Have you ever asked someone whose marriage is clearly troubled why they stay? Ever heard, “I’m afraid of being alone?” or “I’d rather stay married than be alone?”
Coming out of marriage at thirty-six I felt fear and loneliness, the fear that I would never find a match that I would really love, ultimately on a primeal level, that I would die alone. ~ Sally
Sally and her husband were married for nine years however much of that time was spent rearranging their relationship, and deciding to separate. For Sally that meant accepting that ending the marriage likely meant not having children, and believing that being divorced and single would be a healthier choice than staying married.
The Divorce Coach Says:
For the person initiating the divorce, it is always an opportunistic decision: you have to believe that your life will be fundamentally better being divorced than being married.
That can be a hard assessment because, of course, you have no way of accurately knowing what life post-marriage holds. By comparison you probably feel very comfortable picturing your life in the future if things stayed the same, or if they got worse. You can probably make a good guess at the likelihood of things improving.
Because it’s harder to picture post-marriage life, it’s easy to let your fears drive you.
One technique for tackling your fears is this:
- list out all your fears and be as specific as you can
- then, ask yourself what would happen if your fear came true. What would you do?
- then think back, have you ever been in a similar situation before? What did you do?
- now be realistic. What is the likelihood of this situation happening?
This is one of those exercises that is helpful to work through with another person. Ask a member of your Personal Divorce Support Team to help you and if you haven’t set up your team yet, now’s the time to do that.