Episode 94: Leaving a Good Man

Welcome to the Loving Truth podcast, where it's all about finding clarity, confidence and peace in the face of marriage challenges. And now your host, relationship expert and certified master life coach, Sharon Pope. Hello, loves. This is Sharon Pope, and this is the loving truth. Today we're going to be talking about leaving a good man. Now, I first just want to question. Some people will tell me that they are married to a good man, but then they tell me about all these really horrible things that he does, but she will still come back to but he's a good man.

And then there's people who really are good men that women won't acknowledge that. So I don't know what the exact definition of a good man is, but I think sometimes we will use that language of he's a good guy or he's a good man because we want to justify our decision to be married to him. Like, we don't want to feel like we made a huge mistake. So anyway, that's where we begin.

The reason why a lot of people find their way to me and my work when they are struggling in a marriage to a good man and considering leaving is because they know that that is also my story. So for twelve years, I was married to a really kind hearted, good man. He had plenty of friends. He was very consistent, which meant predictable, right? Like he, you know, worked out his legs on the same day every week, and he worked out his upper body and arms on another day, every day.

This on the exact same day, every single week. Every Sunday, he would iron his clothes for the week ahead. And every night before work, he would pack his lunch for the day. Like he was super predictable. But in that same way, that predictability provided a certain amount of stability in our lives. I knew what to expect from him. I knew who he was and I knew who he wasn't.

And at his core, he was just a good person and people liked to be around him. He wasn't exactly mister life of the party or anything like that, but he was a good human. And that can make it very challenging when you're trying to wrap your mind around potentially ending a marriage to someone who is a good human being. So I want to explain to you why this happens.

So our minds love to think about things in binary terms because it's easy to understand. Our minds are sort of like a computer, and it wants to do what's efficient, and what's efficient is taking the easy way out of give me the thoughts that are easy to think and easy to believe, which is the same thought that I was thinking yesterday and that I keep thinking over and over and over again.

And can you see how when we think in these binary terms of this is good and that is bad, or this is right and this is wrong, it makes things easier, except that it completely disregards the nuances of life, of the world, and certainly of human beings and people. So we miss all the gray, which is where most of us live in our lives day in and day out is in the gray.

We have to be able to understand the nuances of people. No one is all good or all bad. No one is all right or all wrong. It depends on the situation. It depends on the circumstances surrounding it. So in order to wrap your mind around do I stay or do I go? When I am married to someone who is a good human being, that means that we are going to have to hold two truths simultaneously that don't really seem like they go together?

If you think about it, the whole idea of I can't possibly leave, he's a good man, that comes from this idea of the binary thinking of good person stay, bad person leave. Along those same lines, I hear people say, well, if I am in love with him, then you stay. And if I'm not in love with him, then I leave. But that doesn't account for any of the nuance of love and relationships and human beings.

So you can love someone, you can care about their well being, and you can choose to not be in your most intimate relationship with them forever. You can still love and care about them, and you can choose to not be in your most intimate relationship with them. Those are two things that don't, at surface level, seem to go together, but can absolutely be true. My ex husband, I no longer keep in touch with him because there's no reason to keep in touch with him.

We didn't have children together or anything like that. But I care about his well being. I care about his family and the people that I hate engaged with. You know, when I was with him, I don't wish him any ill will, of course, but I no longer wanted to be in my most intimate relationship with him, and we were not meeting one another's needs. So when we break it down and it has to fit into this binary box that we've become a little bit too accustomed to, then I either have to make him out to be a horrible human being or I have to hate him, right?

Because if I love him, I can't possibly leave him. If I still love him, that's not true. I can't possibly care about him and leave him. No, you don't have to hate him. He doesn't have to be a horrible human being, and you can still choose to not be in your most intimate relationship with him. This kind of thinking that got us to this place of asking the question of how could I possibly leave a good man?

That thinking is not really serving us. And frankly, we're smarter than that, so we can do a little bit better. Let me give you some other relationship examples of two truths that don't really seem to go together at first glance, but absolutely can coexist. So, for instance, you can have a really difficult conversation with your spouse, and you can still feel safe with one another. Both of those things can coexist.

You can talk about the really, really hard stuff. We should be talking about the hard stuff in our most intimate relationships. And if you have the tools to be able to do that in a really productive way, and then you're able to repair and heal whatever the difficult conversation is about. You can even come out the other side of really difficult conversations, much closer and more trusting of one another, because you're proving to one another that you can come through difficult things, that you can talk about the really hard things, you can face the difficult stuff of life and marriage, and you can still feel safe with one another.

It's when we have difficult conversations that they always turn into a big blowout argument, because neither of you are are equipped to really argue productively that then you don't feel safe with one another on the other side of those difficult conversations. And then we start avoiding ever even having the difficult conversations. And then we shut down in talking about the most important things in our relationships because we're avoiding it.

Okay, so you can have difficult conversations and you can feel safe with one another. Another one is that you can disagree about really important things and you can be respectful and you can still love them. Right. There's almost this underlying idea that I see and hear right now where it's like, if they don't think like I do, if they don't appreciate the things that I appreciate, if they don't see the world through a similar lens as me, then how am I supposed to love this person?

Well, I don't think anyone would disagree with me. That being respectful is just sort of table stakes of being in relationship with anyone, whether it's a family member or a friend, and certainly in an intimate relationship. So you can disagree about really important things in your life and still respect this other person, and you can still love them. Even though they don't see the world as you do.

Another one might be we can appreciate when we see our partner making a real concerted effort in the marriage, we can genuinely appreciate the effort that they're making and the progress that they're making in order to invest in their relationship in a new way. And we can still desire change. Right? We can still say, I appreciate the progress that's been made of, but we're not quite there yet.

We still have some work to do. We still have some healing to do. We still have some closeness to bridge or a disconnect to reconnect. We still have work to do. We still have needs on both sides that aren't being met. And I can appreciate the work that you've done. Right. So when we. This is when you start wrapping your mind around being able to hold two truths simultaneously that don't seem to go together.

Then you can start getting into the nuances of a relationship. And that's when you're better equipped to have healthy relationship. Now, the last and maybe most important one is that you can be upset with your partner. You can be really hurt by something that they said or something that they did or didn't do. And you can still be kind and you can still be loving. Right. Just because we get upset, which of course we're going to get upset, that's going to happen.

You can't live twelve inches apart from someone twenty four seven and at some point not rub up against each other's soft spots. That's going to happen. But we don't have to default to our most hurtful and hateful place just because we're hurt, right? Just because when we get hurt, it doesn't mean we have to hurt someone back. We can feel hurt. We can express that hurt. We can ask them, was that their intention?

We can have some productive conversation as a couple around that. But we don't have to default to being hateful to one another just because we're hurting. And by the way, if you can express whatever the hurt is in a loving manner in a vulnerable way, they are much more likely to be able to receive whatever it is that you're wanting to communicate as opposed to putting up a wall and feeling like they have to defend themselves.

If you really approach that conversation with an openness, a lovingness, some sincerity and yes, vulnerability, talk about the hurt as opposed to jumping to blame, if you can approach it from there, as opposed to just blaming and pointing the finger and yelling and demanding and criticizing your partner, this conversation is going to go so much differently. So you can be hurt, and you can be upset with your partner, and you don't have to get hateful, you can still be kind, you can still be respectful, and you can still be loving both towards yourself and towards them.

Right. Because we also confuse the idea of loving. What is loving? Loving has to begin with you, so it has to be loving towards you first and then loving towards someone else. Loving is not overlooking bad behavior. Loving is telling someone the truth, but doing it in a really respectful way. So I think all of us would do well not just in our relationships, but also in our broader lives to get out of this binary thinking.

The simplistic thinking of, like, it's good bad, it's right, wrong, it's black, it's white. Like, how we see things is not the only way to see it. And that can be true for every single aspect in our lives. And we need to be able to use that intellectual capability that we have in order to create better relationships. So I want you to go looking for where you can hold two things to be true simultaneously.

Okay? And I think as the highest thinking species on the planet, this is completely in the realm of possibility for most of us. Should we choose to go there. We don't have to default to the most simplistic and frankly, lazy line of thinking, especially when it comes to our most intimate relationships, which, my friends, is the foundation of our family and everything we've built on top of it.

Right? So we can do a little better. And if you find that you are in this place of should I leave a good mandeh, this is a beautiful place to begin the practice of holding two things to be true simultaneously. He can be a really good human being, and he may or may not be the best partner for you to be involved in your most intimate relationship forever with.

All right, I hope that that gives you something to consider. Until next time, please take really good care if you're listening to this podcast, because you're struggling to decide whether to stay or go in your marriage and you're serious about finding that answer, it's time to book a truth and clarity session with a member of my team. On the call, we'll discuss where you are in your marriage and explore if there's a fit for you and I to work together so you can make and execute the right decision for you and your marriage.

Go to clarityformymarriage.com to fill out an application. Now that's clarityformymarriage.com.