Why Divorce? That’s the question I started asking myself in November 2005 when I had the first inkling that I wasn’t happy in my then 10-year-old marriage. I pushed the thought aside to focus on my kids, who were 6 and 10 at the time.
In the decade+ that has followed, I have talked with dozens of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances about their marriages — asking those who were unhappily married what it was that enabled them to file for divorce, or what kept them from it. Couples who were happily married intrigued me, too. I wanted to know their secrets!
Those conversations inspired me to create this book trilogy:
Packed with case studies based on interviews with women and men who have been through these experiences, we thank everyone willing to share their stories to help others who are working their way through the process.
The books also include guidance from experts. For example, in Why Divorce, you’ll hear from divorce attorneys, mediators, financial planners, marriage counselors, child therapists, and others who offer tactical, heartfelt assistance.
Why Divorce: The 5 Reasons to Leave
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Questionnaire
1. Tell us about your experience with divorce.
- What was the situation?
- How long were you married when you starting thinking about getting divorced?
- Why did you want to leave?
- How did your spouse feel about your decision?
- How long did it take to make the decision?
- What kept you from leaving sooner?
- Do you wish you had waited?
2. Expand on your initial thoughts by picking the category your situation fits into: Adultery, Addiction, Abuse, Abandonment, or Angst. Offer as many details as you feel comfortable with.
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Internationally renown Gestalt therapy trainer Elinor Greenberg, Ph.D, author, “Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations: The Pursuit of Love, Admiration and Safety” — An internationally renown Gestalt therapy trainer who specializes in teaching the diagnosis and treatment of Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid adaptations — in a lively and practical way.
She also takes her understanding to the masses, by explaining the details of borderline, narcissistic, and schizoid adaptations to readers of Quora.com. She has been named a Top Writer for 2017 and 2018. Dr. Greenberg’s book, “Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations: The Pursuit of Love, Admiration and Safety,” is the topic of our podcast interview for our new Truly Amazing Women book series — “Why Divorce: 5 Reasons to Leave,” by Inkandescent™ founder, Hope Katz Gibbs.
Divorce Attorney Rachel L. Virk, author, “The Four Ways of Divorce: Litigation, Negotiation, Collaboration, Mediation” In practice since 1989 litigating, negotiating, collaborating, and mediating divorce cases throughout Northern Virginia, Rachel is Certified as a Mediator by the Virginia Supreme Court at the Circuit Court Family level, and is a trained collaborative law practitioner. A member of several local, state, national and international professional associations addressing divorce dispute resolution, she is the author of “The Four Ways of Divorce.”
In chapter 1, she explains: You want out. You no longer love or need your spouse. The kids are older, and you are now earning a living wage. You are tired of your spouse’s drinking, untreated mental instability, abusiveness or emotional problems manifested in part by destructive spending habits or other addictions.
Or your spouse has informed you that he or she wants a divorce, or no longer loves you. You find the cell phone records, emails, credit card receipts, hotel records or cards to your spouse from his or her paramour. You decide that if your spouse is unable to make you feel loved, fulfilled and happy, there may be someone else out there who can. You don’t want to feel empty and sad all the time anymore.
Or, you finally found your soul mate, and it is not your spouse.
Now what? Click here to read more.
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I love my husband. I always will. But on Thanksgiving 2005, I knew I couldn’t stay married to him. We’d wed 10 years earlier, and for the next decade, I struggled long and hard with a single burning question: Why Divorce?
What happened that night is not as important as the fact that for the first time in our marriage I saw with pained eyes that we loved differently, played differently, and looked at the world through very different lenses. Rather than our unique perspectives bringing us closer, it became increasingly clear that we were living separate lives. Had our two kids, two freelance careers and a five-bedroom house in the suburbs snuffed out the passion that once bonded us? If so, could I live without the true love I longed for — for the rest of my life?
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Richard of Indianapolis shares:
My first wife was mentally ill. I certainly should have figured it out long before I married her, but I was blinded by the love I felt for her. After she got pregnant with our son, her mental state deteriorated quickly — and at one point threaten to kill him. That was when I was sure I had to leave.
Before that I kept telling myself I could put up with this for my son. We were actually married four years. I soon realized it was much better for my son if I left her in raised him on my own. There was certainly a very difficult time with her mental illness it was very difficult to keep the Family together. When she was on her medication she was OK and things were pretty good, but she would never stay on the medication and then just had to wait for something bad to happen, I always knew something would happen but I never could do anything until she became a danger to herself or someone else.
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Simone of New Jersey shares:
In my marriage, I was filled with angst — and that eventually led me to do things I knew I shouldn’t be doing. As a child, I was applauded for being the good daughter, the rule follower. Don’t have sex before you get married, marry a nice Jewish boy. I did all of that and found the perfect match on paper. I knew I wasn’t ready to get married. I had oats to sew, but I was told by family “he may not wait”. I became enthralled with the wedding plans and the honeymoon and the fantasy of it all. Both families were thrilled, and it was the right thing to do. It didn’t take long for my soul to realize something wasn’t right. I was starving to fill an emptiness inside and there was always another man there to step up.
They weren’t as much physical affairs as emotional affairs. Although I needed both, I had my line in the sand, the boundary I wouldn’t cross. It was agonizing all around. We then bought a home, raised three daughters and I fell into family life. Two of my daughters were very ill for years and the last thing I could think about was my own happiness. There were financial struggles and his professional unhappiness and years of feeling unfulfilled. We loved and respected one another, but I was a dumping ground for everyone’s problems and struggles. I was the air they all breathed, and I was slowly suffocating.
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Peter of Richmond, VA shares:
I have been back “out there” for 6 years now. It took me nearly 2 years to summon the courage to start over again after my former wife abandoned me, and our 16 year old daughter. I choose the word “abandoned” because that is what it felt like to me. When your wife of 18 years only offers you her reason of leaving as “I am not happy,” it left me wondering, why aren’t you happy?
I never abused her, either physically or verbally. Alcohol wasn’t an issue. I rarely drink any alcohol. I never “went out with the boys”. She wasn’t a hunting, fishing, or golf widow. I took my family to church nearly every Sunday. I took care of my body. I never wanted to get to the point of not caring about my appearance. So why would a woman, whom I had been with for 20 years, just walk away from her family? To this day, it is a mystery.
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Cherri of Philadelphia shares:
I definitely fall into the Angst category. I always said it would be so much easier if he were a jerk, but he wasn’t. Perhaps I was trying to push him into being one, or pushing him to finally say, “enough, I’m out”. That never happened, and probably never would have. I had to make that agonizing decision and finally say, “I can’t do this anymore.”
How long was I married before I starting thinking about getting divorced? Almost immediately. I cried headed to the airport for my honeymoon. I think at the time I had no idea why. I blamed it on leaving home and being a complete grown up now. My soul knew better. It took almost 30 years. I knew if I stayed my soul would starve. I was becoming a person I didn’t respect, and I was making irresponsible and selfish choices. I had a lot of potential and character and I wasn’t doing either of them justice.
Awesome mom, 57, in Fairfax, VA shares:
My x-husband and I met at the beach after college, and was the first man I’d met in my life who fit right into the role I wanted both of us to play. I liked making the decisions and being in control — he was happy to acquiesce. After two years of courting, we married and had four kids in eight years. It wasn’t long after when I began to realize I married the wrong man.
What began as a safe relationship for me began to feel like a heavy burden. But how could I end it? I was an executive with a stressful full-time job, and I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like without a partner to help — even if I did the heavy lifting of planning, preparing, care taking, and decision making. So I stuck it out for another 9 years.
Maggie of Baltimore shares:
I was married to someone on paper, but in the “real” world I always felt like I did not have a partner. I thought when you marry someone, that person is supposed to be the one whom you love unconditionally, laugh together, and talk with from the bottom of your heart. The person who can read you without ever having to speak a word. That comfortable pair of shoes that you wear in your heart. The kind of relationship that you would see in a family TV show from the 1950s.
I was raised with old-fashioned values. I come from a family where my parents stayed together and always presented a united front, where they put family and kids first, where they would give you the shirt off their back, where we all sat around the dinner table at 6:30, and where divorce was something that happened in other families.
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Because saying goodbye is so difficult — no matter what the reason is for a breakup — this is a collection of thoughts, art, poetry, and more to help ease the pain, and to help you know that you are not alone.
Time, it is said, will heal all wounds … that and comforting thoughts, and friends who you have not yet met.
Here’s to easing your burden, and helping you know there is light on the other side.
If you have something similar to share — a poem, thought, artwork, a video or photo — please send it along for publication: hope@hopegibbs.com.
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