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Leaving your marriage for lack of feeling attracted to or wanted by your spouse is wasteful. Obviously, this isn't true for everyone, but it applies to a good number of unfulfilled couples. Here's why.
Imagine you’re starting a business with a partner. It’s an exciting endeavor. There are many possibilities and lots of hope for growth and prosperity. As the business grows, you open more and more departments.
Over time, you notice that one or two of these departments are not performing up to par. Despite taking corrective actions and giving them more than enough time to improve, these areas of the corporation continue to flail. Thankfully, the 12 other departments of the corporation are thriving.
What would you do? Would you shut down the entire corporation just because one or two departments weren’t performing? If you’re like most people, you would close the unsuccessful departments and continuing building on the parts of the business that work.
A marriage is very much like a corporation.
Couples start their “business” by building their lives and families around their union of love. Love becomes the foundation for romantic relations, social partnerships, financial partnerships, household partnerships, and co-parenting partnerships. For couples who have more overlap such as owning a business together, there may even be more “departments” to manage.
The classic trajectory for many couples is that once the kids start coming, many of the adults’ personal needs go by the wayside. Areas of the marriage such as romance and sex succumb to exhaustion and the realities of what is entailed in caring for and raising little ones. When romance fades, the connection fades; when the connection goes away, love can weaken or change.
But so what? According to neuroscientists, romantic partnerships are supposed to change and grow, emerge, and diverge. Just because there is a period of drifting apart doesn't necessarily mean you should get divorced.
Reasons Not to Divorce for Lack of Love or Sex
1. Not Being “In Love” With Your Spouse Is Part of Every Relationship
If I had a dime for every time I heard one or both divorcing spouses say, “I love her or him, but I’m not ‘in love with’ her or him,” I would be very rich. This statement tells me that these people have been fed the romantic ideal and may not be seeing marriage in the proper light.
Perhaps, as part of marriage prep, couples should be clued in that they’re not supposed to feel the same attraction-based love that they did in the early years of their relationship. In my mind, it is an immature and hedonistic person who expects to feel that intense—but often more superficial—level of love. It smacks of "chasing a high," which is a term associated with drug use: The initial impact of a drug (cocaine, for example) is so pleasurable, but each subsequent high is diminished due to the pleasure center of the brain being destroyed by the very drug they’re hoping will get them back to that original high. The user then has to use more and more of the substance to feel that same high.
2. Love Alone Does Not Make for a Strong Foundation
We haven’t always married for love. We used to marry for much more practical purposes, such as political hierarchy, financial welfare (survival), and to keep assets in family lines.
Love was actually considered dangerous in some cultures for the fact that people did stupid things when they were in love. When love was introduced into the equation as the sole reason to marry a couple of hundred years ago, divorce rates steadily climbed. Other factors, such as women’s liberation and the no-fault divorce, opened the door for millions more to get legally disentangled when the glue of love softened.
I would argue that love (either by itself or as the #1 reason) to marry contributes to the instability of the institution. Love is a fragile and changeable emotion. Using it as the foundation for the enterprise you build with your husband or wife is not unlike playing Russian roulette.
Other reasons to stay together such as financial security, being a co-parent, having a companion, or having someone to take care of you in your old age make more sense. I know what you’re thinking: “But that’s not romantic!” No, it’s not. It’s practical.
The two reasons for marrying (emotion-based vs. purpose-based) aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, but purpose-driven marriages will be stronger and tend to last longer than love-based marriages. (For more on this, read the work of Stephanie Coontz.)
3. Why Close the Entire Partnership When Most of It Works Well?
There’s a dramatic idiom of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” but when it comes to marriage, if you divorce because you and your spouse haven’t had sex in years, but all the other aspects of your marriage work, that’s exactly what you’re at risk of doing.
I’m not suggesting that everyone in long-term marriages should resign themselves to a sexless existence, but you may have more options besides simply getting a divorce. Granted, they take you away from the "traditional" paradigm, but they are certainly worth exploring before taking such drastic measures as altering the family structure.
These options include an open marriage (you both agree that it’s acceptable to be with others sexually outside the marriage, or you agree that it’s fine to bring a new lover into your coupleship), a LAT or "Live Apart Together" marriage (you each have your own residence) or a parenting marriage (you stay for the kids in a purposeful way and you’re each free to date outside the marriage).
Although kids can come out relatively unscathed from a divorce when done right, having to live in two homes can be rough. (Those of you who nest know only too well how disruptive it can be to transition to a new bed each week.)
There may be other creative marriage hacks out there that make staying in your marriage make sense. I have no agenda about whether people dissolve their marriages or stay "'til death do they part." I simply want my readers to make the best decision for them based on the right information. Most people overlook the points I make in this post.
January is dubbed "Divorce Month" because so many unhappy marrieds can't take another moment of wedded non-bliss after the extended holiday togetherness and pressures. But, before filing your petition to dissolve the corporation, do yourself (and your kids) a favor and do more research! Check into one of the alternatives presented here or, better yet, sit down with your spouse and create your own personalized alternative.
As we recover from this pandemic and face unprecedented global financial challenges, it may not be the wisest time to split. Think it through. Do your research. Question your motives. And, above all, don't put too much weight on romantic love.
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