We Asked a Psychic What People Really Want to Know Before Getting Divorced
· Vice
There are few questions more painful than wondering if the person you married still loves you. Especially when you’ve reached the point of asking a psychic because you can’t seem to get an answer from your own spouse.
New York City psychic medium Jesse Bravo has spent 16 years giving readings, and he’s heard his share of unhappy marriages. Some clients want to know if their spouse is cheating. Others are terrified of starting over. A few have already decided to leave but seem to need someone to tell them it’s okay. Most conversations, he told VICE, eventually come down to one question: “Do you see my spouse turning things around, or is it already too late?”
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What gets to him is how much hope people still have, even when their marriages have become miserable. Bravo says some clients arrive knowing what they want to do, but they’re just struggling to admit it. He describes walking them through the good and bad years of their marriage, sharing what he believes he’s receiving from spirit along the way. “By the time we reach the end of that road, I ask them, ‘Now, what is your heart telling you to do?’”
He’s careful about giving anyone a definitive answer, especially when they’re considering something as consequential as divorce.
“This is a decision you have to live with, and I would never make that decision for another human being,” he said.
But not everyone comes looking for reassurance. Some are actually hoping their spouse has done something terrible enough to make leaving easier. Bravo has encountered clients who secretly wanted to discover an affair, simply because it would give them a reason to end a marriage they’d already emotionally abandoned. Others are thinking about the financial implications before they’ve even filed.
One client asked how much money they could receive in a divorce, then took things a step further:
“If I keep the children away from my spouse, do you see me getting more money?”
A Psychic Reveals What People Ask When They’re Afraid Their Marriage Is Over
For Bravo, that question was especially difficult to hear. The client seemed far more interested in the settlement than what a divorce might do to the children. There’s something awful about watching a marriage end with kids being treated as bargaining chips, although Bravo says the conversations that hurt him most are often much simpler.
“The most heartbreaking question for me is when a client asks me, ‘Does my husband or wife still love me?’”
Sometimes, he believes the answer is yes. He describes couples who still care about each other but have become so accustomed to fighting that they can barely communicate without it breaking into an argument. “The love hasn’t disappeared,” he said. “They’ve become so caught up in how they react to each other that they can’t see what’s still there.”
His impressions are spiritual interpretations, of course, and no psychic can establish what another person feels. But the emotions behind those questions are painfully recognizable. There’s also the fear of what happens next. Bravo says people worry about wasting years with the wrong person, getting older, and discovering that the love they once had might never come around again. Financial insecurity comes up, too, although he finds that the emotional fears usually dominate.
Some clients ask the same question repeatedly, hoping he’ll eventually give them a different answer. Others reject every possibility of reconciliation he raises, and he begins to suspect they’ve made their decision already. “They’re no longer looking for a way to save their marriage, but they really want to know what their life will look like after it ends,” he explained.
What struck me most about Bravo’s answers was how often he returned to two people who still want to be loved but have somehow lost the ability to understand each other. They spend years hurting each other, sometimes raising children together, until they’re living under the same roof and feeling completely alone.
I’ve been through a divorce, and it was hands down the hardest, darkest period of my life. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I also wouldn’t recommend ending a marriage unless you’re 100% sure it’s what you want, because even when you desperately want out, the reality of going through a divorce can be f**king awful.
Maybe that’s why Bravo’s reluctance to tell anyone what to do stayed with me. A psychic can offer his interpretation of what the future holds, but he’s not the one who has to live with the decision.
You are. And you should be damn sure it’s the one you want to make.
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