Making a Wrecked Marriage Work

Published July 28, 1983. I had an interesting conversation with a friend at BYU the other day. I was talking to Linda, and she told me that after five years of marriage and two children, she and her husband, Dennis, decided to divorce. The unusual aspect of their relationship, however, is that after 18 months of being divorced, they decided to marry each other again. They did remarry and now are very happy.

How did it all happen? Linda has written some of her observations and agreed to share them in this column.

Why did they divorce? She stated,

I had a clear set of expectations and was only interested in fulfilling my dream of the ideal marriage. When I felt as though I couldn’t live up to what my husband Dennis expected of me, my self-esteem diminished. I blamed him for all of my troubles and expected him to ‘make’ me happy. My dreams were left unfulfilled, and they soon became wrapped up in my own pain and anger.

Resentments quickly built up until every seemingly little thing became like a huge obstacle. Conflicts were never resolved, and we were never able to come to any kind of agreement of compromise over reality vs. the ideal.

Anger and hostility built to where there were no positive feelings and no energy left to try to make the relationship work, so our attempts at reconciliation failed. I felt totally hopeless. I had been emotionally divorced for a long time, and this emotional distance served as a defense against the pain, hurt and disappointment. We divorced with the explicit intention of never getting back together again.

How did Dennis and Linda finally get back together? She continues,

I struggled, but made the adjustments necessary for single-parent life. I finally conquered my anger and depression, learned to cope, and came to accept myself, and I was finally optimistic about my future. I also accepted the fact I might never marry again. I came to realize that any relationship is going to have its problems and that I needed to see things in terms of ‘we’ and not ‘me’.

Dennis took the risk to make the initial contact and suggested we get back together. From that point we were both willing to take the risk to try and figure out what went wrong and then work together to make our marriage endure this time.

I was realistic about the fact that we would still have conflicts and problems, but I realized that any relationship I would be in would require time, attention, unselfishness, conflict resolution, understanding, communication, patience, controlled anger, and love.

I asked Linda why the marriage is working now, the second time around, when it did not before. She responded,

After our initial contact was made, we discussed everything. I came to an understanding of our individuality and our different wants and needs. Specific rules concerning our time commitments to each other were made (i.e. weekly dates, temple attendance, etc.), and we talked about household job distribution and finances (including my own ‘mad’ money).

We discussed our expectations – where compromise was possible, and where priorities were as far as our relationship was concerned. We also made definite commitments to each other and to the relationship – commitments to talk out differences, compromise, and avoid letting anger and resentment build up. My self-esteem is no longer totally dependent on the marriage; so every little irritation is not a threat to the whole relationship.

My tolerance level is extremely high for those insignificant and unimportant things. We are concerned about and care for each other and have fun together. Our life is not always filled with either thrills or chills, but we are headed together in the same direction, and I am very happy.

We thank Linda and Dennis for sharing their marriage(s) with us.