The couple had been married for 10 years, but the relationship had become troubled. They had no children, not even a pet, and no overpowering reason to stay together. They decided to separate.

To most people, that would be a pretty clear sign they were headed for divorce. But that wasn’t the idea here. They sat down with Meg Haycraft, a couple’s counselor in Chicago, and negotiated detailed terms for something called a “controlled separation.”

The time limit this couple decided upon: Five weeks, ending April 4.

The living arrangements this couple decided upon: He stays, she moves out to a girlfriend’s apartment.

The agreement they made to handle finances: Any purchase over $500 requires consulting each other.

The amount of contact they decided to keep up with each other: Three phone calls a week, unlimited emails, a date with each other every Saturday night.

Sex? That was in the contract too. None planned, but if one feels “affectionate” they have the right to “check that out” with the other.

Separation in the U.S. has become essentially a prelude to divorce. But a new approach that has quietly attracted interest over the past few years aims to do the opposite. Controlled separation is usually negotiated in a therapist’s office, never in a lawyer’s. Its ultimate goal is to save the marriage by putting a concrete limit on the time apart (usually no more than six months)— and negotiating more than a dozen disagreement points into a written contract to eliminate the uncertainty, insecurity and second-guessing that can become toxic in a troubled relationship.

The movement is gaining support. A small but growing number of therapists across the country are trying to incorporate controlled separation into their practices. Religious groups both here and abroad are using it, including the Hong Kong Catholic Marriage Advisory Council. And the U.S. military has expressed interest in folding it into its programs to help combat the high divorce rate among service men and women.

Controlled separation can be seen as a sort of “time out” to, at least temporarily, halt the move toward divorce. Both husband and wife pledge not to seek legal counsel or file for divorce during the separation. And they agree not to speak about their troubles to others to avoid hurtful gossip. Twelve other areas, from pets, to child care, to sex, are also laid out.

In some areas, like personal contact, the contract is so detailed that it not only specifies that the couple will go on “dates” with each other but it gives the day of the week and who will initiate them.

“I guess I felt safe knowing nothing more major was going to happen,” says Leah Klug, who entered into a six-month controlled separation agreement with her husband a few years ago. The two have since moved back together and bought a new home with their two children. Her husband, Nathaniel, agrees. “It helped remove the emotion,” he says. “It actually made you think about what you were doing.”

In most separations, there are few rules. Legal separations, negotiated by lawyers, generally cover only finances and children. So-called trial separations, in which one spouse simply moves out with no guidance, are generally emotional and unpredictable since no one is ever sure what the other person is up to.

A marriage and family therapist in Wisconsin, Lee Raffel, developed the idea of controlled separation in the late 1990s out of “sheer frustration,” after some three decades of counseling couples.

“I could see that when couples separated, they were having a terrible time,” she says. “They didn’t know if they wanted to stay or go. They only knew they were unhappy. They didn’t know how to solve their problems and they did a lot of nasty things to each other.”

She outlined the concept in a book called “Should I Stay or Go?” Since it was published in 1998, the idea has slowly caught on largely by word of mouth, often by people who read the book and contacted couples counselors to try to implement it.

Rea Wynder, a court-certified family mediator in Virginia, is trying to incorporate controlled separation into her divorce mediation work for couples she thinks might benefit from it. She also would like to change the term to “marriage pact” to put a more positive spin on it.

“I think it’s a huge step in the right direction to have people agreeing on any set of common rules or common undertakings or promises for exactly how separate they are,” says John Crouch, a divorce lawyer in Arlington, Va.

It doesn’t always work, though. Elsie Radtke, associate director for the family ministries office at the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, says that more than half of the couples she counsels through controlled separation end up divorcing. But she feels that the process benefits those couples too. The split, she says, is often far less bitter as a result of the controlled separation.

“People ask what guarantee can you give me that we won’t get a divorce,” says Ms. Haycraft. “I say, ‘none,’ but you’ve slowed down the process.”

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The above article has been edited to make it better understandable to our readers who find American wording difficult to understand. The original context however, remains in tact. It came from the newspaper article: A Time Out for Troubled Marriages: Therapists Push ‘Controlled Separation’ - By Hilary Stout, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, July 7, 2005.

 

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Marriage Missions Editors Note: We pray that those who are considering separation will view this step as a last resort. What we’ve found is that those who separate often never get back together after taking such a big first step to leave the home. It could be the first step towards the death of your marriage. If, on the other hand, separation is used as a tool with the mind-set that this time apart is necessary to give each other the space that’s needed to help each other calm down, it can be useful because it “slows down the process” leading to divorce, as stated above. The next important step is to start working together in a calmer frame of mind, with the goal to eventually reconcile back together again.

 

But above all the recommendations made above, please make this a very prayerful time, asking the Holy Spirit to be your counselor in how to work with each other to reconcile the marriage back together again. And if at all possible find a good Bible-believing counselor to help you with this process. They’re trained to help you to come to a better understanding of each other and may be necessary to help you rebuild your home upon a solid biblical and emotional foundation.

Another recommendation would be to be careful of the friends and relatives you surround yourself with during this time. Some people will have their own ideas about whether you should reconcile. Many times they have their own agenda or partiality as to whether you should remain married.

If this is the case and they aren’t a positive influence on helping you (or at least not hurting you) work towards reconciling with your spouse in a way which is safe and biblically sound, please avoid being with them. This is a critical time for you to surround yourself with those who will help your marriage, not hurt it.

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