₦airaland Forum

Background Information:

Jake and Sarah have been married for 18 years.
Jake has been previously married and has one child who is 19 from the previous relationship.
Jake and Sarah have two kids, ages 14 and 10.
The 14-year-old daughter is a professional athlete and has high demand needs with training and her schedule; she also has anger management/stress issues.
Jake is a workaholic, and is very overreactive to problems.
Sarah is emotionally avoidant from childhood conditioning, hides her pain and does not express how she feels.
Jake’s ex-wife is narcissistic and uses the 19-year-old daughter as a way to manipulate and control Jake, which influences his ability to cope.
Jake avoids all problems with working.
They blame each other for all of the problems.
The 19-year-old daughter has anxiety, the 14-year-old daughter Kyah is screaming and yelling at her parents daily.
The 10-year-old son is addicted to video games and shut down.
Sarah refuses to leave the family home yet wants a divorce
Jake refuses to leave and wants to stay and fight for the relationship, but there is no action on his end.

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At the start of the coaching session...

Coach: What’s on your mind today?

Sarah begins without taking a single breath - with very rapid speed in the mood of really needing to off load everything she’s holding in, she is wringing her hands and has anxious body language.

Sarah says: “I had a fabulous weekend, I went to this society party where everyone looks absolutely glamorous, I’m sure I looked the most beautiful and I donated 10k - so many people came up to tell me how generous I am. It was a fabulous night. Of course my mood was ruined the following day. Jake is doing it again, all he says is how much he loves me and wants us to stay together then he starts talking about (Christina his ex) and all the text messages she sent this week, I’m sick to death of hearing about her it’s his past not mine, I am done dealing with her and hearing about her he needs to man up and just face it and tell her to back off, but he never will, but then Christina even started texting me about Danielle saying we are to blame for her anxiety - I ignored them but I felt like my blood was boiling on the inside. I wanted to yell at her for all the problems in my marriage but I just turned the phone off and went back to exercising and I didn't bother to talk to Jake about it, what’s the point. You know I think I trained that day for about four hours. Kyah is so angry - on Wednesday she was yelling at me after Soccer training for not bringing her correct boots she wanted that day, she called me an idiot and called me useless. You know my mum used to call me the same thing. So the very next day I told Jake I want a divorce that I have had enough, and he just says never it’s not happening I love you and I’ll never leave. He criticized me saying I have no values. And it will be my fault for hurting the kids. WHAT AM I MEANT TO DO? All of our problems are Jake’s fault, he just ignores me, everything, how I feel and goes to work. And he’s more worried about Christina than me, or our kids. I’m left to deal with all kids emotional problems.”

She finally takes a breath and is silent.

Coach: “I understand you're in a difficult situation. What makes you think that what you've been doing so far isn't working?”

Sarah shuts down and no longer wants to express anything about her situation. She is answering every question with “I don't know, who cares” or “You don't even care, you have to listen to me because I pay you.”

Given the information you have above, what is your assessment of Sarah and Jake’s relationship issues? Why do you think Sarah responded the way she did after the coach asked their question? This question is required.*