It is up to each one of us to make the decision whether we’ll try once more to keep our marriage together or to cut our losses and get out of a marriage that is hopeless.
That decision has to come from within, it cannot be the decision of family, friends or even counselors. None of those people will have to live with the end result of the decision they influence. I have to live with the decisions I make. You have to live with the decisions you make.
So, what’s the “right” thing to do in your circumstance? Speaking with hindsight (because that’s always so much more accurate than current vision) I’d have to suggest that if you are in a completely hopeless marriage, get out of it quickly and keep your losses to a minimum.
I can say that because, looking back, I see all the years I spent in my first marriage, one that should have ended many years before it did. And, yet, it ended when it was supposed to — any earlier and I wouldn’t have been emotionally ready for life on my own.
If your marriage is technically over, if your husband or wife doesn’t love you, if they prove it by their words and actions, why would you want to waste all those precious days, weeks, months or years trying to “make” them change into the person you want them to be?
You can’t “make” someone love you, they must want to love you. The longer you try to change them, the more precious time of yours you waste. Yet, if you don’t try, if you leave before you’re ready, if you give up too soon, it won’t be the right course of action for you. There will always be doubts as to whether you made the right decision, whether you could have tried harder, waited longer before moving on.
How will you know when it’s time? How will you know when it’s the “right” thing to do? Living through all those years of a troubled marriage gave me the hindsight I have now to recognize that the marriage was hopeless and should have ended many years before it did. I didn’t have that knowledge while I was living those years in that marriage. Hindsight comes from experience. It enforces the “right” part of the decision-making process.
I don’t regret the years I spent in my first marriage. I don’t regret waiting as long as I did before I ended it. It took those years and all the roads I’ve traveled since to get me to the place I am now. The challenges I faced in that marriage were part of my journey of self discovery. That journey continues each and every day.
Divorce may not be your idea. You may be clinging desperately to a marriage that has ended for your spouse. You may not want to start that journey of self discovery. You may be frightened. You may have been perfectly happy with the life you had. You may have expected that life to never end, but, when the marriage ends for one spouse, it will eventually end for the other.
No matter how dedicated you may be to your marriage, you cannot hold together a marriage your spouse is bent on destroying. You can try, and you should. You should try as long as it takes for the marriage to become viable once again, or until you know it’s the “right” time to leave it. You don’t have to spend time questioning whether you’re making the right decision, you will adamantly “know” it’s the right decision. It will be amazingly clear.
Hindsight shows me the truth of these words. As I saw my second marriage failing, as I clung desperately to the belief that I could keep everything together long enough for my husband to want to remain in the marriage, I passed through situations and emotions that strengthened me and made me ready to handle the future as it would be written. There came a time when divorce was the “right” thing to do. When it came, I was ready.
Your lifetime is not going to be traveled over a straight and level path. Life is full of mountains, valleys, cliffs and dark holes, some of which you can get around, and some of which you’ll hurt yourself getting past. But, have you noticed, when you learn to maneuver difficult territory the same type of difficulty in the future is easier to handle?
Divorce forces you to grow and to confront personal issues that may be holding you back, keeping you from being the person you’re capable of being. Sometimes the person you could be or should be is buried under the person you change into in an effort to please your spouse.
You may not be ready to take on life by yourself. There really is never a good time to plunge into the divorce pool, but plunge you must if your marriage is over. Each day you’ll get stronger, each day you’ll gain confidence in yourself.
The decision to end your marriage might be yours. Or, the decision might be your spouse’s. Rarely do a couple approach divorce in complete agreement. Generally, the spouse seeking the divorce has already planned his or her life far in advance, while the safety net of the marriage still existed. The spouse being divorced rarely has such an opportunity.
My second marriage officially ended the morning my husband left the office for a few hours. Later, at lunch, he told me he’d been to see an attorney. I’d been preparing for the possibility of this happening for several months and yet I felt a burst of terror.
Having survived divorce gave me the confidence I needed so I didn’t plead or beg or demand that he reconsider. I don’t know if he was surprised I didn’t cry and make insane promises and try to hold him in the marriage. I’m sure he was glad I didn’t get emotional.
I’d already been through a lot of internal struggling and I knew I could take care of myself, that I would survive and be okay. Experience had already taught me that being alone and single was far less lonely than being alone and married.
For both of us, at that time, divorce was the “right” thing to do.