in the suburb of Mossman. This was 1985, before the Internet, computers, cell phones, and inexpensive phone calls. Only one television channel came on the air every day around 10 am, playing a Richard Simmons exercise show, followed by hours and hours of American soap operas that were about five years behind. I would write long letters to my family members and try to keep engaged with life down under, but it wasn’t long before I became lonely and depressed. I lived for the moment Dave would come home from work, and we could be together again in our beautiful little safe space with the ocean view.

I’ll never understand how or why, but one day, his enthusiasm for me switched off like a light, and the negative patterns that would eventually kill us flooded in. He rejected my affection, pushing away and turning cold. Our sex life almost disappeared, and when I began to poke around with questions about what was going on, he would make me regret it with short, nasty responses. Our healthy communication and his supportiveness completely disappeared, and now I found myself with a man I was deeply in love with and attracted to, disappearing into his own little world behind an ironclad wall, shutting me out. I stuffed all my feelings. I began to have panic attacks, severe lower back pain, and carpal tunnel syndrome. My body was breaking down as my mind freaked out. I had already been married once, and I couldn’t bear the humiliation and shame of a second divorce. I did not want a divorce; I wanted my loving husband and happy marriage back. I began to eat my emotions and gained about 15 pounds, causing my husband to tell me once that he was embarrassed by my physical appearance when our friends invited us to go sailing in Sydney Harbor, and we all wore swimsuits. I remember feeling angry and humiliated by his comment.

I was relieved when we returned to the United States where I at least had a supportive environment, but I never told my family that my dreamy new marriage and happy relationship had changed for reasons I didn’t understand. We stumbled along with communication problems and unresolved issues; who can resolve issues when, anytime you bring them up, your spouse shuts down and leaves the house? Things worsened as my husband reneged on his promise to take me out of his home state of Texas. He never outright said we couldn’t move; his most common tactic was to delay and put me off until I finally figured out that he never intended to do it in the first place. The same thing occurred when I said, okay if we are staying in Texas, let’s at least move to Austin; “Sure, he said, go find me an office.” I did all that, but nothing was ever satisfactory. Ah, I get it. We aren’t ever leaving San Antonio — resentment built as I realized that I had been duped. Everything I thought my marriage was, it was not. All the promises he made during his super-loving seduction stage never came to pass. It was time for relationship counseling to hopefully bring back the emotional intimacy we had shared for a few short months. I never saw that again, of course.

Enter Dr. Milktoast.

I don’t remember much about the counseling; had it been remarkable, I would have. I have vague memories of the marriage counselor trying to normalize our situation, and who was I to question this? He was the one with the doctorate degree and experience. He was flat, soft, boring, and I called him Dr. Milktoast. We had two children when we first started going to therapy, about two and four years old by this time. The last thing I wanted was to be a single mom. Luckily, when we returned home from New Zealand, I felt better and almost immediately lost all the weight I had gained in Australia. Whatever physical intimacy we ever had, though, I was always the initiator. No matter how much weight I gained or lost, Dave wasn’t interested as far as I knew.

You may have heard that orthopedic surgeons work long hours. Indeed, they do. But in addition to all that, my husband started actively seeking to become the team doctor for local high schools, colleges, and eventually the NBA team, the San Antonio Spurs. When I left him, he attended forty-plus Spurs games a year, the games of a couple of high schools, and one or two colleges every weekend. As if that wasn’t enough, he joined the San Antonio Sports Foundation, which was a group of city leaders who worked to get major sports events to come to the Alamo city. In a very short period, he moved up to the top spot, President, a position previously held by a man who did it as a full-time job. He also went to Colorado Springs for a few weeks to be trained as an Olympic doctor. He never told me of his dreams and ambitions; he kept adding things to his roster, even though he knew I wanted more quality time and each of these things guaranteed I wouldn’t get it. To say that my children and I almost never saw him is not an exaggeration. I got used to being alone and considered myself sort of a single mom who couldn’t date.

I remember telling the marriage therapist that Dave woke up and left in the mornings around 4 am before we got up and would return around 7 or 8 pm, eat something, and go straight to bed. I asked if he could be home one day a week to have breakfast with us, and he agreed. It happened two times, then never again. In Texas, having a family ranch is not uncommon. Dave grew up on a ranch and wanted one of his own. One day, he said he wanted to look at some properties, and if we found one, he would spend every weekend with me and the children. I was ecstatic. We found the perfect place and began renovating it. I painted walls and hung wallpaper, and he hired workers every weekend and would go out with them to clear the land. He’d come in at sundown, ready to eat and go to bed. Dear Lord, I thought, I still never see the man. And then I began to experience surprises … I remember driving up there one day and finding that one of the ranch’s dilapidated shacks on our land had been completely renovated and furnished. I was never told a thing about it. If a successful marriage requires communication, I wasn’t getting it. I loved our ranch and the nature and good times it provided for me and the children, but at the end of the day, I felt duped again.

Things got worse when my husband took the time to criticize me for my political interests and for not having a career. “It makes me sick to see you wasting your life,” he’d say. “You’re just plain lazy.” Anyone who didn’t work as hard as he did was lazy, which meant everyone was. When we went back to the therapist, I remember passivity from the man in the tan suit who was supposed to have all the answers for family therapy and relationship problems. He was supposed to turn unhappy couples back into happy couples. In my mind, I wanted to scream at him in desperation, “What you are doing is not helping us! Please help us!” Our marriage problems and relationship needed a hammer over the head, not quiet, ineffective, and passive professional help. Why did people tell us he was a skilled therapist at helping marriages? How can any marriage be helped when a person just sits in a chair and says you aren’t crazy, your marriage problems are normal, and come back to see me when you’re more motivated? Couldn’t he have done something to help us become more motivated? Why did he keep sending us away when we had so many unresolved conflicts?

Dave never changed. He knew what I needed and wanted, as it wasn’t me who had a lack of communication, but he didn’t take them seriously. (He told me that years later.) The final straw for me was when I voted for the Democratic Presidential candidate in 1992, who was from Arkansas and happened to be a family friend. My husband was happy to go to the Inauguration and see Barbra Streisand sing Evergreen, hobnob with the powerful, and have a bunch of other once-in-a-lifetime amazing experiences, but when we got home, he said he was docking my allowance by six percent since Bill Clinton wanted to raise taxes by that much. Bill Clinton never did raise taxes by 6 percent, but my allowance got lowered, and that was when I knew our marriage could no longer sustain itself. Making more money each year by huge amounts, it made no sense to me that he would punish me for voting for who I did. I saw it as pure control and meanness. Within a few months, I met my husband at the door, and after eight years of marriage, I told him I was done.

Marriage Crisis Begins.

I was done at that moment, but deep inside I wanted my loving, attentive 1985 husband to return magically. Was it possible? As happens in a marriage crisis, the one who is about to get left wakes up from their marital coma and will do anything to save the marriage. Dave insisted we return to Dr. Milktoast, and when he asked us how motivated we were (again), my number was zero, and my husband’s number was 100, so he sent us home. “I can’t help you until you are both very motivated,” he said. “But I do think a separation would be beneficial.” I guess he went out on that limb because I told him that I might have to jump off a cliff if I had to be in Dave’s presence during those days. I didn’t know it then, but this sealed our fate as a married couple who would be divorced within a matter of months. We mismanaged everything about our separation, and I am not exaggerating. My husband was mean to me during the crisis, saying ugly and awful things. I told Dr. Milktoast that I needed that to stop. Milktoast looked at Dave. “I can’t stop,” he responded. It occurred to me at that moment that the only emotion my husband ever experienced was anger. Milktoast said, “So be it,” and sent us away again.

Yes, as a doctoral-level family therapist, Milktoast failed us. I wonder how many other mental health professionals fail their clients due to poor training or ignorance. He should have hammered us and been more direct and forceful when we were initially in marriage therapy and in the crisis. He should never have normalized our issues and minimized what was going on. He should have warned us how marriages die and that we were in a deterioration process that could only end one way. Now that our marriage was on the brink, it was going to die without serious help and intervention, and he needed to watch over us and coach us to avoid making matters worse. He should have told Dave that if he continued berating me and showering me with verbal abuse for wanting to leave, I would surely fall off the fence of ambivalence and decide to divorce. He should have told Dave that his behavior was completely unacceptable. Of course, I know now that Dave did not have to abuse me verbally. I would never allow that to continue with my clients. Instead, Milktoast affirmed whatever dysfunctional thinking and actions each of us was doing at the time, and because we were not in a place to do marital repair at that moment, he sent us away to meet our fate.

The truth is, Milktoast was a one-trick pony. Marriage therapy or come back later. No motivation? Come back when you are. Dave can’t stop verbally abusing Becky? Becky, you must accept that. I believe a marriage therapist should do all they can to put a stop to unhealthy behaviors and create motivation when a marriage with children is on the brink. We were failed by our relationship therapist, as are millions of other Americans.

The lesson.

Now, here is the bad news. Thirty years later, too many marriage therapists and professional counselors are passive in their marriage therapy sessions, just like Dr. Milktoast. Passive-type marriage therapy is a loser. Marriage therapy isn’t for sissies and those afraid to confront; to be successful, you must look at it like being in the trenches, trying to save a family. When a house is on fire, the fireman doesn’t just sit there and look at the fire. When I became a marriage therapist myself, I vowed to be a warrior for couples and families and not a namby-pamby snowflake who tries worn-out, non-useful interventions like trying to get a couple to hold hands and look into each other’s eyes when at least one of them is looking for where to put their bullets. The only way to help a couple in the marital deterioration process is to send them to Marital Deterioration School, which is taught by me, of course, and teach them candidly about what is going on and how they got there, and draw up a plan for change. Just seeing what a bad place they are in can sometimes jolt couples out of complacency and into action. There is an art to managing couples in crisis; marriage therapists must learn what it is. It must be taught in graduate school, and marriage crisis counselors must be commonplace. As it is, we take a divorce and reconciliation class and are made to buy 5 or 10 academic-level books on the subject, but no one reads every one; they are on our shelves for reference.

To overcome the soft pudding way that so many marriage therapists use, I have created a type of dynamic marriage therapy that is diagnostic; I tell couples what is going on and why their relationship isn’t working. We pinpoint the trauma issues that are obstacles to having a healthy relationship. We work on these issues. I push and nudge individuals and couples toward healthy change and making marriage work. We implement what they’re learning in their daily lives from the first day. Couples need to be taught, told, and directed. It’s their choice to use what they learn or not.

When it comes to a marriage crisis, one person says they are unhappy or want out and are not motivated to work on the marriage; that’s what creates the crisis. The therapist needs to do what they can to create motivation. Things are dire when a person turns their back on their marriage, but sometimes, with a little time and skill, we can get them to see things differently and in new ways.

Becky Whetstone, Ph.D., is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Arkansas and Texas* and is known as America’s Marriage Crisis Manager®. She is a former features writer and columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and has worked with thousands of couples to save their marriages. She can work with you, too, as a life coach if you’re not in Texas or Arkansas. She is also co-host of the Call Your Mother Relationship Show on YouTube and has a telehealth private practice as a theapist and life coach via Zoom. To contact her, check out www.DoctorBecky.com and www.MarriageCrisisManager.com. Also, here is how to find her work on Huffington Post. Don’t forget to follow her on Medium so you don’t miss a thing!

For licensure verification, find Becky Whetstone Cheairs.