Divorce is a big decision, but many people take it too lightly, and they contrive various justifications to make it appear that they have to divorce. And if you think you are living in an unhappy marriage and you want to end your marriage, probably you are also looking for an excuse for divorce; well, it is not difficult to find some seemingly justified reasons.
Now, let’s talk about some top reasons for divorce.
1 “My marriage is no longer fun”:
When it comes to fun in marriage, “fun” is not what it is usually about – People should not get married for fun because it is impossible that couples can have fun every day, and all the marital relationships have to face a rough patch now and then. And I bet you and your spouse also did not get married for fun; generally, the real problem behind this reason is that you do not know how to get through current tough times in your marriage.
If you have kids in your married life, you must have the experience – parenting gig is hard, especially when you have a strong-willed child. However, did you consider quitting that because that was no longer fun? Or you might recall your schooling life – Ask yourself whether you still attended school when you couldn’t feel fun at school.
As explained above, you must have realized once again that maintaining a marriage is so tough. Anyway, you should not be too pessimistic; for the majority of married couples who strive to work on keeping their marriages alive, the tough times fall away ultimately. I bet you have also known well the meaning of this quote: if winter comes, can spring be far behind?
In short, there must be tough spots in a long-term relationship; and when running into tough spots, solid couples choose to try their best to improve their relationships instead of giving up on their relationships simply.
2 “We no longer love each other”:
This usually means that your marriage is lack of feelings of attraction and passion. According to research, a lot of people gradually stop going on nurturing their love relationships after they get married, then they realize that they have lost their love feelings for each other. To help you better understand this relationship problem, let’s consider an example: if you quit exercising and become sedentary for a period of time, then one day you carefully look at your body and you are very surprised to find that a lot of body muscles that you once had have already turned into fat; in this case, will you use it as proof that exercise is no longer ineffective and that you also no longer need to exercise. No doubt, it is just an outcome of your long ignorance of body care; to break down fat and lose weight, you need to tone up with more exercise in your daily life. Likewise, in your married life, you also need to nurture the relationship on a daily basis. Of course, it is easier said than done.
Take the previous example again, do you feel sore when you start a weight-loss exercise program again after being sedentary for a long time; I bet that you do not want to stop losing your weight at that stage, no matter how sore you feel when exercising to lose weight. The same goes for a marital relationship that lacks love, first of all, the couple should try to restart to cultivate a loving, conscious relationship bit by bit; most of the time, love can grow back as long as a couple has the patience to nurse the relationship.
For more tips on how to survive in a loveless marriage, you might go on to read the post below:
Should you stay in a loveless marriage – How to survive a loveless marriage.
3 “He/she always drives me crazy”:
It is a fact that everyone does something that drives other people crazy from time to time. And a long-term relationship puts one partner into proximity to the other one’s idiosyncrasies, which means a spouse inevitably goes into the other one’s crazy zone in day-to-day life. For example, someone may complain that his/her partner always forgets to put the toilet seat down after peeing, and someone may complain that his/her partner often leaves dirty socks left on the floor or leaves a cap off the toothpaste… Again, everyone has a few crazy habits and little idiosyncrasies; anyway, are there ways out? Do those idiosyncrasies really matter? Why can’t they be accepted? It is often the case that one spouse wants the other one to accept all his/her pros and cons, but meanwhile, he/she does not put himself/herself into his/her significant other’s shoes – his/her spouse also wants to be fully accepted by him/her; too many problematic couples neglect one thing that keeps their marriage alive: a married couple should work hard to accept each other, rather than judge each other.
4 “He/she has changed”:
We all change, and even sometimes we change more than other people around us, but you may not realize those changes in time. When you are complaining that your spouse changes so much that you can’t even recognize him/her, probably you have neglected that you are also changing. Moreover, we influence each other and grow together in our marriages, and it is a part of the relationship dynamic. Whether those changes in marriage are good or bad, we should try our best to adjust ourselves to changes.
5 “We have nothing in common now”:
No doubt, a key to a happy relationship is to have the common ground and find shared values about how, as spouses, the two of you want to live your married life together. As you and your spouse grow old, gradually you may realize that you and your spouse have less and less in common. This threatening situation is quite normal, especially when your marriage moves from one stage to another; but it does not mean that you no longer can seek new common ground. And instead, there are always places of connection that you can seek out (e.g. hobbies, food styles, kids, career, and so on), as long as you can make a shift in your outlook; when you and your spouse differ greatly, you can either look for how different your spouse is from you, or how the two of you can have more commonalities; it is up to you.
And you and your spouse also do not have to have the same interests to have a thriving marriage. But keep in mind that you should respect the interests and hobbies of your spouse. Likewise, you also do not have to agree with a way that your spouse handles a controversial issue, but you need to respect him/her anytime. In married life, it is a compulsory course for couples to learn to seek common ground while reserving differences on a variety of marital issues. When you start to consider divorce because you think you and your spouse have nothing in common, probably you are not inclined to respect your spouse’s views and beliefs that differ from your own.
6 ”I am driven crazy by financial stress”:
No doubt, lack of money is certainly one of the top reasons for divorce; but more often than not, financial stress is just a symptom, and it reflects the scramble for power between husband and wife: what priorities should get funded, and what aspects need to reduce expenses, etc. But for solid couples, they know money is just a tool that they can use to further life together.
When power becomes an issue, a couple feels emotionally disconnected from each other. So, when you feel that you are stressed out by money, first of all, you might shift your focus from money to connection.
At some stage, couples may feel like they are always running out of money. If you and your spouse often quarrel due to lack of money and now you want to end the marriage, it is necessary to remind you of one thing – Divorce is also expensive, can you afford it? In particular, a contentious divorce generally requires a trial that is more expensive than amicable splits settled out of court. Usually, a divorce attorney asks for an initial retainer fee in the range of $3000~$5000 per spouse; and in the US, reports found that the average total attorney’s fees for divorce in 2019 are approximately $12,400 per spouse. And it is also very common that a divorce in America costs a spouse over $20,000 finally. Moreover, you should also be mentally prepared to lose half of your retirement pension, and then you may need to factor in the possible cost of maintaining two separated families.
Therefore, if you think you are on the verge of divorce over financial stress, you should be aware that both you and your spouse can hardly be winners in the divorce, and most likely attorneys will be the only one financial winner in such a divorce.
For more tips on how to deal with financial stress in a marriage, you might go on to read the post below:
7 simple tips on how to deal with financial stress in a marriage.
7 “I no longer want our kids to see us fighting”:
This viewpoint is right. It is certainly unhealthy for kids to grow up in conflict-ridden homes. Especially in psychological health, a kid with the constant stress is more inclined to get ADD (Attention deficit disorder), clinical anxiety, and depression. No doubt, it is a huge price to pay. However, to ensure that your children can grow healthily, quitting the relationship is not the only option, and it is also not the best option. And you should also not ignore a hard, cold fact – With a kid’s parents divorced, drastic changes in the family and their parents’ mental attitude also adversely affect his/her healthy growth. No doubt, a wide range of psychological problems can also be seen in children of divorced parents. Specifically, according to research, children from divorced families are more likely to experience externalizing problems (e.g. impulsive behavior, delinquency, conduct disorders) than children from two-parent families; besides increased behavior problems, children whose parents have divorced are found to experience more conflict with their peers.
As explained above, for the better future of your children, divorce should be considered as the last option; before that, you should try your best to resolve conflict and end the vicious cycle that gets the two of you entangled in the seemingly endless arguments and fights. In general, surviving in a conflicted marriage is more beneficial than quitting the marriage. On the other hand, the majority of children hope to stay in a complete and harmonious family of origin all the time, rather than live in a single-parent/bonded/blended family. It is quite hard for a child to find a high level of security in a new family, except in the family of origin.
If you want to know more about how divorce affects children, you might go on to read the post below:
How divorce affects children – Effects of divorce on children.
8 “He/she cheated on me”:
Infidelity often leads to divorce, but it does not mean that it is impossible to heal a marriage after infidelity. A lot of marriages still survive and thrive after an affair, but the premise of surviving infidelity is that the husband and the wife must be willing to reinvest in each other and recommit to each other. Surely, it is struggling to get back on track after an affair happened to a marriage, whether for the cheater or the victim in the marriage.
For more tips on how to save a marriage after an affair, you might go on to read the posts below:
6 tips on rebuilding trust after infidelity – How to rebuild trust after an affair.
How to save your marriage after financial infidelity
How to deal with a spouse’s emotional affair – Save the marriage.
How to gain your wife’s trust back – Regain your lost trust.
How to get your wife to forgive you after cheating – Restore trust in you.
6 tips on preventing extramarital affairs – Protect your marriage.
Although you’re advised to save your marriage in most cases, you should carefully consider divorce in the 3 cases below:
- “He/she is an addict”:
If you find that you have been married to an addict, let your spouse know well the premise of continuing the relationship – he/she must overcome his/her addiction (e.g. alcohol addiction, gambling addiction, and drug addiction). Otherwise, the relationship will be continuously trapped by futility or blame-shifting.
- He/she has an affair again:
If your spouse has got caught having several affairs, it shows that he/she is not genuinely committed to your relationship with him.
- He/she is abusive:
An abusive relationship is characterized by the power imbalance, and this type of relationship should not be addressed by the abused. What is more, abuse usually escalates over time, and even sometimes it becomes life-threatening. Anyway, safety outweighs the significance of continuing working on an abusive relationship.
The final word:
Through the explanation of the top reasons for divorce, you must understand that it is not difficult to use some reasons to justify a decision to divorce. However, if you choose to divorce due to those seemingly good reasons for divorce, most likely you will feel guilty and regretful afterward because you do not try your best to save a marriage that you should have valued.
When you or your spouse is considering divorce, your marriage must have been struggling for a period of time; but if you think your marriage still deserves to be saved, you might go on to watch the video below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is provided by Brad Browning, a marriage coach who has helped hundreds of couples survive and thrive in their troubled marriages:
If you still hesitate on whether you should stay in your marriage, you might go on to read the post below:
Should you save your marriage – Questions to evaluate your marriage.
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
6 tips on how to survive in an unhappy marriage without divorce.
How to save a failing marriage alone – Try to save your marriage.
What should you do when your marriage is on the rocks?
8 tips on marriage reconciliation after separation – Survive the separation.
How to prevent divorce and make a marriage happy.
When your spouse wants to separate, don’t do these things.
Common factors leading to divorce – Marital flaws and problems.