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Helping couples discover the why behind the what in their marriage with Chris and Beth Bruno and Tracy Johnson of ReStory Counseling.
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Welcome to the Thrive Marriage Lab with Restory Counseling, where we help you explore the why behind the what. Because guess what? We believe that your marriage is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be explored and enjoyed. We believe that the more you explore and know your story, the deeper your marriage connection will be. This podcast is now the audio version of our new YouTube channel, Thrive Marriage Lab.
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where each week you can expect us to help you cultivate connection and belonging without the fixing and tips and common things you often hear in the marriage space. So find us on YouTube or listen in.
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So maybe your marriage is kind of on the rocks and you are coming to kind of the end of your rope a little bit with each other and you're not quite sure what to do. Now people can do a whole bunch of different things, right? They can go see a marriage therapist, they can separate, they can move towards divorce, they can just rip, you know, hold on and just try to hang in there with one another for another couple years. You know, there's something that a lot of couples will do that I wanted to clarify a little bit more. And it's something called...
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a therapeutic separation. Now it is different from a separation, right? Where you're a married couple and you are gonna separate a little bit, you're gonna give each other some space. Well, there's that, but there is something called a therapeutic separation, which I actually believe is gonna be a much more helpful thing for you to do. Welcome to the Thrive Marriage Lab. My name is Chris Bruno and I'm a licensed professional counselor and the founder of Restore Counseling.
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And together with my wife Beth and our colleague Tracy Johnson, we post videos to help you understand the why behind the what. Because we believe that when you explore and know your story, the deeper your marriage connection will be.
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So as we talk today about a therapeutic separation, at least begin the discussion around what that is. Therapeutic separation is not just separating. Now, I've worked with plenty of couples that have come in and they're like, we're separated. And I actually wanna know what they mean by that. What does it mean for them to be separated? Does that mean that they're talking, not talking? What happens with the kids? Where are they living? What is happening? Is there actually, is this just a step?
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towards divorce, is this just an easier thing to say that we're separated instead of we're moving towards divorce, are the papers drawn up? Like what is happening in this marriage relationship? When they come in and they say they're separated or they talk to me, they say I'm separated from my husband and my wife, I wanna know, like is there hope, is there desire for healing in this relationship or not? So I think when we talk about a therapeutic separation,
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in and of itself, it actually means that we're wanting to do work. We're wanting to, in the context of the separation, the end goal is for us to come back to be with one another again. A separation is really just that stair step, that next step towards getting a divorce. It might be easier. It's not legal quite yet and all those kinds of things. But that couple who just says we're separated is really saying, hey, we're moving towards parting ways.
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But a therapeutic separation is something different. It actually is saying, hey, we're gonna do some work. We're creating the space in order for us to do the kind of work that we realized we need to do. It's kind of, you know, you're in the middle of a movie or something like that and you push pause because you need some more popcorn and you need to run to the bathroom. It's that kind of pause that just gives you some space to attend to some of the things that you need to tend to in order for you to come back together. There's a whole bunch of.
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clarity and parameters and all of that around a therapeutic separation that I'm going to talk about in future videos But one of the things that I want to encourage you first and foremost to do is To not do this alone to not jump into a therapeutic separation and go like, okay We're gonna try to figure this out You actually need somebody who's gonna guide you through the process and that's gonna be a marriage counselor a marriage therapist Maybe a pastor somebody who knows what that is And I want to encourage you to like find somebody who knows what that is. It's just
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show up and say, hey, will you lead us through a therapeutic separation? They might think that they know what it is, but they might actually not. And that's gonna end up leading you in a whole different direction. So they may have some other words for it for sure. Maybe it's not exactly therapeutic separation. Maybe it's a trial separation. Maybe it's giving each other some space. Whatever language that they have for it, they're gonna need to know what it is and how to lead you through it.
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because otherwise it's just gonna be like I said, just heading you down the road towards a separation and a divorce, which is not actually what you want. I also wanna commend you that if you're even thinking about a therapeutic separation, first of all, I'm sorry to hear that you are at that place in your marriage where you're just kind of realizing whatever has been, whatever we've been doing isn't working. And it's at the point where it's so not working that we need to do something drastic. So I'm both sorry to hear that you've come to that point.
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And I also want to say like, well done for realizing you've come to that point. So many couples just kind of just hang on for far too long and then they build up anger and they build up resentment and then they're just embittered towards their spouse and they can't really heal from that moving forward. So if you're at the point where you're starting to feel some of those things, a therapeutic separation might actually be a good thing for you to consider. So find a therapist, find a counselor, find a pastor, someone who knows what it is.
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And then secondly, like just have a conversation with your spouse that says, hey, things are just not well. What we've tried so far over the last year, five years, 10 years, 20 years, that hasn't worked. We're gonna need to do something because we actually want to work on our relationship. I want to work on the relationship. Do you wanna work on our relationship? And is this something that we can maybe try out for a little bit of time? So in future videos, I'm gonna unpack exactly what a therapeutic separation is, give you some parameters, give you some ideas.
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of how to set that up. And hopefully through some of these videos, you'll be able to go like, yes, this is something that I want to do. Or no, maybe we're not quite there yet. Maybe we don't need to separate. We can do some other therapeutic things before that. Or maybe you're just at the point where this is gonna go, yeah, actually, we need to move towards separation and divorce. So check out the following videos and I'll see you there.
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If you like this, there's more where that came from. Go to Thrive Marriage Lab on YouTube to check out all of the marriage resources we have for you. We are so committed to helping you develop a deeper and more connected relationship that we've created 12 free.
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curated date guides to walk you through one year of good dates that we believe take you beyond your average date night to the kind of connection you really want. So head over to Restory.life/thrive-dates or just look in the show notes to subscribe to get those for free in your inbox for one year. And if you're curious about us, you can find us over at Restory.life.
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where we look forward to hearing about how your marriage continues to grow. See you same time, same place next week.