Find yourself watching too much TV lately? Spending all of your waking hours with your children? Staying late at work? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be unconsciously avoiding being in relationship with your spouse. Who would think such innocuous activities would be energy leaks out of your relationship, yet, there are plenty of couples that are technically married but have filed for an "invisible divorce." Exits happen when we don't know how to talk about our uncomfortable feelings with our spouse. We either withdraw inside ourselves or go elsewhere to get our needs met, rather than deal with each other. Exits are a way of "acting out" our frustrations about our marriage. The good news is that we can close those exits and bring that energy back into our relationship.

Ask yourself the following questions to help raise your consciousness about the exits you may be taking:

1. The feeling I am avoiding by doing this activity is ...
2. When I take this exit, how it affects my relationship ...
3. If I don't stop exiting, what I expect to have in my relationship is ...
4. One thing I could do differently than take this exit is ...
5. And if I tried to do this new behavior I would probably feel ...