sSara (00:05)

Empowered people make informed decisions that lead to living a life without regret. This is Sara Khaki and Shawna Woods from Atlanta Divorce Law Group. And this is the Happily Ever After Divorce Podcast. Welcome to the Happily Ever After Divorce Podcast. This is Sara Khaki with Atlanta Divorce Law Group, and I’m joined by our very own managing partner, Shawna Woods. And this episode, we will discuss the 10-year itch, not the seven-year itch, but the 10-year itch.

And why the 10 year? Well, really for no other reason than that’s the pattern we’ve identified here at Atlanta Divorce Law Group, speaking to thousands of clients and people who are either going through divorce or contemplating divorce. Or even really people in our lives, Shawna, right? Right. 10 seems to be the number I don’t have. I’m sure you do, but I don’t. I don’t have any statistics on it. I don’t have any data point other than this is the number that I keep hearing and seeing show up is

Something happens around that 10 year mark of marriage where it becomes a bit of a make it or break it.

sShawna (01:12)

It does and what i was reading on the statistics i was looking at is very interesting. Of divorces that the people who are going to have to divorces the highest percentage thirty one percent are stunned between ten and nineteen years and that doesn’t surprise me at all they did mark it was a five to nine year was a twenty three percent and then the ten did not nineteen years was a thirty one percent and it’s the largest percentage of those people who are going to third force.

But a couple of the other studies that I was looking at were interesting to me because in particularly they were studying women and showing that women have the highest level of dissatisfaction or report the highest level of dissatisfaction in their marriage around this 10 year mark. Men are not necessarily showing up in the same way. So it begs the question, what is it about this 10 year mark that women are struggling with?

sSara (02:11)

Is so fascinating. So I’m going to give you my thoughts, mainly based on talking to so many clients and people who have come to play the divorce. Also a little bit of a research studying I personally done on men versus women have done dug deep into the topic. So somebody had mentioned numerous times, which is Alison Armstrong, and she has lessons and courses you could take on understanding men and understanding women.

From what I understand, when women are done, they’re done. When something finally snaps in their head, it’s over. It’s very hard to undo that. Men, actually, surprises a lot of people, have a higher need for that continuous commitment. It doesn’t mean they don’t walk out on the marriage. It doesn’t mean that they don’t have extramarital relationships. But the actual commitment to their person is a much stronger one, where they will

Last at a unhappy marriage and kind of, you know, soak their shoulders and put their head down, say it is what it is and deal with it. And how many times have we seen either a female client that comes in and says, I’m done. He knows it too. He knows the writings on the wall. He knows it’s done too, but he won’t admit it. And he won’t participate in discussing divorce with me. And I’m the one that has to do it. We see that a lot, especially at this 10 year mark.

Or we see sweet man who comes in and says she filed for divorce. Am begging her to not go. I am begging to stop this. I will do anything. I love my wife. I don’t want this to be over. And he is completely lost over what happened. Yeah. And he can’t pinpoint it again. This is a 10 year mark. See. And you’re right. Because now that it like you’re mentioning it, it all goes down to me. Usually

The woman standing up and say I’m and starts there.

sShawna (04:11)

It does at that 10 year mark. Yes. And then we have to look, well, what happened in those 10 years prior that got her to be the quote unquote done. Right. And again, I don’t like to genderize in. Think we both have masculine and female energy. It all of us do. Sure. But when we talk about over, you know, looking at these statistics and these, you know, overreaching overall reaching aspects to this divorce.

What most the time that you’re seeing is the women are carrying the emotional weight of the relationship. They’re doing all the emotional work in the relationship. Anything that needs to be discussed, they’re the ones bringing it up. Anything that needs to be worked through, they’re the ones pushing it to be worked through. And a lot of times you’ll hear what we hear all the time. I tried to get him to go to therapy. We went to marital counseling. Didn’t work. He wasn’t willing to do counseling on his own.

And I’m not man blaming or man bashing because we do see the flip side to don’t get me wrong, but the vast majority of times we’re talking about women who walk in and we know when they’re done. Yes, there is absolutely. They’re very little crying at that point, right? They are down to the business of how do we make this relationship end so that I can get on in the fast and fast and because they have done for the vast majority of that time that.

sSara (05:20)

There’s nothing that can be done about it.

sShawna (05:38)

Really hard emotional work and they haven’t gotten a response. They haven’t gotten any Input or feedback to help them to think this is gonna get better in the next 10 years, right? But I do think there are other reasons that kind of feed into this particular mark why 10

sSara (05:58)

Right.

So let’s break that down, for instance, and you’re I think you’re absolutely right. I think that the women have done a lot of the emotional caring and reason for that is women, the feminine energy, the feminine characteristics is a lot more adaptable. Yeah, it turns itself into a bends and breaks and all 50 different angles and shapes to adapt the masculine.

Characteristic is a lot more single focused. I need to get this family through A through Z. And unless you grab that masculine focus with a very clear and literal sign that we are in danger, we need maintenance, we need help. All of the feminine ways of showing it indirectly are not clear and literal enough for that masculine energy that’s looking to get the family from A to Z. They are single focused on

This is the journey of this is where I’m taking this family. I’m to put all my efforts on that. And I’m pretty clear that when we got married, we had this understanding that this is the part she was going to play. And this is the part I’m going to play. And this is the plan. This is the plan. And sometimes the masculine is not that great on expressing the plan to the feminine. And the feminine feels like they’re just absorbing a lot and becoming a punching bag.

sShawna (07:12)

Right.

sSara (07:25)

To a lot without completely having a straight, a clear idea of where are we headed? Why do you need more? Why are you just trying to make more money? What is this just about money? They don’t get it. But also, so this is really just two people having a hard time speaking each other’s language. And that’s why the 10 year mark, can you either make it or you break it? The feminine is not good enough, good about being literal in their communication, right? So it’s never honey.

Our marriage is in trouble. I am starting to lose affection. I am starting to lose hope in us. I need us to go on a date. I need us to go on a trip together. If you ask a woman, how did you communicate your dissatisfaction? I am telling you, will never, most of the time, not all women, not all women, most of the time have not been that direct and literal to wave that red flag.

Before their spouse.

sShawna (08:25)

I agree. And I do think a lot of it comes from, well, he should have known is what I hear. Yes. He should have known from the way I was acting. He should have he should have been feeling this too and not expressing the desires of where you saw your marriage going. I don’t think people have enough of that conversation in the very beginning either.

Where do you see our marriage in 20 years? Where do you see our marriage in 30 years? What are our mutual goals? And I’m not just talking like you said about money, right? If your goal is to make money, go out, become a workaholic, make as much money as you possibly can. If your goal is to have a happy family life, you’re gonna have to figure out what else to do besides making money.

sSara (09:12)

And it’s so funny because you read all the articles out there or the books about signs of things that make a marriage fall apart and they’ll say it’s because of lack of money is an issue or there’s not enough intimacy or they’re not dating each other enough or they’re not being kind enough to each other. Think all of it, Shawna, really comes down to one thing and all this stuff is a symptom. And what it is, it’s vision building together as a couple.

We’ve had this conversation before when we talked about treating a marriage as an organization, treating a family as an organization, an organization without a purpose, without a mission, without a vision of where we headed. It’s going to go through the good times and then run out. Right? Absolutely. And it’s going to lose itself.

sShawna (10:02)

I agree with you completely. I think that that’s part of the well, probably is the issue is both of you don’t are not on the same page about what 10 years looks like. And 10 years is usually a big mark for most of us, right? We had another 10 year birthday, we had a 10 year anniversary. It’s a mark to look back and say, where were we? Where are we going? Is this where I want to be for the rest of

Here’s the video.

Absolutely. And, you know, he’s Ford on a career, right? And that could be one of the marks, right? It’s like, okay, do I go back to to work? Do I do hobbies? You know, my kids are now in an age where they don’t need me all the time. All of these things I think play into the stagnation, I think is what kills marriages more than anything else. It is sheer boredom. You’ve gotten to the place where nothing excites the two of you.

Together without each other. Absolutely. And things become boring. You talk about the same things. You don’t experience new things. It takes an effort to make it work. You don’t just get to go, oh, we’ve been married 10 years. Everything’s going to be happily ever after from here on out. Even if it is just developing one night a week that is

To the two of you something new, something exciting, something you haven’t tried before. Anything to keep that spark going, but to your point, really sitting down and say, what’s our next adventure? I don’t mean, it could be traveling, but that’s not what I mean. Our next adventure is, where am I going in my career? We’re gonna help me get there. Where are you going in your career? We’re gonna help you.

What do you want for the kids for the next?

What kind of retirement do we want to landscape out for ourselves? What is it our goals? Having those goals and working to accomplish that is what makes marriages work.

Are you getting away from the family? Do you not want to spend time with us? We hear all of these things and those are the symptoms of this underlying issue. And I love what you said, her buy-in or his buy-in. Because you don’t want to just be like, here’s the vision, jump on board. It is a collaboration. And you married this person for a reason.

You we take the fact that the romance and you know the giddy feelings that new relationship energy that everybody gets the boost from take all of that out you married this person to bring a record value there’s

Wanted and you wanted that in a partnership so you need to be able look at that person and say are we still in a partnership? We’re not roommates. We’re not ships in the night that are doing our own thing. We’re in this together. How do we build this together?

Yes it does. Thank you.