Should I Get a Divorce?

There’s some­thing curi­ous­ly uni­ver­sal about the moment mar­riages reach a pre­ma­ture con­clu­sion. While every rela­tion­ship is unique, the path to divorce often fol­lows a painful­ly famil­iar pat­tern:

One part­ner (let’s assume you) lies awake at 3 AM, star­ing at the ceil­ing, with that famil­iar heav­i­ness in the chest.

The per­son sleep­ing next to you feels like a stranger. Maybe worse—someone who knows how to hurt you, make you feel less. Every con­ver­sa­tion feels like walk­ing through a mine­field. One wrong word and every­thing explodes. Again.

You remem­ber how it used to be. The easy laugh­ter. The gen­tle touch­es. Now, you find your­self tak­ing the long way home, any­thing to avoid anoth­er evening of ten­sion. Your kids sense some­thing is wrong and may even devel­op behav­ior chal­lenges because of it. Yet, in your qui­etest moments, you tell your­self that you can not live like this any­more.

Divorce feels less like a last resort and more like the only path to peace—a way to breathe again. The thought, when you final­ly accept it, is both ter­ri­fy­ing and lib­er­at­ing.

As a mar­riage and fam­i­ly ther­a­pist, I’ve seen count­less cou­ples at this cross­roads.

Some­times, divorce is necessary—in cas­es of abuse, addic­tion, or irrepara­ble betray­al.

But some­times what feels like the end might be the begin­ning of some­thing deep­er and more authen­tic. Not because mar­riage should be pre­served at all costs but because the pain push­ing you toward divorce might be point­ing toward unex­pect­ed growth.

In this arti­cle, we’ll explore:

• Why you should sec­ond-guess divorce
• What oth­er options to con­sid­er
• How to know if your rela­tion­ship can be func­tion­al again

Your mar­riage deserves this care­ful consideration—and so do you.

 

Poor Communication Skills

As with most things, objec­tive­ly ques­tion­ing a life-chang­ing deci­sion leads to bet­ter choices—whether to stay togeth­er or part ways. As not­ed above, spousal or child abuse, addic­tion, or betray­al are often rea­sons why peo­ple divorce, often for phys­i­cal or emo­tion­al safe­ty rea­sons. 

How­ev­er, in oth­er sit­u­a­tions, such as dis­con­nec­tion, going down dif­fer­ent roads, such as a change in reli­gion, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, or sat­is­fac­tion in the rela­tion­ship does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean divorce is the answer. As humans, it is nor­mal to want to escape dis­com­fort, incon­ve­nience, or dis­tress. Each of these can reg­u­lar­ly show up in a rela­tion­ship. Yet, it is impor­tant for cou­ples to care­ful­ly con­sid­er whether their rela­tion­ship is irrepara­ble, or whether there is a chance at change.

That feel­ing of not being heard? Long silences? Short respons­es? The pat­tern of shut­ting down dur­ing con­flicts? The ten­den­cy to pri­or­i­tize work over the rela­tion­ship? These pat­terns don’t end with sign­ing divorce papers. They become tem­plates for future rela­tion­ships. For exam­ple, how might poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­in the mar­riage tran­spire to a copar­ent­ing rela­tion­ship or cus­tody arrange­ment? 

 

Take an exam­ple. A woman was con­vinced her mar­riage was beyond sav­ing because her hus­band “nev­er under­stood her emo­tion­al needs.” A year after her divorce, she found her­self in a new rela­tion­ship, fac­ing the same frus­tra­tion, and that it had also extend­ed to her social rela­tion­ships. For some­one like this, indi­vid­ual ther­a­py can be a pow­er­ful tool to iden­ti­fy spe­cif­ic ways for how one part­ner can improve their con­tri­bu­tions to the rela­tion­ship, such as learn­ing to clear­ly express needs or feel­ings. 

The prob­lem isn’t only about the oth­er person–it is a pat­tern she can learn to address with­in her­self. As the adage goes, “It takes two to dance.” This does­n’t mean, how­ev­er, that you should stay in an unhap­py mar­riage. Rather, it is to invite you to exper­i­ment with what could still work with your part­ner, instead of get­ting out right away. The urgency to act with­out con­sid­er­a­tion can cre­ate or exac­er­bate anx­i­ety as well as polar­ized thinking–also known as black and white think­ing. For exam­ple, think­ing that divorce will pro­vide that “reset” that you think you need, isn’t as black and white as you think. It’s much more com­pli­cat­ed than that. 

Before you sec­ond guess the rela­tion­ship, ques­tion whether divorce real­ly is the cor­rect route, or whether its just per­ceived to be the “eas­i­er” one.  The grass isn’t always green­er on the oth­er side. 

 

Exploring Your Options

Before decid­ing on divorce, it’s impor­tant to pause and reflect. It’s not about delay­ing the inevitable; only about mak­ing sure your next step, what­ev­er it may be, comes from a place of clar­i­ty rather than cri­sis.

It’s not uncom­mon in many would-be divorce cas­es that clar­i­ty of thought is some­times enough to pre­serve the rela­tion­ship. Quite often enough, peo­ple learn to see beyond the big-amber-red-divorce-but­ton.

Con­sid­er the fol­low­ing exam­ple: a cou­ple comes in, exhaust­ed that they just can’t com­mu­ni­cate. They sit at oppo­site sides of the couch and find the wall decor to be par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing. What cou­ples ther­a­py can pro­vide is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for a cou­ple to go deep­er than what is on the surface–and it’s often informed by lessons learned through child­hood and past relationships–and often years of the same pat­tern in their cur­rent rela­tion­ship. Cou­ples can learn about uniden­ti­fied loss­es, betray­als, or inse­cu­ri­ties, and address those in both indi­vid­ual and cou­ples ther­a­py. Cou­ples can also learn how to drop the resent­ment and bit­ter­ness and take a stance of curios­i­ty and com­pas­sion towards their part­ner. In short, cou­ples ther­a­py can be a pow­er­ful cat­a­lyst to change.

Ear­ly inter­ven­tion is the best kind of inter­ven­tion when things get rocky in the rela­tion­ship. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, many cou­ples come to cou­ples ther­a­py to check the box as required by the court, or as a last-ditch effort.  The chal­lenge with this sit­u­a­tion is the gen­er­al­ly low lev­el of buy-in from both part­ners, or one part­ner want­i­ng change more than the oth­er part­ner. For cou­ples ther­a­py to work, both part­ners need to be invest­ed and com­mit­ted in their rela­tion­ship and in cou­ples ther­a­py for change to occur. This looks like prac­tic­ing strate­gies or skills between ses­sions, fol­low­ing through with com­mit­ments, iden­ti­fy­ing both suc­cess­es and chal­lenges, as well as exper­i­ment­ing with dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies. One hour of 338 hours (hours in two weeks, a com­mon fre­quen­cy for cou­ples ther­a­py) will not suf­fice nor cre­ate long term change. 

A wors­en­ing mar­riage or part­ner­ship is often about two peo­ple strug­gling with per­son­al bat­tles and fail­ing to com­mu­ni­cate them to each oth­er and offer the need­ed sup­port. As such, indi­vid­ual coun­sel­ing com­bined with cou­ples coun­sel­ing is often rec­om­mend­ed for best results. There you can unpack and under­stand your sto­ry, reprocess dif­fi­cult expe­ri­ences and cre­ate a new chap­ter. Then in cou­ples ther­a­py, you can eval­u­ate your mar­riage’s sto­ry and areas for growth. There’s often a good chance that there’s hope.

Tools for Hope and Change

Cou­ples ther­a­py as well as indi­vid­ual ther­a­py can help you nav­i­gate the ques­tion of “Should I divorce?” While work­ing up to these ther­a­py types, alter­na­tive things you can do to nav­i­gate this dif­fi­cult ques­tion include the fol­low­ing:

-Pay atten­tion to the small things your part­ner does

-Shift your mind­set to focus on the pos­i­tives your part­ner is doing

-Make small emo­tion­al invest­ments in your rela­tion­ship

-Reflect on the days of dat­ing and res­ur­rect some of those choic­es and ges­tures

-Share good things with your part­ner to cre­ate con­nec­tion

Remem­ber, however—and this is crucial—there are sit­u­a­tions where the health­i­est choice is to end the mar­riage. If you’re expe­ri­enc­ing abuse, deal­ing with active addic­tion, or fac­ing repeat­ed infi­deli­ty with­out gen­uine remorse, the ques­tion may need to shift from “Should I try to save this?” to “How do I safe­ly exit?”

 

Couples Counseling Dallas TX

What­ev­er path you choose—reconciliation or divorce—approach it with clar­i­ty and inten­tion. If sav­ing your mar­riage appeals to you in the slight­est, com­mit to six months of deep, gen­uine work with pro­fes­sion­al help. Like many cou­ples, it may be the best thing you ever did. Dur­ing cou­ples ther­a­py, you’ll learn to com­mu­ni­cate and under­stand bet­ter, not to men­tion final­ly deal­ing with neg­a­tive thoughts that con­tin­u­ous­ly both­er you.

Even after ther­a­py, divorce might emerge as the right option. But you’ll be mak­ing that choice mind­ful­ly, ensur­ing old pat­terns don’t take root in future rela­tion­ships.

Your mar­riage deserves either a dig­ni­fied end­ing or a mean­ing­ful renew­al. Cou­ples ther­a­py can help you to deter­mine which way you want to go. The clar­i­ty you gain will serve you well, what­ev­er you decide–and your ther­a­pist will sup­port you either way. 

Let’s Work on Your Rela­tion­ship — Reach Out Today