Sometimes You Have To Help Couples End A Bad Union

About five years ago, I started doing something controversial: When I assess that a relationship is truly over, I shift from “saving the marriage” to “ending it as healthily as possible”.

I don’t announce this. I don’t say “I think you should divorce.” But I subtly change the focus of our work.

Instead of “How can we rebuild the connection?” I ask: “What would need to happen for you to feel okay about this relationship ending?”

Instead of “Let’s work on communication”, I say, “Let’s talk about what a co-parenting relationship might look like.”

Instead of “Can you find compassion for your partner?” I ask, “Can you find compassion for yourself for having stayed this long?”

I’m essentially doing divorce therapy while calling it couples therapy.

And here’s the thing: When I do this, couples often report feeling relieved. Like someone finally gave them permission to acknowledge what they already knew.

One couple came to me, insisting they wanted to save their marriage. After eight sessions where I gently explored what ending would look like, the wife said, “I think we’ve been trying to save something that died years ago. Maybe what we actually need is help letting go.”

They ended their marriage six months later. And both sent me messages a year after that saying it was the best decision they’d ever made, that they should have done it years earlier, that staying together had been slowly destroying both of them.

That’s when I knew: Sometimes helping people divorce is the most therapeutic thing to do.

What Research Shows About When to Stay vs. When to Go

The research on relationship dissolution is actually more nuanced than the “save every marriage” narrative suggests.

Research on couple communication found that successful couples aren’t those who don’t fight — they’re couples where repair attempts are accepted.

A repair attempt is any statement or action that prevents negativity from escalating: humour, affection, apology, or taking a break.

In healthy relationships, these attempts work most of the time. In relationships heading toward divorce, repair attempts are either not made or are rejected with contempt.

When I see couples where every repair attempt is rejected, where neither partner can de-escalate conflict, where every conversation becomes a battle — that’s a relationship in crisis that may not be salvageable.

The Stability vs. Satisfaction Question

Research distinguishes between relationship stability and relationship satisfaction.

Some relationships are stable (the couple stays together) but have low satisfaction (neither partner is particularly happy).

Christian culture emphasizes stability — staying married is considered success. But research on well-being shows that relationship satisfaction matters far more for mental health, physical health, and life satisfaction than relationship stability.

I see couples all the time who are stable but miserable. They’re not fighting for divorce, but they’re not really married either — they’re cohabiting business partners managing a household and raising kids.

Is that success? Or is that settling for a lifetime of quiet desperation?

The Question of Abuse

This is where I become most directive. Research shows clearly that abusive patterns rarely change, even with therapy.

If I see abuse — emotional, physical, financial, sexual — I don’t do couples therapy.

Couples therapy assumes two people working on mutual problems.

Abuse is not a mutual problem.

In abusive relationships, I immediately resort to safety planning and supporting the victimized partner in leaving. And if the abusive partner is committed to therapy, I’ll see them individually — never together.

This is one area where I will explicitly say, ‘This relationship should end.’

What I Wish I Could Tell Every Couple

After years of doing this work, here’s what I want people to know:

Marriage is not inherently superior to divorce. We’ve created a cultural narrative that divorce is failure and staying married is success, regardless of the quality of the relationship. But staying in a relationship that diminishes both people is not an achievement.

You don’t need to justify leaving. You don’t need abuse or cheating or some dramatic betrayal. “I’m not happy and haven’t been for years” is a sufficient reason to end a marriage.

Staying for the children often backfires.

Children benefit from seeing healthy relationship models, even if that means their parents aren’t together. Growing up in a household full of tension, resentment, and contempt teaches children that this is what relationships look like.

The sunk cost fallacy applies to relationships. The fact that you’ve been together for 10 or 20 or 30 years is not a reason to stay if the relationship is making you miserable. You can’t get those years back by staying longer.

Sometimes love isn’t enough. You can love someone and still not be compatible with them. You can care about someone deeply and still need to leave the relationship for your own well-being.

You deserve more than “fine”. So many couples tell me, “It’s not that bad” or “it could be worse.” But “not that bad” is a terrible standard for a relationship that’s supposed to be a central source of joy and support in your life.

The Question I Ask Every Couple

Here’s the question that tells me almost everything I need to know:

“If you could wave a magic wand and be single tomorrow — no logistical complications, no financial concerns, no judgement from family or friends, just you, contentedly single — would you wave it?”

The answer, and how quickly it comes, is incredibly revealing.

The couples who immediately say “No, absolutely not” or “Maybe for a day, but then I’d want them back” — those couples usually have viable relationships.

The couples where one or both partners hesitate? Where I see relief flash across their face at the hypothetical? Where they say, “I mean, sometimes I fantasize about it”?

Those are the couples who are only together because leaving feels harder than staying.

And that’s not a marriage.

That’s inertia.

The Bottom Line From Someone Who Sees This Every Day

After fifteen years of couples therapy, thousands of hours sitting with struggling relationships, watching some heal and others die slowly, here’s what I believe:

Not every relationship should be saved.

Sometimes the most loving, mature, healthy choice is to end a relationship that isn’t working.

The narrative that divorce is failure and staying married regardless of relationship quality is success — that narrative keeps people trapped in relationships that diminish them.

My job isn’t always to save marriages.

Sometimes it’s to help people recognize when they’ve done everything they can, when it’s time to let go, when staying is causing more harm than leaving.

And sometimes it’s to hold space while two people who once loved each other figure out how to end their romantic relationship while preserving their dignity, respecting what they once had, and moving forward toward lives that might actually make them happy.

That’s not failure.

That’s wisdom.

So if you’re in couples therapy right now, ask yourself honestly:

Are you here because you want to rebuild this relationship? Or are you here because you feel obligated to try?

Does your therapist see hope that you don’t see? Or are you both just going through the motions?

Are you fighting to save something worth saving? Or are you fighting to avoid admitting it’s already over?

Because sometimes the kindest thing I can do as a therapist is help you answer those questions honestly.

Even if the answer is that it’s time to let go.