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How Do I Pull the Plug When I Care So Much? This is case # 17 in Dr. Huizenga's "19 Live Infidelity Coaching Sessions." You will learn:
Here's a summary of John's situation: John's wife continues an affair she started a year ago that John's known about for 6 months. She lives at home with John and their 3 boys, says she wants a divorce and yet erects roadblocks to prevent that from progressing. John has exhausted a number of strategies (being firm, being kind, therapy) to save the marriage but to no avail. Many of her recent behaviors seem intolerable to John and he describes her as a "different person." John describes his struggle to "let go." He believes he needs to reclaim his strength, care for his children and move toward ending this nightmare. Dr. Huizenga's (partial) review of the Laser Coaching Session: 1. John is in the midst of the decision making process: should I stay or should I go? Should I hang in there and try or should I cut my loses and file? When will the decision be clear? Let's take a look at this process considering John's circumstances. First, decisions like this are never clear cut. After the decision is made, doubts will disturb one's sleep and intrude in one's focus. For example, I like to use a scale where one can evaluate his/her place in this process by saying: "It seems like 80% of me says stay/go, 20% of me says stay/go." This tool relieves the decision making pressure and enables one to explore more fully the middle ground or areas between stay and/or go. Here's a general rule of thumb I've developed after working with literally thousands of couples over the past two plus decades: the more confusion one experiences in this decision-making process, usually, greater is the chance of rebuilding the relationship. Confusion usually means there is more investment, more connection and the time is not particularly good to fall to one side or the other. More thinking and work needs to take place. John is leaning fairly strongly in one direction (leaving or divorce). And, specific reasons back that decision. 2. Clarity on whether to stay or go emerges when particular conditions are met. John describes his wife as embroiled in a consistent and rigid pattern of behavior. She continued to disregard him, project blame onto him, experience difficulty nurturing her children and continue her affair. There appeared to be little remorse. Little self-awareness. Little effort to work toward resolution. She was locked tightly into destructive patterns. The remainder of the review and the audio tape are included in the new19 Live Infidelity Coaching Sessions with Dr. Robert Huizenga, The Infidelity Coach.
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