Too Good To Leave Too Bad To Stay
Hello,
I'm wondering if anyone has ever read and gone through the diagnostics in a book called 'Too Good To Leave Too Bad To Stay'. I've been reading it over the course of months. I finished it and answered most of the questions-some need some pondering. The book states 'If there was even one guideline that points to leaving then you would be happier leaving' and 'If no guidelines point to leaving you would be happier if you stayed'. Well, even despite the few questions I've yet to answer, I have 4 in the leave 'column'. I have a hard time with the all or nothing of it. Mainly because there would be even more in the 'leave' column if we hadn't gone to therapy and he didn't work on himself. However, there are some lingering problems which make these last few questions hard to answer. So, what was your ' take' on what the guidelines told you? Did you have some in the 'leave' column but things turned out good anyway? If so, what were the guidelines that told you to leave and how did these things change? Also, has anyone ever discovered that there were NO guidelines telling you to leave? This book promises clarity but I'm not there. Am I right to take this with a grain of salt, just a tool to asking tough and meaningful questions that could provide insight as to what is really important? Or am I just afraid to rip off the band aid?
Parent Replies
I bought that book after months--years, really--of questioning whether to stay or leave. It asks questions worth pondering--but as many friends and my therapist kept telling me, you can't FIGURE this one out. You'll either gradually shift toward a place of feeling much more that it's right to leave than stay, or you and your spouse will continue to shift toward each other and staying will feel like the better option. After my spouse and I acknowledged that neither of us was happy, we sat with and tried to resolve our respective feelings of ambivalence for more than two years. We did couples therapy for more than a year. Throughout this time, I also did a lot of work on my own: individual therapy (including EMDR to treat old patterns resulting from past trauma), Al-Anon meetings (spouse is not a drinker, but these meetings have helped me through many tough issues in my life), and meditating. I talked with close friends and let them challenge my reasons for leaving as well as my reasons for staying. I took breaks where I just tried to forget about the question of staying or leaving and had fun. I read Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson, and my spouse and I attended a Hold Me Tight Workshop, which was enormously helpful to both of us. (GREAT workshop--and you don't have to be in crisis to use it and the book to strengthen your relationship or help you resolve differences, arguments, wounds, etc.) Our therapist recently gave us a helpful analogy: I couldn't understand why my spouse couldn't make certain shifts that I needed, and the therapist said, "Sometimes a person has been bending and bending toward you for a long time, and your request to bend just a little further feels to the the other that it will break them. What looks to you like just a little shift is actually too much, because would add to all the stress they're already feeling." Do you two agree on what needs fixing in the relationship? Are you both willing to make changes for that to happen? Will these shifts help you to be more vulnerable with each other? To grow as individuals but also grow with each other? I'm glad we didn't just "rip off the bandaid" a year or two ago. I've grown so much in these past two years, and so has my spouse--but we've continued to clarify what's not working, and to grow apart. We've now arrived at a fairly mutual decision to end the relationship.
I studied that book like it was an LSAT prep workbook. I went over all the questions and answers multiple times and I kept coming up with 3/4 leave and 1/4 stay. I stayed anyway. A year later I found out he had been cheating for a couple years. So then I did leave—with great regret about the time I wasted with him. I think the book asks very good, thoughtful questions, but it can never really decide for you because to stay or go is to a large degree an emotional decision. My suggestion is that you talk with a therapist. The book is a really good starting place for things to think about but, if it leaves you still totally conflicted, maybe talking to someone about it would help.
I would be leery of relying on one book to tell me if I should stay or go. What do your heart and mind say?
I thought that book was very helpful, though in the end my own experience was that I still had to go through quite a long process before I felt sure about my decision to seek divorce. I read that book at least a year before I made my decision and there were several checks in the 'leave' column. We also went through lots of therapy; personally, I found the book more helpful because it was more concrete and specific about what I should be thinking about in figuring out what makes a relationship worth saving. The book didn't make the decision for me, but it did give me more confidence as I moved forward through the process. And retrospectively, now about two years past the decision, I think the book was totally on target regarding the problem issues in my marriage but when I first read it, I just wasn't quite ready move forward. And, for what it's worth, I am now so much happier. Good luck. Every marriage is different, but honor your process, whatever it is, and an answer will eventually become clear.