The Two-Year Warning: Women's Journey Before Divorce

Episode #1196

When a husband is served divorce papers or told that his wife wants to separate, his initial reaction is almost always total shock. High-performing men frequently believe that as long as the relationship is not actively explosive, things will eventually improve on their own. They pour their energy into business or career achievements, assuming that financial security and providing for the family will preserve the marriage. However, women rarely decide to leave a marriage overnight. Statistically, women initiate 70% of divorces overall, a figure that rises to 90% among college-educated women, and almost always grieve the relationship long before taking formal action.

In this episode, Doug Holt and his wife Erin unpack the hidden timeline women go through before deciding to file for divorce. When a wife repeatedly asks her husband to go to therapy, attend a marriage retreat, hire a coach, or simply do something proactive to improve the relationship, she is sending a vital signal. She has often been holding the emotional energy of the marriage alone for years, attempting to initiate connection and resolve recurring friction. When her requests are dismissed or met with passivity, she eventually stops asking, enters an internal grieving process, and begins preparing her exit strategy. By the time divorce papers arrive, she has already spent up to two years or more emotionally detaching from the relationship.

The discussion explores how men can recognize these critical warnings and take proactive action:

• Recognizing Subtle Signals: Understanding that requests for counseling or personal growth are not criticisms of character, but urgent calls for partnership and relational growth.
• Overcoming Resistance and Ego: Realizing that committing time, attention, and resources to personal development is viewed by women as deeply attractive and strength-driven, rather than a weakness.
• Connecting Personal Growth to Business Success: Understanding that clearing up internal emotional stress directly improves leadership, focus, and financial outcomes in business.
• Taking Masculine Leadership: Moving away from passive hope and actively investing in updating relational skill sets before a partner checks out completely.

Taking decisive action when your partner asks for change can completely alter the trajectory of your household. By paying attention to warning signs in marriage and discovering how to meet your wife's needs, men can replace emotional distance with lasting trust, mutual respect, and deep intimacy.

Timestamp Chapters

 00:00 - Introduction: Why Wives Keep Asking Husbands to Get Help
01:31 - How Far Along Is a Woman When She Asks for Counseling?
03:06 - Holding the Emotional Energy: The Pre-Divorce Grieving Process
05:51 - The 70% Divorce Statistic and Why Men Are Surprised
07:03 - Rebuilding Hope: How Taking Action Instantly Changes the Dynamic
08:05 - Investing in Relational Skills vs. Business Optimization Courses
09:10 - Doug Holt Mid-Roll: A Man's Guide on How to Save Your Marriage
10:43 - How Resolving Marital Stress Unlocks Business Growth
11:39 - Subtle Hints Women Drop Before Checking Out Completely
13:50 - Personal Development as an Attractive Strength, Not a Weakness
16:03 - Reclaiming Safety and Leadership in the Home
17:33 - Developing Relational Skills for Long-Term Enjoyment
18:53 - Updating Your Internal Software for Intimacy and Connection
20:04 - Closing Remarks and Taking Massive Action 

RELATED EPISODES

• Navigating Marriage: When to Step In and Be Your Best Self 
• Divorce Day and How to Avoid It
• Breaking the Cycle of Hopium: Taking Action in Life and Relationships 

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does my wife keep asking me to go to counseling or hire a coach?
When a wife repeatedly asks her husband to seek counseling or coaching, she is signaling that the current relationship dynamic is unsustainable. She is asking for shared responsibility in holding the relationship's emotional health and seeking a partner who actively invests in relational skills.

How long do women wait before filing for divorce?
Women often spend at least two years or more internally grieving and attempting to fix relationship issues before initiating divorce. Because they process this detachment silently after repeated unheeded requests for change, husbands are often caught off guard when papers are served.

Is seeking personal development or marriage coaching a sign of weakness?
No, women view a man's willingness to engage in growth and personal development as deeply attractive and a sign of masculine leadership. Refusing to address obvious marital issues or remaining in denial is viewed as passive and unattractive.

How does fixing my marriage help my business performance?
Marital conflict creates persistent internal stress that drains energy, focus, and decision-making capacity. Resolving home-life tension frees up cognitive bandwidth, allowing businessmen to show up with greater presence, clarity, and leadership in their companies.

Transcription

Doug Holt 0:00

The divorce rate: 70% of divorces are issued by a woman.

Erin Holt 0:03

We are wired to keep our people close.

Doug Holt 0:06

And they are shocked.

Erin Holt 0:08

It

Doug Holt 0:08

Catches them completely off guard.

Erin Holt 0:10

And at that point, it's like, there are some big choices to get made there.

Doug Holt 0:15

Women have been planning this for at least two years.

Erin Holt 0:18

Or have you turned into somebody that you don't even enjoy?

Doug Holt 0:20

It's not horrible. It's just not good. It'll get better someday.

Erin Holt 0:25

We want this marriage to work.

Doug Holt 0:28

She can see the potential.

Doug Holt 0:41

Hey guys, does your wife keep asking you to get help, go to therapy, do counseling, get a coach, just do something? Well, that's exactly what we're going to cover on the TPM Show today. And once again, we're joined by my beautiful wife, Erin.

Erin Holt 0:54

Hello, everyone.

Doug Holt 0:55

Thanks for being here, babe.

Erin Holt 0:56

Of course.

Doug Holt 0:56

So again, the team has taken questions from our private community that's on our TPM app that we have thousands of men on, and put these into categories or buckets, if you will.

This one comes up a lot. "Hey, my wife keeps asking me to do therapy, coaching, counseling." What has to happen for a woman to well, let me ask you this: Do you ever hear that from the women that you know?

Erin Holt 1:29

I hear from my friends from years ago, from training clients when we had a gym, to now my personal coaching clients that I have, over and over and over and over again.

"I just want my boyfriend, I want my partner, I want my husband to do something, to do coaching, to get him to marriage therapy, to have him, bare minimum, do some sort of retreat."

They want more than a one-off situation. Every single woman I know and have known for years wants their man to do something. So absolutely, yes.

Doug Holt 1:58

I laugh because I asked you that question or I didn't even ask you the question but you were very passionate about it off camera.

Erin Holt 2:05

Well, because it's just common.

Doug Holt 2:08

Yeah. Well, I want the guys to realize this because some of the guys, when I talk to them as a man, I want to hit them over the head with a bat. Guys that I know, friends, it's just that they almost need their own timing.

What has to happen within the marriage, within the relationship, for a woman to turn to her man and say, "We or you need to go do something"? How far along is she?

Erin Holt 2:33

Oh, she's far along.

Doug Holt 2:36

Right? Because what I've learned over, gosh, the past almost two decades coaching is, when guys get divorce papers for the most part, bell-shaped curve and all that stuff women have been planning this for at least two years.

Not planning divorce, but they've been like, "Okay..." They're looking for their exit path. They're looking into it and trying. They're ready to go, and they wait almost two years before actually executing on the divorce.

Erin Holt 3:06

I'm gonna back you up further from my experience and most women I know and clients.

Look, we all come into relationships with our best selves and with so much hope and love and all the things. When it's deteriorating for whatever many reasons that can happen lack of relational skills or behavior that's not optimal, whatever if we're talking about being the woman, in general, again, I know men are wonderful and can have emotional maturity and relationship maturity. I'm just saying, in general, since we're on this topic, she's most likely at that point been the one that's been holding the energetics and the emotional world of your relationship.

Doing the check-ins, bringing up the conversations, circling back to conversations that didn't go well, bringing things to attention that might have been swept under the rug. A lot of the communication and creating that environment where she's holding that entire part of a relationship that is super important in any relationship, and it's vital and required to be vulnerable in a marriage.

If you're going to be with somebody for a long time, it's just a required skill to learn.

She's really been, in her words or her energy and mind, fighting for this marriage, been trying so hard, putting in so much effort, and feels a lot of times that it's one-sided, or it's like, "This will only happen if I am the one that does this type of work for us. If I stop doing it, our marriage would fall apart."

Or being the one to be like, "Hey, we need to go to marriage counseling," and can be hit with the, "No. I don't think we want to do that. I don't do that."

It's like, you keep trying again. She'll probably go do something for herself, or at least be reading the books or listening to podcasts, even if it's free, about having a better marriage or how to do these skills.

By the time that she is having a conversation about divorce, it's been longer than two years for most women. It's been, I don't know, we're going 10, 15, whatever.

By the time that she is actually, most of the time, being like, "All right, we're at divorce level," she's already grieved. Not saying that it doesn't hurt and that it's terrible and it's hard and it's not what she wanted most of the time, but there's been a grieving process going on for years.

She's been met with, from her perspective, it's been pretty one-sided, and maybe a little bit of work here, but not a consistent growth change where she's feeling like both partners are responsible for the way that they think and speak and show up in the relationship in an emotional way.

Doug Holt 5:42

I believe that. I always say two years because that's been my experience. But you're behind the scenes, and obviously you have a lot of female friends and clients.

Erin Holt 5:49

A lot longer.

Doug Holt 5:51

And to add on to that, because we know the divorce rate, 70% of divorces are issued by a woman. That number, based on my research, goes up to 90% if she's got a college degree or better. That's nine out of 10 divorces initiated by the woman at that level.

Every week, our advisors so our advisors, the people when men call in and they're like, "Hey, is this a good fit for me?" They're trying to figure it out. We have a team of advisors. We've been around for over 10 years now.

Every week, they get guys like, "I just got served," or, "My wife just told me that she's leaving," or, "She's not happy," and they are shocked. It catches them completely off guard.

I got to imagine that it's because well, after talking to all these men it's because they put their head in the sand and just said, "Oh, it's not horrible. It's just not good. It'll get better someday." They've kind of resigned to that.

A lot of our guys just pour themselves into work because that's where they get their accolades.

There's also many times a week we get a woman contact us and go like, "How can I get my husband "

Erin Holt 7:02

"Please sign my husband "

Doug Holt 7:03

Yeah, and we're like, "Sorry, he has to do it. You can't sign him up." But we get requests all the time, and we see that all the time coming in.

We know some people. We've had some of our friends go through the TPM program, which has been awesome to see those couples reigniting. I know, for at least one of them, as soon as he signed up, things started to repair.

My gut, after talking to her, is she started to see hope. Like, "Okay, he's doing something. He's aware that there's a problem here. So at least he has some EQ, emotional intelligence, to understand that this isn't working right now, and so he's at least doing something."

I can imagine for a woman let me know if I'm wrong here that their man doing something rather than just listening to podcasts, but actually taking action, putting his resources, his time, his money, his attention towards the marriage has got to feel uplifting.

Erin Holt 8:05

Oh my God. I mean, it's more than uplifting.

We both came into this, usually young and in love, or if you're whatever, second marriage, still hopeful and just want this to work out.

When you're in those dark, dark places, and somebody is showing a level of commitment that everybody wants, particularly women I mean, I know men do too but it's like a commitment to this life we're creating together and realizing, taking what you guys call masculine leadership, "This isn't working, what we're doing," and realizing that there's two people here and that you play a role.

So it's like, "I'm going to do something different here. I realize that I have things I could learn."

Just like men sign up for business courses left, right, and center to improve the business or optimize something faster, everything, all the time. It's like, if you even put 10% of the energy that you do towards those types of courses, or your ability to just be a full yes about it.

It's like, "Yeah, I'm gonna do that business course because it's gonna make me, theoretically, an extra hundred thousand, million dollars, whatever."

Doug Holt 9:10

Hey guys, I just want to share something with you. I'm sure we can both agree that in order to fix something, you need to know what's broken, and not only need to know what's broken, but a step-by-step methodology on how you can fix it. That's the easiest way to do it, right? Otherwise, you're going to be toiling with things.

That's why I created a free training, a training that not only shows you how you got to where you are, where your relationship is missing that love, respect, admiration, and even intimacy that it used to have, to how you get it back.

How do you retain that, where your wife's looking at you the same way she used to look at you when she said, "I do"?

I don't know about you, but for me, when my wife looks at me like I'm her man, I feel like I can conquer the world, and I want that for you.

Simply go over to thepowerfulman.com/scales. That's thepowerfulman.com/scales, and I have a free video training for you. You can just click play and see if this resonates for you.

Now back to the podcast.

Erin Holt 10:13

But it's like, if you even put 10% of that energy towards learning something and signing up for a program that is going to improve your relational skills, improve your relationship with yourself, you will improve your home life and your marriage tenfold.

Your entire life will expand. Never mind your business. I can guarantee if you do something where you're working on your inner world and yourself and your relational skills, your business world will 100% improve. Probably more than your optimization course that's going to 10X something.

Doug Holt 10:43

My one-on-one clients give me so much crap about that because one-on-one coaching with me is $250,000 a year, as you know.

I don't say that to impress people, but to impress upon them, these guys, it's quite an investment. And it's a lot of time because I press them pretty hard.

The guys give me so much crap. They're like, "You do not market the business opportunity here because as soon as my marriage started getting better, I'm making so much more money."

Because it clears up their headspace, and we're working on the internal mechanism. A business can only rise as high as the psychology of its leadership team, especially the CEO or owner or whoever's running the principal.

Men miss that. When you're focused on what's going wrong in your marriage or not wanting to go home, it just weighs on you.

Erin Holt 11:30

It's totally dark energy.

Doug Holt 11:32

It is, and all the other areas start to come in.

What are some subtle clues that your girlfriends would leave

Erin Holt 11:39

Subtle?

Doug Holt 11:41

Do they go straight up to him and go, "You need to go to therapy," or, "You need to go to a course"? Because I don't think many men hear it.

Erin Holt 11:49

Okay, so what was your question? Sorry to interrupt you.

Doug Holt 11:54

We're just having a conversation. What are some of your girlfriends what have they done that you're aware of to indicate to their husband, partner, boyfriend, whatever, the man in their life, that they need to or should go do something to better themselves?

Erin Holt 12:12

I can understand why men, you say, might not hear it, because I think they take it as, "Something's wrong with me," instead of, from the woman's perspective, most times it's like, "Hey, what we're doing isn't working."

Or, "You coming home and drinking till you're drunk, passed out every night, this isn't what I want for my life. I deserve better. You deserve better."

Or whatever it is that is really trying on the dynamic in your relationship.

They straight up ask, like, "Hey, we really need to go to marriage counseling. We're disconnected." Or, "I've heard of this program. I've been doing research. I really think this would be something that would serve you."

From the woman, it's usually like, really, we are wired to keep our people close biologically. We want this marriage to work.

Erin Holt 13:05

And as we grow and mature as ourselves, a 20-year-old in a marriage is going to look different than a 40-year-old in a marriage.

At that point, we probably get more self-respect and more understanding of our own needs and wants and what we deserve and our own worth, and being able to take a stand for, like, "Hey, I love us too much to keep this pattern going. We are more or less killing each other and bringing out the worst in each other instead of actually enjoying this life we're supposed to do together."

It's usually from that place that they're asking their partner to do something.

Right down to, I've had clients begging, like, "I literally have begged him to do something different, and he just won't."

At that point, it's like, there are some big choices to get made there.

Doug Holt 13:50

The big choices.

I think a lot of guys do have that ego hit of, "If I do this, I'm admitting there's something wrong with me." That's not the case at all. They make it a character flaw versus, "Hey, we get to learn some new skills."

Erin Holt 14:05

Women see men that choose to do personal development, any sort of growth, as very attractive, not a weakness.

What a weakness is, is men sitting there in denial that they may need some help or support or to do something different. That's really unattractive. It's really unattractive.

Doug Holt 14:24

I could imagine.

It's like what I always say, when you say, "I do," the woman in particular, she's making a bet on the man that you are, but also the man you can become. She can see the potential.

Women, I believe correct me if I'm wrong resent their men for not at least trying to get to that potential. I see you shaking your head quite a bit, for people listening to the podcast, the big smile.

When guys don't do anything, I think a lot of guys think they're doing the right thing by not doing anything, which sounds so weird to say.

I was just talking this morning, and hopefully this is somewhat related. There's a guy who you've met before. He joined TPM four years ago. He is a CEO of a large construction company, let's just say that. Very manly guy, like a man's man type of guy.

He used to, joking, not want anybody to know he was involved in TPM because of the stigma and the relationship.

Fast forward four years, he's still in TPM, still going strong. When I talked to him and I won't give his name up it wasn't about he and his wife were separated, but living together because they didn't want to disrupt the kids. They have young kids, youngish kids.

Fast forward four years now, they're back together. They're better than they ever have. His wife told him I quoted this to him today because I wrote it down when he said it "I have never felt safer in my life."

Erin Holt 16:02

There you go.

Doug Holt 16:03

He's taking that into his workplace. He's taking it everywhere.

He goes, "Doug, the investment I put into TPM, if I would have got divorced, that would have been millions of dollars more that I would have lost, and I would have lost my kids and the woman I love. What would that have done to my business?"

Because so many guys are just waiting. Like, "Hey, I don't want to spend any money on this." I get it. I'm a guy. I like to make money and I like to help people.

And they don't want to spend time. "I just don't have time."

Really? Have to get on a call with a coach twice a week? Yeah, buddy, twice a week. It's only eight weeks, and it's going to turn everything in your world around.

I think men miss that. They make it this big mountain to climb over versus going, "You know what? My family's the most important thing. That's the reason I'm working my ass off and building this business. Therefore, I'm going to put my time in there."

When women ask and they're telling their man, "Just do something," in these subtle ways or not subtle ways, really guys need to open their ears and listen.

Like, "Hey, I could lose my wife. I could lose my kids. I'm going to lose half of my money." We were just talking about that before this. Coltyn asked.

Doug Holt 17:19

You know, 50% of my business, all of those things are going out. Or you can invest in it.

You don't have to do TPM's programs. We think our programs are the best, or we'd change them. But do something to move the needle, something to move the ball forward.

Erin Holt 17:33

It's skills that make you an enjoyable partner to be with.

A podcast we did before is about being an enjoyable partner to live with, but it's like, of course you want if your wife was to speak of you, are you somebody that's enjoyable to be in partnership with, to build a life with, to be intimate with?

Same for women too. I ask my clients this too. Or have you turned into somebody that you don't even enjoy?

Doug Holt 17:57

What would you say about me today?

Erin Holt 17:58

Today, yes.

Talk about the version of us. Both of us were just so relationally babies in the beginning of our marriage and our really dark years.

I look back now and it's like, we thought we knew so much, but we had so many skills to learn. We were working out our childhood stuff on each other and didn't know what we were doing. But now we do.

So just realize, if you're listening to this podcast, you're growth-mindset oriented anyway. The best thing you can do is grow yourself.

Erin Holt 18:29

And if you can't do it for your marriage because your marriage is in a dark place and you're kind of resenting everything about it, do it for your kids if you have kids.

If you don't have kids, do it for somebody you care about, your parents, your business, until you can get to the point where it's like, you know what? You're worth doing something. You're worth putting your time, money, energy into.

Growing yourself is the biggest gift you can give yourself.

Doug Holt 18:49

And even if things don't work out in your marriage, you are going to be a better person.

Erin Holt 18:53

Because you're probably going to get another relationship, and if you don't do something different, your next relationship will very much pattern the exact same patterns.

Doug Holt 18:59

That's why I talk to guys like, "This is my fourth marriage."

I go, "What's the common denominator?"

They're like, "Me."

They know by that time. Like, "Okay, it's me. I need to get I just didn't get the skills."

I didn't have the skills, man. I thought it's kind of like sex. That's how I'll describe it. You think you should just know how to have sex, and you can figure out sex, but there's different variations of different levels of intimacy, connection, pleasure within intimacy.

Same with relationships. You can have a relationship like the barista that gets your coffee. You have a relationship with that guy or that woman, that person.

But if you want an intimate, connected relationship, that takes a lot more understanding and the skills that nobody I've ever met has naturally. It's learned behaviors, and sometimes you got to reprogram the computer and update the software inside of us.

Erin Holt 19:59

Yep. One hundred percent.

Doug Holt 20:01

Awesome. As always, I appreciate your insights.

Erin Holt 20:03

I love having these conversations with you.

Doug Holt 20:04

I do too.

Gentlemen, as I like to say, in the moment of insight, take massive action.

What's the insight you're getting here? Is your woman dropping hints?

I can look back and laugh at Erin dropping hints to me back in the day. What's so funny about it now is I didn't see them, or I had resentment towards her because she needed a change. "What are these things she's putting in for me?"

She was being extremely subtle, in my opinion, back then. So I wasn't catching them, and I'm wondering if you're not catching them.

This is your wake-up call. My gut tells me, though, if you're here, you're here for a reason. Take whatever insight that is and take that massive action.

You deserve more than average. You know what? So does your wife, and so do your kids.

See you next time on the TPM Show.