This is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships

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I have been a fan of Matthew Fray's writing for several years now after I found his blog https://mustbethistalltoride.com. His blog has several articles titled " An Open Letter to Shitty Husbands" and I was intrigued because rarely do you read relationship articles written by a male with a sympathetic yet humorous voice.

How many of us have been told by their spouse that they aren't good at planning things but then we see them planning time to enjoy their own hobbies or events with their friends. Matt Fray bravely takes us on a tour of the male brain in relationships and how we can become our own worst enemy. By doing so, he reveals why we (men and women) get it wrong so often and what we can do to fix it. The truth is that when it comes to complex matters of the heart, we often don’t take the time to recognize the role WE play in conflict, and too often invalidate each other without truly understanding how our actions impact the person we love. This Is How Your Marriage Endsis the book we have been waiting for – an entertaining, honest, and truly practical guide for saving our relationships.”— Justin Baldoni At the risk of being vulnerable , I can tell you that much of this book was uncomfortable to read because it is so damn relatable; cross out a few names, insert your own and away you go. All of us are guilty of the daily paper cuts, the micro aggressions that slowly whittle away the trust that nurtures connection in our marriages. Invalidation, fighting to be "right", misaligned priorities, inconsideration; these are the everyday habits that too many of us have that are slowly suffocating our closest relationships.What he realized is that the fights they enacted again and again were down to him not taking his wife into consideration when he made decisions, and so she didn't feel respected. In what he dubs the "Invalidation Triple Threat," spouses 1) contradict their partner's intellectual experience, 2) contradict their partner's emotional experience, and 3) defend their own actions. This doubling down only makes things worse. You, you definitely hone in like your parents divorced. You didn’t, you know, when you were young, that’s kind of the story of a lot of us, um, at some point in our lives. Um, and you also talk about this. This is what you said. Maybe I was hypersensitive because of my parents’ divorce. Maybe I was worried about what my friends and would think of me for failing at the most important job I had, maybe I was afraid of being alone. Maybe I just missed my wife and son, you know, thinking because as a person of divorce myself, parents, myself, you know, it definitely hit home that this was a failure and that your children observed the, of their family unit. How do you now, or, you know, I don’t know how old your son is. How do you approach this subject of relationships with your son now so that he doesn’t feel like, oh, this is just expected. We don’t like each other. We divorce, you know? Yeah. How do you go about that? Many people think that once you get married, there’s no more need to sit down and talk about your relationship. This is false, and one of the main reasons that marriages end. Being able to sit down and discuss your relationship is vital, especially in marriage. Puts words to the human experience in a way that allows us to feel not only witnessed, but also to have hope rise from our all-too-common relational tragedies' Fray offers a frank and refreshingly modern view, one that never makes dated, flippant assumptions…It's instead the story of hard earned lessons, and how to be a truly present, active partner in a healthy relationship. It also truly delivers on its title promise of hopefulness. I have never read a book about marriage that makes a better case for it than this one, an achievement all the more impressive for being written by "the guy who found out too late." — Salon

Fray’s framework is to explain how the way he hurt others helped him become a better person and attempt to guide others towards self-improvement. Fray relies on self-deprecating humor to describe the ways in which his actions hurt his wife, emphasizing his poor character to establish credibility for the advice he gives. This has two negative effects: First, it makes readers feel uncomfortable and guilty to support, with their time and money, someone making a career and profits off of treating his wife poorly. Second, it erodes readers’ trust in the author.

Adam Sisman`s definitive biography, published in 2015, revealed much about the elusive spy-turned-novelist; yet le Carré was adamant that some subjects should remain hidden, at least during his lifetime. #TheSecretLifeOfJohnLeCarré is the story of what was left out, and offers reflections on the difficult relationship between biographer and subject. More than that, it adds a necessary coda to the life and work of this complex, driven, restless man. Filtered through the lens of his own surprising, life-changing experience and his years counseling couples, This Is How Your Marriage Ends exposes the root problem of so many relationships that go wrong. We simply haven’t been taught any of the necessary skills, Matthew explains. In fact, it is sometimes the assumption that we are acting on good intentions that causes us to alienate our partners and foment mistrust. Well, these are questions that Matthew talks about. He states that he really believes that, for the most part, good people marry each other. They hurt each other accidentally through small actions or inactions. In effect, we destroy our marriages through thousands of papercuts instead of bombs or gunshots. It’s rarely about character. It’s occasionally about trauma and mental/emotional damage from our youth. But it’s almost always about our habits. About the things we do and say and feel on autopilot each and every day, with little to no awareness of what it’s doing to our partners and families. Of what it’s doing to ourselves.

You’ve been an active, meaningful contributor to the comments here. You know more about relationship dynamics than I ever will. I’m truly grateful for the time and wisdom you’ve invested here. Partners should be especially sure that their values match before getting into marriage. Although other differences can be accommodated and tolerated, a difference in values is particularly problematic if the goal is long-lasting love,” says associate professor of psychology Kelly Campbell, Ph.D. The author also seems to be very honest in his reflections of where he failed and was a shitty partner, to the extent that I can't but agree with the chapter where he mused that it's a wonder his ex-wife married and had a child with him in the first place. However, it's impressive growth that he's undertaken since then, so you gotta give him credit for that.

As he shared raw, uncomfortable, and darkly humorous first-person stories about the lessons he’d learned from his failed marriage, a peculiar thing happened. Matthew started to gain a following. In January 2016 a post he wrote—“She Divorced Me Because I left the Dishes by the Sink”—went viral and was read over four million times.