Should I Divorce?

How do you recognize when it is time to end a marriage? When is it time to give up? Is your spousal relationship worth salvaging? Can it be rescued?

Regrettably, you're the only individual who can answer these questions. Even as it is easy for many people to quit too rapidly, other people might try to hang in too long. Only through taking a hard look at your marriage and your state of affairs can you ascertain the path that you should undergo.

If you discover yourself in a harmful relationship where you or your kids are in danger, you should quickly plan your way out. Also if your partner is caught up in criminal actions, or drug abuse, you should take steps to assure that you and your children aren't pulled down with him.

For a lot of people, an affair is adequate reason for divorce. If, however, you're the type to forgive and forget, if your spouse is reluctant to cease the affair, or repeatedly becomes caught up in affairs, staying put in the marriage won't solve anything. Even a one-time indiscretion oftentimes causes major strain on a marriage. It can take a great deal of work from both parties and lots of time to get past even an unplanned affair. When lost, trustfulness is very difficult to recover.

There are those whose primary instinct when a relationship starts to go sour is divorce. It is crucial to remember that a marriage is very rarely like the fairytale. It takes continual effort by both spouses to keep romance alive. It takes dedication of both spouses and a willingness to listen to keep up good candid communication. It also takes sacrifice by each spouse to assure that their partner's needs are met and that their sense of self worth is encouraged each day.

If your marriage is troubled from lack of communicating, or intimacy, or incessant arguings and putdowns, it is in all likelihood still salvageable. Prior to looking at divorce in these situations you should first be sure that the next things have been considered first:

• Are you and your spouse inclined and capable to talk about the troubles with your relationship without the conversation degrading into an confrontation or worse?
• Have you and your spouse attended marriage counselling?
• Are you and your partner able to establish and work at shared goals?
• Are you and your spouse able to compromise to be able to have quality time together?
• When you and your spouse argue, is it harmful or positive?
• After an argument, do either you or your spouse hold a grievance or are you able to make up?

If you are able to effectively convey to your partner that you would like to and are ready to work to save the spousal relationship without stating or implying that the attempt has to come entirely from your spouse, or that your partner has to "make changes" for this process to begin, it is feasible that the spousal relationship can yet be salvaged. Divorce is a hard, painful, no-win state of affairs. You should thoroughly analyze the state of your marriage prior to committing to a life-changing conclusion.