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Key points
- There are multiple stages to contemplating whether or not to end a marriage.
- Pre-contemplation is the earliest, most reversible stage: People may think about divorce but not as a serious option.
- Contemplation is where someone gives more serious thought to divorce but is confused and conflicted.
- The decision to stay or go is made during the post-contemplation stage, often with much inner turmoil.
If you are contemplating divorce, you know that even just thinking about leaving your marriage may be scary or feel like a betrayal to your spouse, yourself, your family, and your friends. Knowing that many other couples get divorced every day doesn’t make it any less difficult when marital dissolution becomes a personal event.
Regardless of whether you tied the knot with the idea that you could divorce someday if things didn’t work out, or if you married believing that divorce would never be an option, you are now viewing your marriage—and your life—from a different perspective, one in which you are open to being unmarried to your spouse.
It would be highly unusual for a person to wake up one day and out of the blue say, “I want a divorce.” There is normally a whole series of events and emotional phases that one or both parties in a marriage experience before arriving at or even beginning to consider marital dissolution.
Regardless of your reason for coming to this place (you fought like cats and dogs, you changed but she didn’t, you’ve become tired of a certain behavior or trait he has, or you’ve simply outgrown one another) or how long you’ve been unhappy or unfulfilled, getting guidance on the decision-making process can help.
There is no right or wrong way to go through this challenging decision, but one consideration that sometimes gets overlooked is knowing when to leave. Obviously, you have to consider many outside factors, like whether your kids have important events (entering high school, for example, or competing in a major event), or whether one of you will have a job change soon which will cause ripples in the family, or whether it’s the holiday season, but there are internal drivers as well.
You may call this intuition, an inner knowing, that small voice within, or even divine guidance. Whatever you call it, it’s an important internal guide that shouldn't be ignored.
There seem to be three distinct stages of consideration in marital dissolutions that I call the Divorce Contemplation Continuum. These stages are pre-contemplation, contemplation, and post-contemplation. I hope that in reading about these, you will be able to identify how close you are to needing to call it quits (of course, there are more viable options than simply staying or going that everyone should know about, too).
In any case, here are the stages of contemplation. See if you can identify yourself, and I’ll debrief on the other side.
Pre-contemplation
Pre-contemplation is when the notion to separate is in the early part of development. The person in this place may not think of divorce as a serious option, but there may be a feeling that something is not working or a vague sense that the relationship is off-track. Pre-contemplation of marital dissolution usually begins after a series of smaller disagreements, one serious argument, or a betrayal of some kind. With all three of these scenarios, there is often what feels like a line that has been crossed, but it’s not so egregious that divorce is a serious notion.
One example is Laura and Mimi, a couple who had only been married eight months. They came to see me right after Laura found out that Mimi had not disclosed that she had been arrested for Driving Under the Influence just one year prior to their tying the knot. She wasn’t upset about the DUI per se, but she was extremely concerned about the fact that Mimi had not trusted her enough to tell her about it. She wondered whether if she had not opened this official-looking letter, Mimi would have told her the truth. It also made her wonder what else Mimi may be withholding.
In reality, Laura had no reason to suspect that there was anything more to Mimi's story that she had kept secret, but it certainly threw a wrench into the relationship. Laura’s first thought was that she couldn’t trust Mimi and that she would have to divorce her. She eventually softened this line of thinking they were able to start over to create trust.
At this stage, the idea of dissolving the marriage doesn’t usually hang around long, nor does the one contemplating it spend too much time or energy imagining life as a divorced person. It is little more than a seed that has been planted in their mind.
Contemplation
Contemplation comes when the individual or couple has a much more serious desire to divorce but perhaps needs more information in order to make a definitive decision. In this phase, it’s not uncommon for the scales to be tipped one day at 85 percent toward staying and the next 60 percent toward leaving, or vice versa. There can be a great deal of mental and emotional confusion at this stage, which is normal, although not necessarily comfortable. Because of the tumultuous nature of this stage, it can extremely emotionally, mentally, and physically draining.
Post-contemplation
Finally, there is what I call the post-contemplation of divorce. At this stage, those considering divorce have either decided to stay in the marriage and shut down the voices that are questioning what to do next, left their marriage, or continued to grapple with whether to stay or not.
This last group is painfully aware that their indecision is hurting them and perhaps their spouse and children as well, yet they are stuck and cannot seem to move forward.
All stages bring some negative emotion because divorce is tough and just the thought of it can send people into a downward spiral. Yet, I must say, those who seem to suffer the most are the people who are caught in the “marital indecision cycle,” and even though they know in their heart of hearts that they should leave, they stay. It's hell to be stuck in this place, but there is a way out.
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