Divorce recovery with Dr. Melody Bacon

Hello, this is Julianne Good and welcome to Psych One-on-One. We are here to make psychology more understandable with tips for you, your family, and friends to make your lives easier. Tonight, my special guest is Dr. Melody Bacon and I'm thrilled to have her back. She has been on several of my shows and is outstanding on giving information that is very usable and very reliable. So, Dr. Bacon, thank you so much for being on. How are you? Oh, great to be on. Thank you for having me. So, can you tell the audience a little bit about your background? Yes, I'm a clinical psychologist. I specialize in relational issues and life transition issues. And I also am the campus director of the Irvine Branch for the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. And prior to that, I was the chair for the Marriage and Family Therapy programs on the three campuses. So, very involved in our field. Both from a clinical setting and an academic setting. Yes, you are. It's very impressive. So, thank you for doing all the work that you've done. You've made a huge impact over at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Well, thank you. So, tonight we're going to be talking about divorce and divorce recovery. Since, you know, statistics in this country say that, you know, half of the people that get married are going to get divorced. So. So, it's a good thing to have some recovery tools and to kind of understand the process a little bit more about, you know, what you're going to go through when you get divorced. Because it's a hard time for a lot of people. Now, Dr. Bacon, how did you get involved in writing a book called The Grace-Filled Divorce? What's your background on authoring this book? Yeah, I actually just had somebody ask me that just the other day. He asked me if I had actually gone through one myself, which I think was a good question. And the answer is no. I actually was widowed at a fairly early age, in my early 30s. And that is part of the story of this book, which kind of occurred as my friends were starting to get divorced. And we were comparing notes, so to speak. And I had been through my grief process. And noticed that there were a lot of similarities. But there were no rituals. There was no validation of grief and loss for the person getting a divorce. Often people would be asked shortly, even before they were divorced, are you dating anybody yet? As though they'd broken up with somebody they were dating in high school for two months. So, that started me on a journey to understand. Yeah. And I think that's what I've been doing. I've been in divorce in general and the grief process in particular in divorce. And so, during my doctoral program at Pacifica Graduate Institute, I focused my research on that particular topic. And it also lent itself well into my work as a clinical psychologist. Because as you mentioned, you know, a lot of people unfortunately do go through this experience. And if they don't personally go through it, they've had their own experience. And if they've had their parents go through it or their siblings, friends, it's just one of those unfortunately sad factors of life that marriages are very difficult for many people to keep together for a variety of reasons. And the aftermath of that can be very traumatic. It can go on for years. I just heard about a couple who have been divorced 14, 15 years. Their adult son is still dealing with the aftermath of that. And the couple is still, believe it or not, in a legal battle with each other. Wow. After 14, 15 years? Yes. Whew. You kind of want to say, why'd you bother getting a divorce? I mean, you could be fighting for 15 years and be married. Yeah, exactly. Well, especially legalities after that launch. Yeah. You have to wonder what caused that, that it got so complicated. Yeah, well, you know, certainly you have to have the money, unfortunately, to go through that. But also, people may be legally divorced and not monetarily divorced, and they're still tied to each other. And that complicates anything else they're going to do later on, which is one reason why second marriages have a higher degree of complexity. Yeah. And second marriages have a higher divorce rate than first, upwards of 75%. Wow. Because so many of the issues from the first marriages blend into the second ones, and now you're trying to blend a family. So that's why, as you said earlier, this is a very common issue, but it's very complicated. Well, especially since I think a lot of people are under the myth that, okay, they're going to get married a second time. It's going to be better. I learned my lesson. And from what you said, maybe they haven't learned their lesson yet, and they're maybe in rebound mode. They're wanting to find somebody to get attached to the next time so that they can just forget all the misery that they just went through with their first marriages. That's right. Most people make the mistake of thinking that they married the wrong person. They married the wrong person the first time around. What I hear a lot is, well, we were very young. We didn't know what we were doing. And all that may be true. However, I still believe that you marry somebody for some reason other than what you think it is. I think that marriages actually force us to grow ourselves, and I think that's a good thing. It is. We're known to do that, but we're known to do it that way, in ways that our families of origin also were asking us to grow ourselves. But we were, generally, we're young and helpless, and don't have the opportunity to make those changes until we're adults and get married. So people make the mistake of thinking, I picked the wrong person, I'll get divorced, and I'll start over, and this time I'll pick the right person, which kind of makes sense. If that were the case, however, it's a good thing. were the case, however, the second marriages would have a far lower divorce rate and people would be much happier. And in fact, as I mentioned earlier, the opposite is the case. And as you noted, Julie, it's often that they didn't know what they needed to learn about themselves before they started in another relationship. And you're right, people do tend to move very quickly in order to assuage their understandable hurt, their fear of being alone. And many times, many of the same problems that drove them into getting married in the first place often are still there and cause them to rebound and quickly attach to somebody else without really assessing how did I get to this place and how do I avoid doing that in the future? Right. And who really wants to do the first mistakes in the first place? Marriage. Not I. That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was married just for a brief amount of time is technically about five years. And then I needed a breather. But I also found out, though, I had gotten into a long term relationship after that and that there were some things that hadn't quite healed up from the first time around. Absolutely. And Yeah. And, you know, that's often some without really having a third party to kind of review this with who's been trained to help counselors, trained therapists. It's very difficult because we can't see what we can't know. You know, we're not we may know that there's something here that I want to know about myself, but I don't even know how to start looking because all I know is what I'm aware of. And so that's that what that's what makes therapy so helpful is you have someone that can guide you through the process of self exploration and discovery so that you do come out of these very painful times benefiting in the long run, which is, you know, redeeming and in many ways of that kind of suffering. Right. So in your clinical experience, what are some of the processes that a divorced person comes into? Yeah. And I think that's a really important thing to really get in with that they really need to start sifting through to get to that place of personal growth. Yeah. Well, as I said, I think the first step that somebody can take would be to to find an experienced counselor who really understands the process of divorce and also marriage in a in a way that can help you learn from your process. Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that I think is really important is to continue to learn from your your your prior marriage. And in many ways, I counsel people in continuing to learn from their ex spouse. Most people have children with with their first spouse, and they do continue a relationship with them through their children and and to use that as an opportunity to to learn how to respond differently and those types of things. So I think a good therapist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. who's who. But in the most simplistic terms, the initiator is someone who has been dissatisfied and very unhappy and feeling very lonely and discouraged for a long time in their marriage and finally comes to the point at which they are done. They've tried everything they can. Perhaps their spouse is completely uninterested in going to counseling or if they're unfortunately using drugs or alcohol, not discontinuing that and getting into some kind of recovery. So you have that person who has to go through a lot of the grief and pain while they're married. And so by the time they're done with the marriage, they have processed a lot of that. Even though it often surprises people who do initiate a divorce how much sadness they still have to process. And then there are those who probably on some level know their marriage isn't all that great, but for whatever reason, they're not as miserable as the initiator. And so when they're told, I want a divorce, they're kind of shell-shocked. And they have a different experience afterward, often doing a lot of barter. Bargaining and pleading and trying to get the person not to leave. It's like the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross stages of death. Very much so. It's much more similar for the non-initiator because of the unexpected quality of it. And so sometimes people will find if you ask someone, did they have any grief after their divorce, somebody might say, no. I was just... I was just happy. But if you explore further and say, well, how about during your marriage? Oh, yeah. I was really unhappy and lonely. That's the initiator's experience. But as you rightfully noted, the non-initiator then has a different process and often kind of envies the initiator who seems to be moving on blissfully, even though that's... Really? Usually not the case, usually. But they certainly are in a different phase of grief. So to understand that you are going to, one way or the other, need to grieve the loss of the marriage, maybe not as the way it was, but as the one that you hoped it would be. The intact family you wanted to have, the lifelong marriage, the dreams, the hopes, all the things that were tied up. And that marriage, there needs to be a time period of grieving and that kind of will come up periodically at different times for different people and different situations. And my experience is people really short-circuit that because it does hurt and most of us don't really like feeling pain and so we do what we can to quickly get rid of it. But in so doing, that pain doesn't go anywhere. It just goes underground. And I think that accounts for the vitriolic kinds of legal battles that we often hear about and the ongoing issues that then negatively affect future relationships and your children and yourself. Right. And as being an initiator, the person may feel relief for doing that and finally go, okay, great, I can just put this behind me. Right. This was a huge mistake. But then, you know, the shame comes, the guilt comes, the heavier processing of the deeper emotions, just trying to deal with all that can be pretty complicated too. And then, of course, the husband or the wife is going to look at the other person as being the bad guy. Yep. And also the family and the friends. How could you possibly have done this? Right. Right. And then all of a sudden you have people taking sides and that can get really ugly. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think you're right. There's initial, for the person who's initiated, in particular there's a relief, almost like a claustrophobic person kind of getting out of a claustrophobic situation. But then, as you said, the dust settles. Most people do feel guilty about the pain they've inflicted on themselves. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. And then shameful, that often comes up in feeling like a failure. Other people can make it work. I couldn't. And then, as you said, sometimes that also gets conveyed through family, friends, kids, and if somebody is in certain religious traditions where there's a prescription against divorce. So that's a big load to carry on. Right. DR. DR. DR. DR. DR. DR. DR. feelings and very difficult. You really need someone that can walk alongside you and help you get through to the other side. Right. It's very helpful. Got to have some support while you're going through the process. Yeah. And that, you know, that's another option as well. There's, there are divorce recovery support groups that can be helpful if, if they're, particularly if they're facilitated by a licensed therapist. I've found that sometimes the non-facilitated groups end up dissolving fairly quickly because people start, you know, getting together romantically and they become less helpful. But if you have one that's time limited, you know, usually they're about eight weeks. You know, a lot of churches will do that and you don't have to be affiliated with that religious tradition to go. But they, they will have a very, very structured format and it can be very helpful to be with other people who are going through the same thing and not feeling, you know, so alone in the whole process. Yeah. Because to, to sit there and, and isolate on it, it just makes the pain worse. It does. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I think to go through any pain alone is probably the worst that you can do to yourself. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and it's a natural response for many people because of the shame. And often my clients will look around and see other people and say, well, everybody's doing okay, but nobody advertises, you know, on their shirt sleeve, you know, I've had a horrible day or I just left my spouse or my spouse just left me. People present an okay look to the world, but the truth of the matter is you just don't know the pain that anybody is going through. And so I think it's important to think about that. And I think it's important to think about that. And I think it's important to think about that. I think it's important to think about that. I think it's important to think about is going through or has gone through. And that's where a support group can be so helpful because it kind of takes away some of that stigma that you're the only one and, and, you know, other people are being successful at something that you haven't been able to somehow manage to succeed at. And I think, I think the other component to that is, is, you know, reading books can be very helpful to you. I think it's important to think about the vulnerability of the person very helpful as well. I think there's a combination of things of, you know, reading about other people's experiences and how they got through something can really help you to, first of all, not feel so alone and to have a little bit of a roadmap going through, going to a support group, and then going to a good counselor. All of that can make sure that you move through the divorce process successfully. And then if and when you are ready to begin another relationship, and most people will tell me initially, oh, I'll never do that again. But 80% of people who divorce do at least, you know, whether they remarry or just become romantically involved again will. And so it's a way of kind of preparing yourself to move forward on a lot of levels. And in my book, a lot of the people I interviewed were amazed at how that process that I just described of support group, of counselor, of self-exploration through reading and journaling, actually opened up other areas of their lives. Many of the women I interviewed ended up in different careers, getting education that they hadn't planned on. And that was an unexpected outcome. And I think that's one of the reasons why I'm so proud of having done the hard work of self-exploration and self-development. But it was, you know, a really nice outcome that people celebrated. Right. I can attest to that one. I, you know, my life took off after I got divorced. And it was a while, but, you know, but it's moved in such positive directions that, you know, I don't think I could have done that within the marriage that I was in. So, but like, I don't know. I don't know. At least I've got that insight now. It took a while to get there, but it's really possible. I agree with you. Oh, yeah. And I think to allow yourself the time to do that, because it's like anything else. There's not a specific time frame. You know, we'd like to have one, but that's not the way it works. And I will say that it's an interesting phenomenon that in our culture, there's kind of this, maybe not so common now, but certainly years ago, the assumption that women are chasing men to get married and men don't want a ball and chain around their ankle. But the truth of the matter is that men will not stay single very long after whether they're widowed or divorced. They don't do well for the most part being single. And so when I was doing my research for my dissertation, which I did in the early 90s, I did a lot of research on the issue of marriage. And I did a lot of research on the issue of marriage. And I did a lot of research on the issue of marriage. And I did a lot of research on the issue of marriage. And I did a lot of research on the issue of marriage. And I did a lot of research on the issue of marriage. And I did a lot of research on the issue of marriage. which later became my book. I ended up focusing on women which later became my book. I ended up focusing on women just because it was too difficult to find just because it was too difficult to find a man who was single for more than a a man who was single for more than a year after their divorce. And that's year after their divorce. And that's year after their divorce. And that's not a judgment about men in our our society is just an interesting phenomenon. It is, and I bet a lot of people don't know that information. No, they don't. Yeah. And, you know, there are also a lot of statistics about men health-wise and, you know, single men don't do as well physically either. So it's, but, you know, if one can at least commit to a certain length of time after your divorce, and we all know that for some people divorce isn't all that quick. I mean, even if you don't have an acrimonious divorce, you need at least six months from the time you file. And I always advise my clients to at least wait the six months until the divorce is final before they start to go to a meetup group or some other match.com or eHarmony or something. I understand that it's nice to know that you're still attractive and... And people often get on these sites to see if anybody would even want to go out with them. But the problem with that is most of the time, yes, there are people who want to date. And when you haven't even gotten your divorce final, it's very hard to start a new relationship when you're in the middle of all that emotional upheaval. And it usually doesn't work out very well for either one of the parties. Right. It's not too pretty in some circumstances. Right. Yeah, most definitely. Okay. Dr. Bacon, we're going to come back after we take this brief musical break. And let's talk about when people are planning on getting married, what are the concepts behind getting married nowadays? I mean, that would be really interesting to kind of dig into the viewpoints and see where we're coming from in America. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, you know, when you, I don't know if you've ever watched some of these bride shows that are on reality TV, you know, but the amount of money that people are spending on weddings, you know, it's just tens of thousands of dollars. And when you think that really the wedding isn't the point, you know, it's the marriage is what is really the important thing. And what kind of a marriage are you going to have? As you said, three to four sessions with a trained clinician, the prepared costs $30. So that's nothing. It is. You may be talking $500, you know, max. Yes. I often advise parents, if you want to give your kids a great wedding gift, pay for them to have a prepared assessment done. Yes. And like I said, I've done this many times with couples and it gives them an opportunity to talk in a way that maybe they haven't before. It gives them an opportunity to really stand back and look at their own families, at each other's families. And... By the time they walk down the aisle, they've really done everything they could to make sure that they're going to have a strong and lasting marriage. And that's the best you can say. You know, I mean, there's no guarantees, even with the prepare, which gives you a kind of an assessment, whether you're in a very strong position to get married or maybe you should think twice about it. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I don't remember if they were quite that low, but we did an initial assessment before they started the workshop, and they had quite a few issues. And as we were going through the workshop, he was learning more about his family of origin. He'd never thought about them. He'd never thought about how people did things in his family. And you could just see all these light bulbs going on. And he went back and visited them, and he started really a whole process of self-discovery and learning, and he was very excited about it. And, of course, his fiancée was thrilled. And I saw them a couple years later, and he'd continued on with that, and she was just delighted. I'm sure by the end of the workshop, if they'd taken that assessment again, they would have been much higher. And so, you know, there's hope even in that if one or both of them takes advantage of it. Yeah, that's wonderful. It just... Go through that prepare process. Yep. And then find out where those hidden information comes out. Yeah. I mean, what a wonderful success story on it. Yeah. You know, because who knows until you really start searching through your history about what you may be bringing into the relationship from your family of origin, which most of us do. Most of us go through that process of we need to heal up something, from our family of origin. Yeah, heal, change. You know, it's kind of like our language, you know, our native language. We don't really think about how we learned it, but we just speak it. And, you know, sometimes we come into a relationship with a certain relational language, so to speak, not knowing that this is maybe not the best way to handle something. This is just the way people did things. Yeah. So... It's amazing. It's amazing when you're going through a relationship and you're in the midst of conflict and something will pop out of your mouth and you're thinking, I can't believe I just said that. That's what my parents had said 30 years ago and it just popped out of my mouth because I'm under stress and duress and my subconscious is letting loose right now and so is my mouth. Yes, yes, yeah. My husband always says that's where your brain got wired was in your family of origin. Yes. So to rewire it by going... Going back and trying to be different with them and maybe observing them, see, well, how do people do conflict in my family? Do they just get real quiet and try to ignore things and move away from each other so they don't have conflict? Or do they fight a lot and get into each other's business and tell each other how to live their lives? And, you know, you can often get people from both sides of those spectrum marrying each other. And, you know, it kind of balances out initially. The person that tends to get quiet keeps conflict from getting too heated and the other one that'll stir it up will keep the relationship from getting too cold. But over time, they get polarized and that's usually what I see in my practices. There's somebody who comes from a family where the default is we just don't have conflict, but we have a lot of distance, marrying to somebody whose family has a lot of conflict, but unfortunately, you know, that can be painful and wounding in its own way. And so knowing those things going in can really help prevent a lot of that unnecessary heartache and help you learn how to change a default that you don't even know you have. Right. So being able to have that insight and stopping yourself in those tracks, when you see it going into the same fight-flight conflict area, and challenging it, saying, you know what? I don't want to do this anymore. This is not getting us anywhere. This is pulling us apart. This is causing more conflict. This is bringing up stuff from my childhood that I thought was long gone, long buried in. I, you know, don't want to have anything to do with it. So just being able to stop and sometimes just take a deep breath. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Not blurting out, not adding to that conflict. Maybe taking a deep breath and saying, okay, this is what I'm feeling right now. Mm-hmm. I'm feeling it instead of, like, projecting it out and saying you're the one to blame for my pain. That's right. Yeah. I think a lot of what I teach my clients is managing their own brain. And the fight-flight-or-freeze part, they call the limbic system. That one takes over pretty easily when we're in pain or conflict to the point where the part of our brain that does the thinking starts to shut down. And as you said, if you can take a deep breath, quiet yourself, maybe take a little bit of a break from whatever is the discussion. Because arguing and yelling, as we all know, just doesn't solve anything. It only wounds and hurts. Conflict can be helpful if you can have it in a way that you're actually learning something about the other person and yourself. But that requires a lot of availability of your thinking part and a lot of calmness. And that's, you know, that's where the challenge is. How do you learn how to be less what we call reactive, which is just kind of hair trigger, you know, somebody has an eyebrow raised and I'm already at a 10 in terms of my anger. And so this is where sometimes close relationships can really be challenging. However, the flip side is when you're willing to do that kind of work and really hold on to yourself and try to be as aware as you can, you can have a much more truly deep. And intimate relationship with another human being. And that's really worth all that effort in the long run. Yes, it is. Just holding on to yourself. It was what was a snarch. Mm hmm. A passionate marriage. Yes. You would call it holding on to yourself, which is, you know, not being curious about your partner. Not trying to get convinced them to change their mind and, you know, change. But at the same time, you're trying to get them to change their mind. And, you know, change. But at the same time, you're trying to get them to change their mind. But at the same time, you're trying to get them to change their mind. And sometimes not necessarily just capitulating because they're upset or angry or, you know, sad. That's holding on to who you are and really acting out of your values. So I do a lot of work with people to get clear on your deeply held values, which can take some time. And sometimes they can feel like they're in conflict with each other. But ultimately, when you have a values-based response, you're much less likely to argue with someone about it because it's a deeply held value. You're not willing to give that up. And so, yeah, that kind of that idea of being me with you and, you know, getting back to our original discussion on divorce, people often feel like they can truly be who they are with the person that they're eventually married. However, things then change. And the theory that I work from Bowen Family Systems would say that's because once you're married, that person is now a member of your family. And you start to, over time, treat each other like your family, which however that was growing up is how you'll, you know, tend to replicate. And that's why I like to know a lot about a person's family of origin, not to point fingers. And to say, you know, anything negative. But to really say, let's just look at the information. Let's look at the strength that you are bringing into this relationship with. And let's look at some of the challenges on both parties. And then what do you, each of you, need to work on, which is often different. But, you know, that relationship is going to kind of be the catalyst for change in a way. Okay. And I think that's the way that almost no other relationship will replicate except for maybe the parent-child one. And even that can sometimes be less intense because at some point if you're doing your job, your child is going to leave home and move on into their own life. Whereas if you're married, the idea is you're going to stay married long after that. And so there's a little bit more intensity in marriage because so much of your life is intertwined. It is, especially if you have children. Then it becomes even more complicated. Yep. That's right. Yeah. And the beautiful thing nowadays is that we have so much information out there on how to create healthy relationships. We do. And it's just so much more than our own parents had. Absolutely. So I think as a society, we need to understand that now if you came from a dysfunctional family system, you do not have to repeat that. That's right. That's right. You can go out and get the information if something is just not sitting right and it's gnawing away at you. You can go out, get some information, go get the personal therapy, go do the group therapy, even before, hopefully, before you even split up. If you're having marital issues, go do couples counseling. Go get the life anchors. Go get the life anchor and go get some new set of tools and a third-person perspective on how you can save your relationship. Right. Yeah. And you actually, even if your partner won't go, I've had many people make significant changes in their lives without their partner participating. They generally didn't have a really negative partner who was, you know, actively being abusive. But they were the one that was motivated to make some shifts in the dynamics of their family and how they were behaving. And to a very good, I mean, I had a man who was in, came in actually because his son was having panic attacks. And he disclosed that he was too and he thought maybe he would come in as well. And that we ended up working a lot on his relationship with his wife and his children to the point where his wife came in one day and just was thrilled because, you know, their relationship had just blossomed. And I never really worked with her. So, you know, it doesn't always mean that if you go in on your own, you will be able to save your marriage. We don't know going in what will happen. But we certainly know that you don't have to wait for the other person to be willing to come in order to make it happen. Right. And try to go in early enough where it's not to the point of crisis, where you are looking to the counselor to be the judge as to whether or not you should stay together as a couple. Because I think a lot of couples come in at that point. Is that correct? Yeah. I kind of liken it to cancer. And, you know, one of the things in our society that's been so wonderful in the medical world is that we have a lot of people who are in a relationship and they're not in a relationship. Right. And so, you know, one of the things that we have in the medical field is the fact that we can treat cancer when it's at stage zero. Wow. And as a result, people can get breast cancer in particular. When it's stage zero, then, you know, you have a very minimal treatment. You get rid of it. You're cancer free. As opposed to stage four where now you've got hugely invasive and, you know, deleterious kinds of treatments just to keep you alive if you will even, you know, even that be the outcome. And as you noted, most people unfortunately in their marriage come in at stage four, they're kind of flipping the coin and saying, okay, do we go to an attorney or do we go to a therapist? And that makes it very difficult. Right. When one of the upticks of the protocol of preterm marriage is to have one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks of preterm marriage to one of the upticks I asked her what made her decide to come in so soon because it's very unusual. Well, she had gone into therapy in her teens, and of course that hadn't been very meaningful to her, so it didn't even occur to her not to go in when she realized she was having some issues with her husband. And things turned around very quickly because they still had a lot of goodwill and love and respect, and it was a matter of fine-tuning things as opposed to trying to resurrect something that maybe is dead and gone already. Yeah, and it was early in the process. Yep. Because a lot of people don't realize that the first one or two years of marriage can be the roughest because you're trying to make that transition and learning compromise. Oh, yeah. Yeah, most divorces, actually the majority occur in the second year, which kind of goes against our mythology of the first year kind of being this blissful honeymoon period. But when you consider you need at least six months in order to get a divorce, that first year had to have been a very tough one for someone to be divorced by their second year. So you're right. The first year, people don't understand that it is challenging, and yet if people will be open to coming in and having a divorce, and seeking counsel, not only will you have change more quickly, you'll set the foundation for a strong marriage because the skills that you learn will be skills that you'll keep throughout your life, and you don't have to go for as long because everything changes so much more quickly. But we have this resistance because people are ashamed to go in. They think everybody else is just doing it. Like I said, we tend to look at everybody else, and think that they're doing fine, and that's not the case. They're just hiding when somebody says, how are the lovebirds or the honeymooners doing? And you're not going to say, well, we've had this huge fight, and he's staying out every night, and we're miserable. Most people are like, fine, fine, we're doing fine. Denial. But obviously they're not. Right. Right. Yeah. So I think that if people could overcome their reluctance, you know, you start to think, well, you know, you're going to be a good husband, and you're up to the Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Sprout Spr stuck, let's go into someone, review it, deal with it, learn something and move on. Much like you would if your car was acting up or, you know, you felt like maybe you had a cavity. You know, I think if we could get it less stigmatized to go in and get some coaching, I think, you know, you'd see a much higher success rate of marriages and happier marriages, even those that stay together. I'm always happy. Yes, I highly agree. That's some great advice. So do preventative, intimate relationship care. That's right. That's the key. Yeah, don't wait too long. Right, exactly. So Dr. Bacon, can you tell the audience how they can order your book, The Grace-Filled Divorce? We've got a couple minutes left. Yeah, certainly it's on Amazon. There's a Kindle version as well as the paperback. If you want a hard copy, you can also go on my website, thegracefilleddivorce.com, and I'd be happy to send you a copy and autograph that for you as well. So those are the three main ways to get the book, and I would love to have your listeners purchase it and let me know what they think. I'm available on my blog anytime. They can make comments, ask questions. I'm always happy to help. I'm open anyway. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Dr. Bacon. You're so welcome. I always appreciate you being on. It's always a pleasure. We look forward to having some more shows with you. Super. That would be wonderful. Yes. Thank you very much, Dr. Melody Bacon. And if the listeners would like to contact me, my email address is jgoode8 at verizon.net. My office number is 562-233-7000. I have an office in Cerritos, California. Please contact me if you would like to set up a session or if you have any show ideas or comments, I would love to hear them. That would be wonderful. I would like to thank my board operator, Jenny Guzman. Did a great job, girl. The executive producer, Jeremy Hansen. Thank you so much for keeping Skid Row Studios on the air and strong. And if you would like to send me a message, I would love to hear from you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. that is a great source for many therapy videos on various subjects with various providers so go check that out also I would like to thank you so much for tuning in if you would like to tune into any other previous programs psych one-on-one is on the podcast area of iTunes and also we have at skidrowstudios.com we have a whole library of psych one-on-one shows and also other shows that are very interesting please stay tuned to the Kumran Report right on after me so this has been Julianne Good for Psych One-on-One take care of yourselves take care of each other bye now you