Marriage and Intimacy Tips for Christian Couples: Secrets of Happily Ever After

Bad Marriage Advice - Divorce is NOT an Option

• Monica Tanner - Marriage and Intimacy Coach for Christian Couples • Season 4 • Episode 317

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What's the worst piece of marriage advice you've ever received? In my years coaching couples, I've heard countless well-meaning but misguided tips passed down between generations. Today, I'm pulling back the curtain on one of the most damaging myths that keeps showing up, especially in religious communities: "divorce is not an option."

Despite its popularity among relationship experts, this seemingly innocent advice creates devastating ripple effects in marriages. It breeds complacency—why try when your partner is stuck with you anyway? It kills honest communication—why bring up difficult topics when nothing can change? Most ironically, it replaces genuine security with fear, leaving partners wondering if they're chosen or merely tolerated. Instead of creating stability, this mindset often nurtures resentment and emotional distance.

This episode offers a glimpse into my forthcoming book, "Bad Marriage Advice: 15 Myths That Will Make You Miserable," where I counter these harmful ideas with relationship wisdom grounded in choice, growth, and authentic connection. When my son announced his engagement, I realized I wanted to give him a marriage resource that wouldn't set him up for failure, and this book was born. The strongest marriages aren't built on obligation or fear of divorce—they thrive when both partners know they're actively chosen every day despite having other options.

Have you received terrible marriage advice? I'd love to hear your stories! Send written accounts, audio recordings, or videos to moni@monicatanner.com to be featured on the podcast and social media. Your experiences can help others recognize and reject the myths that make marriages miserable.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. I'm your host, monica Tanner, and I'm really excited for today's episode. I'm going to be starting to talk about my new book, bad Marriage Advice 15 Myths that Will Make you Miserable. So I announced last week that I had written this book and I want to start giving you some glimpses inside. But first I have a big ask of you. So, if you are listening to this podcast, hopefully you came back to learn more about the book, and I am so excited about promoting it and getting it out there and getting it into as many hands as possible, and so I would love your help with this one project.

Speaker 1:

I just thought of something so fun, and that would be if you the listeners would submit your stories about bad marriage advice. So you can do this in one of two ways actually one of three ways. Why don't we do it one of three ways? You can either email me your written out story of the bad marriage advice you received and just send it to moni M-O-N-I at monicatanercom. So, moni at monicatanercom, send me who you are, how long you've been married and what is the worst marriage advice you received, and give me a little story about why. That would be so awesome. If you want to write it out, you can write it out or send me a recorded message. Tell me who you are, how long you've been married and your story about getting terrible marriage advice. Or this would be my very favorite If you would send me a video of you or you and your spouse, introduce yourselves how long you've been married and then tell me the worst marriage advice that you got. It would be so fun to post these on my social media accounts. I'll talk about them on the podcast, I'll mention them in emails, but it would just be so fun to get your stories the listeners of what is the worst marriage advice you've ever received, cause I know you've gotten it and I know if you've been married for any length of time, you probably recognize that was terrible advice. So, just for fun, the book is already written. It's already in editing, so there's already the 15 pieces of bad marriage advice in there. I just want to know your stories, your experiences with bad marriage advice. So that would be so amazing If you would help me out with that. It would be so fun to spotlight you guys, talk about you guys and just have a good chuckle about bad marriage advice. So with that I want to give you a sneak peek into the book and one of the chapters. And this piece of advice is so prevalent and it just it makes me just shudder because it is the worst advice. And I'm telling you, I have interviewed marriage experts from all over the place, from all ages, young and old, and often I'll ask them what is your most important thing that you teach your couples, or what is some of the secrets to your success?

Speaker 1:

What are the types of thing that you teach your couples, or what is some of the secrets to your success? What are the types of things that you teach? And I cannot tell you the number of especially Christian marriage experts who will say or teach their couples that divorce is not an option. So they want their couples to feel like divorce is never an option. Take it off the table. Don't say the D word. I've heard it in so many different forms. But let me just tell you, while I love those people and I'm sure they help couples with their marriage, that is terrible, awful, no good, very bad. I repeat do not listen to this advice.

Speaker 1:

So in the book I give you 10 reasons why. Acting as if or feeling like or telling yourself or operating as if divorce is not an option is a horrible, horrible idea. So I list 10. I'm going to go over a couple. So the first one is that acting as if divorce is not an option for you and your spouse encourages complacency. I honestly cannot think of a better way to make you, as a partner, just kind of resign to. My partner is stuck with me. Why would I even try Like, why would I brush my teeth or do my hair or get ready for a date or even do anything that's outside of my comfort zone that I don't want to do, because my partner is locked in and divorce is not an option. So I'm just going to do whatever I want and not worry about the impact it has on my partner because they can't get away. It's like we've already decided divorce is not an option, right? So it encourages complacency.

Speaker 1:

Now, I'm not saying that you should be Donna Reed and be wearing high heels and pearls and a dress and have your hair perfectly done in the house, completely spotless, when your husband or wife gets home from work. I'm not saying that that is the ideal, but what I am saying is that, listen, divorce is always an option. We always have choice. Whether we like the choices or not, your partner can always decide that they don't want to be with you. And I'm not saying that to like scare you or anything like that, but I am saying that you should make an effort to be pleasing to your partner, not to abandon yourself or go out of your way to only think about your partner and not think about your own needs. But definitely you should make an effort. I mean, don't get married, think that you're locked in and then just let yourself go. That is the worst idea. When couples they just they don't worry about their appearance, they don't try to grow and evolve, they don't make themselves interesting and try to, you know, make their marriage better because they're like sweet, I locked in my partner and now I can just coast along and not worry about a thing. So that is like reason number one why acting as if divorce is not an option is a horrible idea.

Speaker 1:

The second one I'll talk about in this podcast episode is feeling like divorce is not an option discourages open and honest communication. So when divorce is completely off the table, difficult conversations can feel pointless. I mean, why am I going to bring up something that's really important to me, like the quantity or quality of sexual intimacy that I'm experiencing in my marriage. If I'm like you know what it's falling on deaf ears, my partner doesn't even care, because what motivation do they have to do something different? Right? It can lead to a very surface level marriage where real concerns are just swept under the rug, like I don't want to rock the boat, I'm stuck with this person for the rest of forever and I might as well not say things to upset them because I mean, what good is that going to do me anyways?

Speaker 1:

That is a huge, huge reason why acting like divorce is not an option is killing your ability to communicate or your motivation to improve your communication skills or bring up difficult topics or face the things in your marriage that could potentially really, really strengthen your connection and your intimacy and, you know, bring your relationship to the next level. The only way to up level, I believe, is to confront each other and to have those difficult conversations and to get uncomfortable and to really ask for what you need. And if you feel like you're locked in and there's nothing you can do about it, why would you put yourself out there? Why would you make yourself vulnerable and why would you push yourself to have these difficult conversations? Right? So that's another reason why divorce is not an option is horrible advice.

Speaker 1:

Another reason is that it creates fear instead of security. So, ironically, removing the option of divorce can make people feel less secure. Why? Because when someone believes that their spouse has no choice but to stay with them, they might wonder are they here because they love me, or are they here because they choose me, or are they here because they have no other option? Right, a relationship that's built on freedom of choice is much stronger than a relationship that's built on obligation. Now this comes into play in several different areas of your marriage not just the whole staying together, but freedom when it comes to emotional intimacy, sharing your dreams, your fears, your greatest aspirations, your dreams, your fears, your greatest aspirations, feeling free and feeling like your partner wants to support you and love you, no matter where you're at. That they choose you is such an incredible feeling, way better than just my partner is stuck with me, so we'll just keep on doing what we're doing. Right, because they're they're stuck Right. But then you start to wonder like, ooh, are they here because they're stuck? Like, are they responding to me in this way because they feel stuck, or is there really something under the surface that we could tackle together and make our relationship so much stronger and make my partner really want to be with me, right?

Speaker 1:

I love knowing that my husband knows that at any point he could walk out of here, but I know that he chooses me each and every day, and so I feel super secure in our relationship. I feel like I can share with him vulnerably. I feel like I can share with him vulnerably. I feel like I can share with him vulnerable. Oh man, you guys we're going to try again Vulnerably. Vulnerably, because I know that even in the hard times, we've been through a lot of things together and we choose each other every time, like. I know that I've responded in horrible ways to certain things that he's done, but we've, like, made it through. We've had the hard conversations and we've reassured each other that, hey, I choose you like warts and all. I'm very aware of your insecurities, of your weaknesses, of your shortcomings. I know about mystiques that you've made about what keeps you up at night and I still choose to be here with you why? Because you're the love of my life and I know that I could choose somebody else. I know that I could walk out of here. I know that I could throw up my hands and give up on this marriage, but I'm not going to, because I love you and I choose you. That is trust and security and how real strong relationship is built, not like I'm stuck with this person and this person is stuck with me. So you know what are we gonna do right? And then this one is my favorite and the last one I'll share in this episode.

Speaker 1:

Why acting as if or believing that divorce is not an option is detrimental to a really strong relationship is because it reinforces a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset. Now, this is a concept that was created or brought about by Carol Dweck. She has a book called Growth Mindset that I hugely recommend it. But believing that divorce is never an option can make couples approach marriage with a fixed mindset, assuming that love, compatibility and connection are static rather than evolving. This can discourage continuous learning, adaptation and an intentional effort to improve the relationship. A growth mindset, on the other hand, to improve the relationship. A growth mindset, on the other hand, recognizes that relationships require ongoing work, flexibility and personal development to thrive.

Speaker 1:

So I want you to really think about how do you approach this idea of divorce is or isn't an option because I know that it's big advice out there. I know that lots of big gurus and marriage experts and people that speak from stages and church pastors they talk about this idea that you should approach your marriage as if divorce is not an option. We're not even going to say the D word, like we don't even bring it up, and I'm I would love for you to reconsider that idea as damaging to your relationship, and in the book I think I gave you four, but in the book I list 10 reasons why this is absolutely detrimental and how you can start to think about it differently. How you can start to approach this idea that your relationship is fragile and it deserves your best effort. And when you know that your partner is choosing you over all the other options that are out there, and when you know that you're constantly working towards creating a relationship that's worth being in versus a relationship that you're stuck in, it's really, really going to A empower you and B help you do the things necessary, learn the skills better yourself, make yourself more appealing, choose your spouse and really dig in and make your relationship awesome. So thank you guys so much for listening today.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for getting excited about the book. I'm already getting messages of people who are they love the cover, they love the concept. I'm already getting messages of people who are they love the cover, they love the concept. I'm just so excited for this book to launch this. It's coming this summer, so get ready. I think it's going to be such a great book.

Speaker 1:

I talked about it last week. I wrote it for my son, who is getting married to his beautiful bride very soon and I wanted to be able to give him all of my motherly advice to combat the terrible advice that's out there that I know that well-meaning, you know wonderful adults will try to give them. I wanted him to have my take on it. So, anyways, thank you for being excited about the book. Thanks for listening to this episode and we will talk more about the book bad marriage advice, all the things that you guys love to talk about. And remember my ask if you can take a moment, even just a few sentences, to write, to record or to video yourselves talking about the bad marriage advice you've received, maybe your experience with it, how you learned to do differently. That would be so amazing. I will treasure it and I will share it on the podcast, on my social media, in my newsletter and all the places. So we will see you same time, same place next week. And until then, happy marriage.