I remember watching as my dad drove away that day, this time for good.
I couldn’t make sense of the situation. “Was it my fault, why is dad leaving?”
I was fortunate that my dad remained in my life but the pain of the split, and what was to come, no one should experience.
My mom remarried an awful abusive man who who had two sons.
I was too young to understand the infidelities my father had committed and didn’t understand why I was tormented by my step family.
But somewhere deep inside I resolved to let no one else experience the sort of pain I endured as a young kid.
We all have choices. My choice was to seek healing as a result of my parent’s divorce. I didn’t want anyone to suffer the way I did. So I became a marriage therapist.
We can either make the most of what life has given us or do nothing and stay confused and afraid of doing the wrong thing.
It was that life experience that led me to search for a way to make a difference in the lives of families all over Oklahoma and now the world.
Today we have the best reviewed couples therapy practice in the midwest. You can learn more about it here.
But before I became known for couples counseling and before Marriage Solutions even existed we actually had some pretty interesting twists and turns that we share in this blog.
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Are You Motivated To Work On Your Relationship?
Maybe you have kids and you worry that if you don’t do something to heal your marriage that your son or daughter will end up being raised by someone who abuses them? Maybe you’ve heard of the Cinderella Effect and it terrifies you.
But maybe they won’t be abused…because there are many wonderful step parents out there. Morgan's dad adopted her and he was wonderful. Maybe you are one of those awesome adoptive or step parents but you could use some help blending your family.
Maybe it’s just the thought that you won’t be able to be with your baby through out their daily life. Does the possibility of loosing that relationship kill you a little inside?
Maybe you just don’t want your marriage to fail, you probably didn’t get married thinking, “Awesome in a couple of years this relationship will fail and I will have to start over again, yippy!”
How Has Divorce Impacted Your Life?
Tell us your story in the comments below.
You didn’t mean for this to happen. No one does. It starts subtly—like all catastrophes do. A text that makes you smile longer than it should. A conversation that feels easier than the ones you’re used to. Then comes the rush. The kind that makes everything else feel black-and-white while this—this connection—feels full color.
Now you’re in it. Not just an affair. A feeling. A flood of something that looks a lot like love, sounds like love, but behaves like something far less noble. You’re not just betraying vows. You’re betraying logic. Because it feels real. Too real to walk away from. And yet, deep down, you know you if you pursue this affair further it’ll destroy your family.
The trouble is, our culture is fluent in falling in love—but illiterate in letting go. No one hands you a guidebook when you’re trying to climb out of an emotional trapdoor with your dignity intact. You’re not just ending a relationship. You’re ending a story you believed in, an identity you borrowed, a feeling that got under your skin.
This isn’t heartbreak. It’s limerence—emotional obsession that feels like the love of legend.
Dr. Debora Phillips and Robert Judd knew this terrain when they wrote How to Fall Out of Love. Not for the casually heartbroken, but for the emotionally hijacked. The spouses who want to come home but can’t stop reaching for a shadow. The ones who know the affair must end but don’t know how to feel that ending.
If that’s you, here’s your roadmap—not for guilt, but for freedom. You don’t have to hope the obsession fades on its own. You can shut it down. One intentional step at a time.