The Two-Year Warning: Women's Journey Before Divorce

Episode #1196

Has your wife been asking you to get help, try counseling, find a coach, attend a retreat, or simply do something about your marriage?

You may hear it as criticism. She may be trying to tell you something much more important.

In this episode of The TPM Show, Doug Holt and Erin Holt discuss what may be happening long before a wife starts seriously considering divorce. Erin shares the female perspective on the years of conversations, attempts at connection, requests for change, and emotional work that can happen before a woman reaches the point where she's ready to leave.

For many husbands, the announcement that their wife is unhappy or considering divorce feels sudden. From her perspective, however, the problem may have been building for years.

Erin explains that women may repeatedly initiate conversations, suggest marriage counseling, research programs, read books, or work on themselves because they still want the marriage to work. When those attempts are repeatedly dismissed or nothing consistently changes, she may eventually stop trying.

Doug and Erin also discuss why getting help isn't an admission that something is wrong with you. Relationship skills are learned skills. Men routinely invest time, money, and energy into becoming better businessmen. Applying some of that same growth mindset to your marriage can change how you show up as a husband, father, and leader.

The message is simple: if your wife keeps asking you to do something, listen before she stops asking.

Timestamp Chapters 00:00 The warning signs men miss before divorce

00:41 Why your wife keeps asking you to get help

01:29 How common is it for women to ask their husbands to change?

02:33 How far along is she when she asks for counseling?