When Divorce is Inevitable
Discontent is a built-in factor in intimate relationships.
So how do you know when you’ve left garden variety discontent and moved into the kind of discontent that signals the end of a relationship? When is divorce inevitable?
Relationships are built on the meaningful movement between rupture and repair, but what if you find only live in the rupture? Or where do you go when the repair no longer holds? At these times the road ahead may appear both uncertain and inevitable.
There are no quick fixes when you hit this kind of questioning. In fact it is often the contemplative path that instructs you on what comes next. As you contemplate, it can be helpful to look at some of the things that drive your hesitancy to confront the difficult truth that you are heading for divorce.
Your divorce may be inevitable, but there are a lot of barriers between you and the real acknowledging of it.
Cultural Stigma
While divorce is quite commonplace, it is still frowned upon. Your community, your place of worship, your family, and your own heart may find the stigma of divorce unbearable.
Fear of Failure
Feelings of guilt, shame, and inadequacy around the idea of your “marriage failing” can exacerbate your already embarrassed or humiliated state.
Investment Bias
Investment bias is the psychological phenomenon of where you may resist acknowledging an inevitable divorce due to the perceived wasted time, effort, and emotional investment. You’ve sunk so much cost into the relationship in terms of years and emotions, and that cost impacts your decision making.
Illusions of Normalcy
You don’t often get the chance to truly normalize your relationship. Does everybody argue like this? Does everybody feel ignored or emotionally picked on? After years of living in one relationship, it is hard to guage normalcy. Often, you may create an illusion of normalcy to shield yourself from the uncomfortable truth. Denial is a powerful factor in our resistance of the inevitable.
Impact on Mental Health
You may just feel that you don’t have it in you to go through with it. Prolonged exhaustion from relationship disruption takes a toll, and exerting even more energy to acknowledge the inevitable may feel too ambitious.
Code of Silence
No one likes their private business aired in public, and so dialoguing about a potential divorce is challenging. Especially when divorce feels inevitable, your ability to confide in someone who holds your truth well is so important. It’s hard to know who to trust and hearing yourself say it out loud feels so unfamiliar.
Growth and Fear When Divorce is Inevitable
The unknowns in your potential divorce path make the inevitability of your divorce even more scary. There is of course a lot of prep work that can be done to turn down the volume on your fear, but you will encounter fear of various kinds along the path. This lack of certainty can keep you shying away from the inevitability of divorce.
The bonds that hold a relationship together can be at once stronger than ever and more fragile than a newborn. In those fragile spaces, the ones where you feel the inevitability of a divorce, you need custom support.
I’d love to help you tell yourself the truth. Book a free discovery session here.
About the Author:
Hi, I’m Andrea, a divorce coach, author, and speaker. I’m the creator of the Divorce Differently with H.E.A.R.T. model, and I can work with you to create a healthier divorce and life (even when your partner is difficult). My clients walk through divorce with a better understanding of the process, clearer expectations, defined boundaries, and useful hacks to make this most unwanted situation doable. I can teach you how to do it too! Let’s talk.
