Introduction

The Divorce Remedy: The Proven 7-Step Program for Saving Your Marriage
by Michele Weiner Davis

Michele Weiner Davis goes beyond her marriage-saving bestseller, Divorce Busting, with this empowering and encouraging guide for revitalizing marriage and building stronger, more loving bonds. In a down-to-earth style that is free of psychobabble, Weiner Davis outlines a realistic, solution-oriented seven-step program for managing marital problems, which, when left unchecked, can drain the life out of a relationship. Using revealing anecdotes and in-depth case studies, she illustrates practical ways for marriage partners to

• avoid the "divorce trap"

• identify specific marriage-saving goals

• move beyond ineffective, hurtful ways of interacting

• become an expert on "doing what works"

• overcome infidelity, Internet obsessions, depression, sexual problems, and midlife crises

• get your marriage back on track — and keep it there

Rescue your marriage with the proven techniques of The Divorce Remedy — sound, sensible advice from a renowned relationship expert!

"I love you, but I'm not in love with you anymore." "We got married for all the wrong reasons." "I'm not attracted to you anymore." "Why can't you admit that we just made a mistake?" "My affair isn't the reason our marriage isn't working." "I never really loved you in the first place." "It's time to tell the kids it's over."

Does any of this sound familiar? If so, my heart goes out to you. There is little that is more painful than the feeling of love slipping through your fingers. It hurts to wake up in the morning. You feel disoriented and dizzy. Nothing else matters. Your life, your thoughts, your feelings, your entire being is about your spouse falling out of love with you. How could this happen? What went wrong? Didn't you both promise to love, honor, and cherish each other through good times and bad, through sickness and through health, for richer or poorer until death do you part? What happened to the dreams you had for the future?

If you have picked up this book, there is a reason, a good reason. You are someone who, though hurt and devastated by your spouse's proclamation that your marriage is over, refuses to accept it as a marital death sentence. I applaud you. You know that ending a marriage is no way to solve relationship problems. You feel surer than you've ever felt about anything in your life that, no matter how tough things are right now, they can get better. And most of all, you know that the fight for your marriage is well worth it. The trouble is, your spouse doesn't know this yet. And, chances are, what you've been doing to convince him or her hasn't been working too well. That's why you've picked up this book. You want to keep your marriage together but you aren't quite sure what to do next.

In hopes of finding answers to your marital problems, you've searched the Internet, read magazine articles and even taken up residence at your local bookstore. But unfortunately, your search for solutions has come up short. Although there is an inordinate amount of information for people whose relatively stable marriages can stand some tweaking, there is a dearth of practical, psychobabble-free tools for people teetering on the brink of divorce. You pray that there will come a day in the not-too-distant future when solving garden-variety marital problems will be your biggest concern. But for today, you have bigger obstacles to overcome. You need to save your marriage. And I will help you do just that. First, let me tell you a little bit about myself.

For the last two decades, I have been a marriage therapist, specializing in helping couples make their marriages work. But it wasn't always that way. Early in my career, like many therapists, I assumed that if people were unhappy in their marriages, they should just get out. After all, I told myself, life is short and we all have the right to be happy. But I soon learned the truth about divorce. It doesn't necessarily bring happiness. In fact, in most cases, divorce creates more problems than it solves.

Once I figured this out and truly took it to heart, I stopped being neutral about the benefits of working things out and the pitfalls of getting out. I became a zealot for marriage. I stopped pretending that the pain from divorce is only temporary. I grew determined to help people keep their families together. I focused all my energies on developing methods to help couples fall back in love again. And I succeeded. I created the Divorce Busting program; a method that has enabled me to help thousands of couples restore their love, even couples in what I would have once deemed "dead on arrival marriages."

Then I knew I had to spread the word and proceeded to write my best-selling book, Divorce Busting. And save marriages it did! What a wonderful blessing my work has been in my life! See for yourself:

Dear Michele,

My husband and I have been having a really rough past couple of years. We have two kids, ages four and six. Until recently, we were on the verge of separation and possible divorce. I found your book, and am now seeing real hope in my marriage. I am now finding that the things I saw as unsolvable problems are really communication issues between my husband and myself. I am using the techniques I found in Divorce Busting to really turn myself and my marriage around. I am amazed at how just changing some interactions with him has made such a HUGE difference in my marriage!

By showing my husband more patience with his moods, and giving him his time alone, I have found that he is less and less in his cave and more with the family. We have both shown each other more love and respect than we have in over two years. We have even been able to make love again. Thank you so much, Michele, for helping me not to give up! All my friends said leave him, but you gave me a great deal of hope and insight...

I thank God for helping me find the love and support I needed to save my marriage! God Bless You!

Letters like this make me feel passionate about my work. But that's not the only reason I'm passionate. There are personal reasons as well.

I grew up in a "Walton family." We had a wonderful home. I loved both my parents and my two brothers. My father was a successful businessman and my mother, a stay-at-home mom. We celebrated holidays with relatives and always had an overabundance of good food. I did well in school, had lots of friends, and went on memorable family vacations. My parents never fought.

Then one day in my senior year in high school, my mother called us in for a family discussion and announced her intent to divorce my father after twenty-three years of marriage. "I've been unhappy for a long time," she confessed, "and I'm ready to throw in the towel." With those words, my family life ended forever.

As an adult I asked my mother how she had decided to divorce my father. Because she felt unhappy in her marriage, she sought the help of a professional. After several years of weekly meetings, the therapist advised my mother to get a divorce because she believed the differences between my mother and my father were irreconcilable. She told my mother that leaving her marriage would help her find herself. That was all the encouragement my mother needed.

My parents' divorce was one of the most significant events in my life. Although their divorce was amicable by most standards, it was devastating to me. I was leaving home to become a freshman at college, a difficult transition in the best of situations. I was launched from my nest just as the nest was crumbling. My parents were so immersed in their own pain and confusion that I had to rely on my own strength to get me through.

Today, despite an incredibly wonderful family, a fantastic career, and loving friends, I can easily understand why many people, regardless of their age when their parents divorced, see that event as having caused "a hole in their heart." The terrible thing about divorce is that it not only destroys relationships, it destroys families. I can still hear faint signs of pain when my brothers and I talk... and it's been almost thirty years!

From a personal standpoint, I have decided that, no matter what, I am going to make my own marriage work. My husband, Jim, and I have been together since 1973. We are best friends and lovers. I adore him and, on most days, I think he'd say the same about me. This is not to say that we don't have our ups and downs. Lord knows we do, but we are determined to work through them and come out the other side. And we do. We make up and laugh and love. Our marriage gets better with each passing year. I've learned a tremendous amount about making relationships work because of my determination to avoid divorce at all costs and give our kids the gift of growing up with both their parents.

As you can see, my parents' divorce made me a believer in the sanctity of marriage. I'm convinced that, unless you are in an extremely dysfunctional relationship — one in which there is physical abuse, chronic substance abuse, or chronic infidelity, for example — and your spouse isn't willing to change, you are better off solving your problems than getting out. Because of my conviction, I've devoted myself to helping people like you beat the divorce odds.

It is precisely for this reason that I have written this book. I want to take the guesswork out of marriage-saving. And, unlike Divorce Busting, where I inadvertently gave some readers the faulty impression that they had to find a therapist like me to help them save their marriages, I am going to show you how to become your own marriage expert... quickly! I have extracted the best and most effective ideas from my last book, and broken them down into specific steps you can take — by yourself — to make your marriage work again. Plus, I have had the benefit of hearing from thousands of readers who have asked fantastic questions about the application of my ideas to their own unique situations. It has forced me to become clearer and more specific about my Divorce Busting program. In fact, I have distilled it to seven steps. These steps will be the road map you need to save your marriage.

And if the road to marriage recovery has been a lonely one so far, that's all about to change. Even though we've never met, you'll be surprised by how well I know you and the issues with which you've been struggling. By the time you're done with this book, you will think I've been camping out in your living room for years! You'll read about communication breakdowns, emotional alienation, the Walkaway-Wife Syndrome, depression, infidelity, Internet obsession, midlife crises, sexual problems, and more. You'll eavesdrop on the trials and tribulations of others in your shoes. And best of all, you'll be able to savor, word for word, the incredible success stories of those who have risen above marital adversity and reclaimed their love.

So although you have probably been feeling pretty miserable, you have reason to come out of your funk right this very minute. I don't know everything, but I know a lot about saving marriages. People don't call me the Divorce Buster for nothing. I will give you the inside scoop about getting your marriage back on track. It will restore your faith in yourself, in your reluctant spouse, and in your marriage. So stop worrying. Start reading. Keep praying. And come learn everything you need to know to divorce-proof your marriage.

Copyright © 2001 by Michele Weiner Davis

About the Author

divorcebusting.com
Michele Weiner Davis has appeared as a regular guest on Oprah, 48 Hours, the Today show, and CBS This Morning. She is the author of the bestseller Divorce Busting and of Getting Through to the Man You Love and Change Your Life and Everyone in It, and coauthor of In Search of Solutions. A marriage therapist in private practice, Weiner Davis lives outside Chicago with her husband and two children.