How to Prevent Divorce: Understanding the Emotional Cycles Keeping Couples Stuck

By Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky, Licensed Therapist | Communicate and Connect Counseling Specializing in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT)

What This Live Episode Covers

In this live training, couples therapist Dr. Liz Polinsky breaks down why so many marriages reach the brink of divorce — and what actually needs to change for couples to find their way back. If you’ve been wondering whether your relationship is beyond repair, this episode is for you.

Topics covered:

• Why hopelessness is not proof that your marriage is hopeless
• The hidden cycle driving conflict in most struggling relationships
• What emotionally focused therapy (EFT) reveals about pursue-withdraw patterns
• How emotional safety gets lost — and how it can be rebuilt
• What to do if only one partner wants to work on the relationship
• Can trust be rebuilt after infidelity or betrayal?

Is Your Marriage Really Broken — Or Is It the Cycle?

One of the most common misconceptions couples bring into therapy is the belief that their relationship is broken. But according to Dr. Polinsky, the relationship itself is rarely broken — it’s the negative cycle between partners that is winning.

In emotionally focused couples therapy (EFT), therapists pay close attention to the recurring patterns that take over between partners. These cycles — not the individual problems like communication, money, sex, or parenting — are the root cause of disconnection and, eventually, thoughts of divorce.

“Many couples spend years trying to solve these problems without actually addressing the deeper cycle that is driving those problems to begin with.” — Dr. Liz Polinsky

Why Couples Consider Divorce: It’s About Disconnection, Not a Lack of Love

Most couples considering divorce still love each other. The problem is that love has become buried — underneath years of hurt, fear, resentment, and disappointment. When emotional disconnection becomes chronic, partners stop risking vulnerability. They stop showing their hearts to each other, which deepens the sense that love is gone.

The real question to ask isn’t “Do we still love each other?” It’s: “Can we find our way back to emotional safety and connection?”

Watch the Full Video Here

Understanding the Pursue-Withdraw Cycle in Couples Therapy

One of the most common negative cycles in struggling relationships is the pursue-withdraw pattern, a core concept in emotionally focused therapy:

• The pursuer feels afraid of abandonment or emotional aloneness. In their panic, they reach for their partner — but it comes out as criticism, pressure, or demands. On the outside it looks like nagging or attacking; on the inside, it’s fear.
• The withdrawer feels overwhelmed by the criticism and fears failing their partner. To avoid making things worse, they shut down, pull away, or make promises they can’t keep. On the outside it looks like not caring; on the inside, it’s self-protection.

The more the pursuer pushes, the more the withdrawer pulls back. The more the withdrawer pulls back, the more panicked the pursuer becomes. This loop — not either partner — is what causes the relationship to feel hopeless.

Client Story: Sarah and Mike

Sarah came into therapy feeling emotionally alone and abandoned. Mike came in feeling like he could never do anything right. Sarah’s loneliness showed up as criticism and constant suggestions. Mike’s sense of failure showed up as withdrawal and empty promises. Neither was trying to destroy the relationship. Both were just trying to emotionally survive. Once they could see their cycle clearly — and understand what each was protecting against — they could begin to reach for each other differently.

Why Hopelessness Is Not the Same as a Hopeless Marriage

Hopelessness is a feeling. It is not a diagnosis.

Many couples who feel hopeless are not in a hopeless marriage. They are in a very powerful, very painful negative cycle that has gone unnamed and unaddressed for far too long. The feeling of hopelessness is almost always a symptom of being stuck in that cycle — not evidence that the marriage cannot be repaired.

“Hopelessness is not always proof that the relationship itself is hopeless. Very often, the feeling of hopelessness is a symptom of being trapped in a really powerful negative cycle.” — Dr. Liz Polinsky

Hope returns not by waiting — but by doing something new. When one partner shares their hurt instead of their criticism, and the other can stay present instead of shutting down, something shifts. These small moments of vulnerability and responsiveness interrupt the old cycle and begin building a new one.

How Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) Helps Couples Prevent Divorce

Emotionally focused couples therapy works by helping couples:

1. Identify the negative cycle that is keeping them stuck
2. Understand what each partner is protecting against underneath the conflict
3. Drop the protective behaviors (criticism, withdrawal, defensiveness) and share what’s underneath
4. Build new emotional experiences of vulnerability and responsiveness together
5. Create a new positive cycle that leads to safety, connection, and hope

The goal is not a perfect relationship. Every couple has a cycle. The goal is to reach a place where the cycle is no longer the final word.

Frequently Asked Questions About Saving a Marriage from Divorce

How do I know if my marriage can still be saved?

The most important factor is whether both partners are willing to work on the relationship. Dr. Polinsky has seen couples with decades of affairs rebuild their marriages, and couples with seemingly minor issues choose to end theirs. Desire and willingness to engage in the repair process matters more than the severity of the problems.

What if only one partner wants to go to couples counseling?

If your partner is unwilling to attend couples therapy but is open to working on the relationship in other ways, that is a meaningful distinction. Additionally, emotionally focused individual therapy (EFIT) can be very effective — even one partner understanding and changing their role in the cycle can shift the entire dynamic.

Can emotional safety be rebuilt after years of conflict?

Yes. It may take longer when there is more accumulated hurt, and it may feel riskier. But emotional safety can absolutely be rebuilt when both partners are willing to engage in the process.

Is there hope after infidelity or broken trust?

Yes. Research actually shows that most couples stay together after infidelity and do not divorce. With the right therapeutic support, broken trust can be addressed and healing is possible.

Key Takeaways: How to Prevent Divorce

1. Hopelessness ≠ a hopeless marriage. The feeling of hopelessness is usually a sign of a powerful negative cycle, not proof that your marriage cannot survive.
2. You are not fighting each other — you are fighting a pattern. Understanding your relationship cycle changes everything.
3. Protection creates distance. Criticism, withdrawal, and defensiveness are protective responses that make sense — but they fuel disconnection.
4. Hope is built, not waited for. New emotional experiences between partners — moments of vulnerability and responsiveness — are what create hope.
5. Name the cycle to change the cycle. Identifying your relationship pattern is the critical first step toward rebuilding connection.

Ready to Understand Your Relationship Pattern?

If today’s conversation resonated with you, the next step is identifying the specific cycle keeping you and your partner stuck. Dr. Polinsky has created a free Relationship Pattern Assessment to help you begin seeing what might be happening underneath your conflict.

Take the Free Relationship Pattern Assessment HERE.

About Dr. Liz Polinsky

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky is the owner and founder of Communicate and Connect Counseling, a couples therapy practice specializing in emotionally focused couples therapy (EFT). She works with couples navigating disconnection, conflict, and the fear of divorce, helping them understand and change the cycles keeping them stuck.

Episode Transcript

The following is an edited transcript of the live training “How to Prevent Divorce” hosted by Dr. Liz Polinsky.

Dr. Liz Polinsky: Hey, welcome. It’s 12:01 PM Eastern Time right now, and I am excited to be back doing another live with you all. Today, I really want to talk about how to save your marriage from divorce. This is one of the most painful places that couples can find themselves in.

Maybe you’ve had conversations about separation, or maybe one partner has mentioned divorce. And a lot of people, when divorce starts getting mentioned, they start wondering, “Is our relationship something that can survive? Is it something that we can repair, to make sure that we can stay together — not just stay together, but stay together where we are happy and fulfilled?”

So if that’s where you are, I want you to know that many couples arrive to couples counseling feeling hopeless. But the really good news is that the couples who often recover aren’t necessarily the couples that have the fewest problems.

There are a lot of couples that come into couples counseling with tons and tons of problems. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to end up divorced. It’s the couples who begin to understand what’s actually happening underneath their conflict — those are the couples who tend to successfully rebuild their connection. And this is what we’re going to talk about today.

The Problem: Loss of Hope

When relationships are struggling, it’s not necessarily the amount of conflict — it’s the loss of hope. When couples reach a point where they stop reaching for each other, stop sharing what’s going on, stop being vulnerable, and stop believing things can change, the relationship can really begin to feel like it’s beyond repair.

But hopelessness is not always proof that the relationship itself is hopeless. Very often, the feeling of hopelessness is a symptom — a symptom of being trapped in a really powerful negative cycle for far too long.

When couples don’t understand that they’re stuck in a cycle, they start to believe that the pain they’re experiencing is evidence that the marriage can’t recover. But when they can start to see the cycle more clearly — that is really when something starts to shift. That is the huge turning point.

The Mistake: Focusing on Visible Problems

When relationships are struggling, couples often focus on the very visible problems. That might be communication, parenting, sex and intimacy, money, or household responsibilities. And I want to be really clear — all of these issues matter. But many couples spend years trying to solve these problems without actually addressing the deeper cycle that is driving them to begin with.

As one of my mentors said, what we do in emotionally focused therapy is help people work on “the problem that makes solving all the other problems a problem.” When you learn communication skills and make lots of agreements, but continue to feel disconnected — it’s because the underlying cycle remains unchanged.

The Cycle: What’s Really Happening

There may not be anything wrong with your relationship. The relationship is not necessarily broken. It’s that the cycle is probably winning.

In emotionally focused therapy, we pay close attention to the negative cycle that takes over between partners. Couples often come into their first sessions believing, “It’s my partner that’s the problem” or “Our relationship is just too broken to repair” or “Maybe we’re just incompatible.”

But what I typically see is that the underlying cycle between them has actually gotten stronger and more pervasive — almost stronger than the people inside it. One partner gets scared of disconnection. They try to reach for their partner, but it comes out as criticism or pressure, from a place of panic. The other partner gets overwhelmed, shuts down, and pulls away. And then both people feel even more alone, more disconnected.

The more this pattern repeats, the more hopeless the relationship feels. But really, the very first step is to see the cycle — because when couples can identify that they’re caught in this loop together, they often begin to see that there’s still something to work with. The enemy is not each other. The enemy is the pattern that keeps taking over.

Teaching Point 1: Disconnection, Not Lack of Love

Divorce is often preceded by disconnection — not a lack of love. Many couples who are considering divorce still really love each other, and that can be confusing. “If we still love each other, why does it feel so impossible to be together?”

The answer is that love has often become buried — buried underneath years of hurt, fear, resentment, disappointment, and beneath all the ways each of you have learned to protect yourselves. When emotional disconnection becomes chronic, people stop risking vulnerability. “I don’t show you my heart anymore, because this pattern is so painful.” And then when you don’t show your heart, your partner has no idea all the love that’s in there.

So when this has been going on a long time, they stop turning toward each other. The real question is not, “Do we still love each other?” The deeper question is: “Can we find our way back to being connected? Can we create enough emotional safety to be vulnerable again?”

Teaching Point 2: When We Feel Unsafe, We Protect Ourselves

When that cycle has been going on and it’s been painful — when there are feelings of “Am I being rejected? Am I not good enough? Am I not a priority?” — we go into protecting ourselves. And those protections make sense. That protection could look like:

• Criticism: “I’m not the problem, you’re the problem.”
• Defensiveness: Both partners pointing fingers in a loop — criticize, defend, criticize, defend.
• Withdrawal and avoidance: Shutting down, not bringing up conversations, sweeping things under the rug.
• Peacekeeping: Saying whatever keeps the peace but not really communicating.

In EFT, one of the most common cycles we see is the pursue-withdraw pattern. Someone is afraid of divorce, fearing abandonment, and tries harder to fix things — but it comes out as criticism. The other partner hears the criticism, fears failing their partner, and shuts down to avoid making things worse. But when they shut down, the person who fears abandonment panics more and pushes harder. And the disconnection grows.

Neither person is trying to destroy the relationship. Both are just trying to survive emotionally. But the more each protects themselves, the more unsafe the relationship feels to their partner. The pursuer feels ignored and abandoned. The withdrawer feels criticized or inadequate. And over time, that cycle makes both people start to believe there is no hope.

But again: hopelessness is often the effect of a cycle. It’s not the truth about the marriage.

Hope Returns When the Cycle Changes

Hope really returns when people can see the cycle and start changing it. And that leads to more connection, and connection creates hope.

A lot of people wait to feel hopeful before they try to repair the marriage. But that is not how it works. Hope does not come first. Hope grows when something new happens between partners. When one person shares their hurt instead of their criticism, and the other can stay present instead of shutting down — that starts to build hope. When one person can reach with vulnerability and the other can respond with care — that is a new emotional experience.

When the cycle changes, even slightly, that’s when couples start to feel, “Okay, maybe we’re not as hopeless as we thought.” Hope is not something you can simply wait for. Hope grows as safety and connection begin returning.

Sarah and Mike: A Story About the Cycle

Sarah and Mike came in feeling pretty discouraged. Sarah felt really alone — emotionally abandoned — like her partner was never really there for her. Mike felt like he could never get anything right. He would try and try, but it would feel like he was still failing.

When Sarah felt alone without Mike, she would push. She’d make suggestions, point out what he wasn’t doing, critique how he was trying. Mike tried for a long time to do it all right — and then eventually felt like, “There’s no way I can do it right,” and he would shut down and withdraw.

But the more Sarah pushed, the more Mike felt overwhelmed and withdrew. And the more he withdrew, the more Sarah panicked. “Am I alone in this? Are you going to be a team member with me?” They began talking about divorce. The hopelessness developed because the cycle kept repeating, and neither of them understood what was happening.

Sarah thought Mike just didn’t care. Mike thought Sarah could never be satisfied. Really, both were hurting — but the cycle made each of them look like the enemy.

What started to change was that they began to understand their pattern. Sarah recognized that she got critical when she was lonely — that she wanted support, and that her need was coming out as critique. Mike recognized that his withdrawal was his way of protecting against feeling like a failure — that he was pulling back so he wouldn’t have to feel, again, that he couldn’t do it right.

As they understood each other’s contributions to the cycle, they could begin dropping their protections and reaching for each other with vulnerability. And as connection returned, hope returned too.

Key Takeaways

1. Hopelessness does not mean your relationship is actually hopeless. Hopelessness is a feeling — an important one — but it is not an accurate diagnosis of the relationship. Many couples who feel hopeless are not dealing with a hopeless marriage. They’re dealing with a powerful negative cycle that has gone unnamed for too long.
2. Most couples are not fighting each other — they’re fighting a pattern. The enemy is the cycle, not your partner.
3. When we protect ourselves, we create more distance. Understanding and changing our pattern leads to more connection — and connection is what brings hope again.
4. Change is possible, even when it feels emotionally hard. Dropping protection and being vulnerable is not easy. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. Couples are doing this work and changing their relationships every single day.

Q&A: Common Questions About Saving a Marriage

Q: How do I know if my marriage can still be saved?

The key factor is whether both of you want to work on it. I’ve seen couples with decades of infidelity on both sides choose to fight for their marriage — and I’ve seen couples with seemingly no major issues choose to end theirs. Desire and willingness matter more than the severity of the problems.

Q: What if only one partner wants to work on the relationship?

There’s an important distinction here. If your partner is truly done and refusing to engage at all, that’s a painful reality to accept. But most of the time, when someone asks this question, it’s because their partner isn’t willing to come to couples counseling — not that they don’t want to work on the relationship at all. In that case, individual therapy with a focus on relationship concerns, including emotionally focused individual therapy (EFIT), can be incredibly helpful. When you understand and change your part of the cycle, you create the possibility of changing the entire cycle.

Q: Can emotional safety be rebuilt after years of conflict?

Yes. It may take longer because there is more accumulated hurt. It may feel riskier. But it is absolutely possible.

Q: Is there hope after infidelity or broken trust?

Yes. Research shows that most couples actually stay together after infidelity and do not divorce. With the right support, broken trust can be addressed, and real healing is possible.

Next Step: Take the Free Relationship Pattern Assessment

If today’s conversation resonated with you, the next step is to start identifying the specific cycle that may be keeping you stuck. Dr. Polinsky has created a free Relationship Pattern Assessment to help you begin seeing your pattern clearly — because once you can name the cycle, you can begin to change it.

Take the Free Relationship Quiz

If you found this helpful, we’d be grateful for a Google review — it helps more couples find us and understand how we can support them.

About Communicate and Connect Counseling We are a couples therapy practice specializing in emotionally focused couples therapy (EFT). We help couples understand the cycles keeping them stuck and build the emotional safety needed to reconnect. Learn more about marriage counseling services.