It has crossed the mind of pretty much every lawfully wedded person alive at some point in their marriage. Well, at least the ones that’ve been married for long enough for the coveted “infatuation stage” to wear off, anyway. Many a married person has silently mulled it over in their heads after a bad fight, usually not daring to utter a word about it to their spouse. Some openly joke about it in front of friends and family declaring that one day they’re just gonna hit the road with no warning whatsoever. And when men get together and hang out in the garage, at work, or in the bar, they talk about divorce being completely worth the cost, or rather joke that it’s “cheaper to keep her”. But inevitably, the idea of our marriage ending in divorce will enter our thoughts from time-to-time like a dark cloud that just seems to return and hover overhead during the toughest of times.

But that’s okay. It doesn’t make you a bad person, or mean you’re incapable of a real long term commitment. And it doesn’t mean that your relationship is doomed. It just means you’re human and worried about the direction in which you and your spouse are heading. When our minds go to these places we have to realize that it’s simply unrealistic for anyone to expect a partnership that’s intended to last for the rest of your natural life to be all flowers and rainbows one hundred percent of the time. Marriage can be hard, and even the best, most fulfilling ones, require a significant amount of work and sacrifice to be successful. If you ever find yourself in utter panic because you’re feeling like this life you’ve built together is on the rocks, just take a nice long, deep breath and remind yourself that while you love each other, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll always like each other. Men and women are wired differently and react in different ways to situations that arise and create tension in your relationship. Unfortunately, these reactions to difficulties in your joint lives can sometimes be a catalyst for feelings of discontent and doubt.

But go ahead and worry on, brother. This is one time in your life that worrying is a good thing. If you’re worried then that’s a tell-tale sign that you still care. It likely means that your marriage is something you’re not quite prepared to let go of. And that, my friends, is all you need to know. Because more often than not that alone can answer the question you’re asking yourself. People who are ready to leave aren’t the ones that worry; mentally they’re already packing their bags and headed out the door.

 I can’t (and wouldn’t try to) offer advice on whether staying or leaving is right for you. Every situation is uniquely different and interpersonal compatibilities vary tremendously. If it’s something you find yourself contemplating you could ask for advice from anyone willing to offer their two cents, but in the end it’s a decision you’ll ultimately have to make for yourself. 

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I was married for 17 years. My entire life prior to that I had always been very vocal about the fact that I would “only ever marry ONCE”, and that I would “NEVER write a single alimony or child support check”. I thought I had it all figured out and, clear as crystal, I could see the path of my life as a happy, loving and committed husband. This conviction was likely spurred from the fact that I couldn’t name a single adult person in my immediate family, or even my extended family for that matter, that hadn’t suffered a divorce at some point in their lives. But not me. I was determined that I would be different, that mine would be a fairytale marriage and everyone we knew would be envious of the healthy and supportive relationship we shared. (As I pause to roll my eyes). Looking back, I guess it wasn’t really a bad approach to matrimony and my plans for it. I can say with a straight face that it did help us get through some extremely tough periods in our marriage. After the wedding I would quickly learn that my ex-wife was very different from me, was different from the girl I had dated and even more so after we had a couple of years under our belts and had a son together. In the early stages of the marriage I always said that we complemented each other well because I was the fun, outgoing one and she was more of the reserved homebody type. I tended to motivate her to get out more and experience what life has to offer, and she kept me grounded. But diehard optimism will only get you so far, and eventually those differences in our personalities grew into a giant chasm. The differences in how we liked to spend our time, our individual expectations for our future together and our differing preferences related to affection became more and more apparent as I tried desperately to maintain the idealistic marriage that I had so naively modeled for us. For me, the toughest challenge with this growing incompatibility had to do with intimacy. I’m not talking about sex really (well, not yet anyway). I’m referring to the everyday, affectionate, touchy-feely aspect of a relationship that she just never seemed to have any sort of need for like I did. I continually struggled to understand this because the lack of need for human contact she displayed was something completely alien to me since I had grown up in an openly affectionate home as a kid. The sex wasn’t bad, when the planets aligned well enough for her, although our individual preferred frequency could not have been any different. After only a couple years of this I completely stopped instigating sex because whenever I would make an effort and she would turn me down for one reason or another, it left me with an overwhelming feeling of discontentment and anger. I had decided it simply wasn’t worth the effort because my attempts most often left me either feeling like my expectations were too high, or wondering if I had been tricked into marrying someone who never cared about my needs in the first place. I recall, at one particularly frustrated point, holding my own little experiment just to see how bad things would get if I stopped trying altogether. I completely stopped behaving like we were anything more than roommates. I stopped holding her hand, giving her good night kisses, putting an arm around her, hugging her, brushing my hand across her back as I walked past in the kitchen, all of it. It amazed me that we not only could sleep in the same bed each night and never physically come in any sort of contact with one another, but that she would start keeping a full size body pillow laying between us, keeping us separated, because, as she claimed, it “helped block the sound of my snoring”. Ultimately, after two-and-a-half whole months had passed without a single instance of physical contact, I had to stop the experiment because the reality of it was setting in and I refused to let that become the norm for us. While I still never instigated sex, I went back to being the one that always made the effort to behave like we were a couple. Sadly, to this day she still has never realized we went ten weeks without a single touch. 

So… here I was in what our friends and family watching from the outside thought was an ideal marriage. I was becoming increasingly lonely- in every sense of the word. And still, the idea of bailing out never crossed my mind as a real option. I had fully convinced myself that I was capable of loving her enough for both of us and it made me try even harder. I sat her down, multiple times over the next few years and tried to explain to her how I had been feeling, said I didn’t want to ever lose her, and after long, difficult conversations, each time we would agree to meet half-way. She talked to me about some of the things that added to her stress level that she cited as a major contributor to our issue, and what kinds of things I could do to help her reduce some of it. In return she would make more of an effort to provide me more of the attention and affection I felt I was missing. After these conversations things would always get better for a few weeks but eventually, again and again, she would lose sight of her promise to try harder, her true nature would take over and I would find us once again emotionally and physically disconnected. Over time it became increasingly difficult for me to hang on to that feeling of optimism. 

Then one afternoon I was driving alone from my home in New England to the Carolinas, where I grew up, and where my family still lives. I had a solid 10 hours in the car to try and deny the guilt I was feeling from looking forward to the next several days away from her. I used the time alone in the car to do some soul searching. I took a long hard look at my life, and I didn’t like what I saw. As I drifted along down Interstate 95 with the cruise control set and the radio blaring, thinking about how unhappy I was, for some reason it hit me like a lightning bolt; I needed to end it. I knew that I had tried everything I possibly could to save our marriage and it was time to admit to myself I had failed. In just a couple of short seconds, a paralyzing feeling of dread washed over me and it felt like one of the tractor trailers I had been dodging all day had hit me head on. Every horrible aspect of getting divorced ran through my brain like a high-speed camera reel flashing gut-wrenching scenes of the whole miserable process. A feeling of extreme panic tore through my head like a sickness and I wanted to puke. I realized I was becoming a little dizzy and, like a lunatic, I veered crossed four lanes to pull over on the side of the highway. Wheels locked up, I slid to a stop in a cloud of roadside dust and threw my face into my hands sobbing. I’d been making good time that day, excited and anxious to see my family, and now here I was, a fully grown man, sitting in my car on the side of the highway somewhere between Fredericksburg and Richmond with the engine shut off for a half an hour trying to stop crying, trying to catch my breath, trying to get my hands to stop shaking, and more importantly trying to imagine what my life was going to look like without her in it.

Flash forward through eight of the most grueling months of my life. Once everything related to the divorce was settled and I was single again it took me a long time to come to terms with what had gone wrong. Even though I spent several years of our marriage trying to make it work I still felt guilty about it failing. It was very difficult to see how painful it all was for her. After all, regardless of things falling apart, I still loved her. And she had been a great friend and companion for the better part of two decades. Despite her shortcomings as a wife, she’s still a good person with lots of qualities. I couldn’t have ever found a better mother for my son and she was loyal. In the end she just wasn’t right for me- or perhaps for the man I had become.

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Divorce is ugly. And it undoubtedly will bring out the worst in people. It doesn’t matter how either of you feel about the situation, there’s no such thing as a fully amicable divorce. Going into the process you can both be in a good place emotionally, be the best of friends, be supportive and understanding of each other, but regardless of the route you take- a shared attorney, separate attorneys, a mediator, or whatever, as soon as you get to the part where you must negotiate dividing up your assets, things are going to get ugly. I had never once witnessed my ex-wife so angry and petty. And I’ll admit my behavior was nothing to be proud of either. There were three terrible aspects of getting divorced that I never anticipated. I knew it wouldn’t be easy; and I knew it was going to cost a lot of money- both short-term and long-term, but nothing in my life prior to this experience had prepared me for what I was in store for. 

First, it never dawned on me how much of my son’s life I would end up missing out on. Our official Separation Agreement established my ex-wife as the Primary Caregiver, mainly because after the divorce she remained in the town where he had gone to school his whole life, and neither of us wanted to uproot him. I moved to a town a little over an hours’ drive away and was quickly hit with the reality that school, friends, girlfriends, sports, jobs, etc. would keep him in his hometown the vast majority of the time. I had foolishly imagined a situation where he would be with me about half of the time, and that he would be around enough for me not to miss out on him growing up. But I couldn’t have been any more wrong. Regardless of the efforts I made, and the countless trips I drove back-and-forth, or the pleading to see more of him, I would eventually miss out on so many events and so much time in his life that I would never be able to get back. The evening dinners at the kitchen table, first days of school, first dates, soccer games, proms, etc. that were coming and going without my face present in the photographs. That one was by far the hardest and will forever remain at the top of my list of life regrets.

Next, I never anticipated how many close friends I would lose. I’ll never understand peoples’ need to feel as though they must choose between the two of you. If I chopped off two of my fingers I could still count on that hand the total number of people that were able to separate their relationship with her from their relationship with me and remain friends individually with each of us. It was probably worsened by the fact that I moved out of the area and wasn’t there to explain my side of things. They saw her more often, witnessed the early stages of her sadness, and I’m guessing found reason to label me the bad guy. People can be quick to make assumptions that there had to have been reasons for the separation that go beyond us merely having grown apart. Even the ones that weren’t so black-and-white about it pulled away a great deal and encounters with them proved to be nothing short of awkward. A handful of them were very close friends, the type that I would normally have leaned on for strength and support during such a difficult time in my life. Looking at the experience from inside my new world, it feels as though they all died at once, leaving me here to grieve them all.

Lastly, I had been fairly excited to once again be single after 20-ish years off the market and was optimistic about finding someone right for me. After all, it cost me a LOT to get here, so I might as well enjoy it a little, right? Nope. It was absolutely terrible. The grass is NOT always greener on the other side of the fence. At this point I was in my md-to-late 40s and still a pretty decent looking guy. I got a lot of positive responses from women I interacted with, but it didn’t take me long to learn that most women who are single at my age are single for a reason. All of a sudden my living-heart-donor of an ex-wife, in spite of all her shortcomings, didn’t seem all that bad. I tried my hand at online dating and over a couple of years met several women who varied from bitter, self-destructive, riddled with low self-esteem, dishonest, and judgmental, to ones with daddy issues, mental imbalance, were oppressively controlling or just completely batshit crazy. I learned that some females can be outright evil at times, a skill I figure they begin to finely hone throughout their later years after suffering their own relationship disappointments. I learned the hard way that they can sometimes suffer from narcissistic personality disorder (not just men) and can manage to hide it from most everyone they know- but that’s a different article. Don’t get me wrong, the singles market does have some really great, beautiful, mentally healthy, strong, grounded ladies out there in the same situation I was in, but after so many years in an unhappy marriage, with a whole new set of established boundaries, I was significantly more “selective” and had a difficult time finding a woman that I could see liking and trusting enough to open myself up to. It took me what seemed like forever to find the right person who was a good fit for me. She has since proved to be well worth the wait and I count my blessings every single day that she walked into my life. But happiness didn’t come along before suffering several emotional blows and kicks in the gut.

So my story is one of an exceedingly difficult path to happiness. It changed who I am as a person and left some deep wounds that are still healing. But in the end I’m now a much happier man with a more fulfilling life. Regardless, I would never be one to recommend divorce to someone struggling with their marriage. It really has to be considered a last resort, and I wouldn’t wish the experience on my worst enemy. 

If you find yourself internally deliberating over the fate of your own marriage you will ultimately be faced with one of two choices: stay or leave. If the needle ends up pointing to divorce, which can sometimes be the best option for you both, then there’s an overwhelming amount of things to do- you have to tell her, decide who moves out, start the legal process, tell the kids, possibly put a house up for sale, pack everything you own, and all the rest of the really really difficult parts of cutting the cord. I can’t possibly overstate the unbelievable amount of energy and effort this process takes. But what if your needle points in the other direction and you decide your best option is to stay? What if you decide that leaving would be a mistake, and that you’re not ready to give up your spouse? What then? It doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative thing that you analyzed your needs and wants and reaffirmed that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. So consider this: Why should this option be the one requiring the least amount of effort? You just dodged a bullet, and while it probably only existed in your own head, why not use it as an opportunity for growth and improvement? You’ve decided to stay, so do NOT let yourself pass up the opportunity to recommit. Let it sink into your soul that you came to that crossroad and chose to remain on the path that you whole-heartedly committed to long ago. And don’t half-ass it. Don’t be a fraction of the husband you’re capable of being for her just because you had a close call. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. If she has any idea what you’ve been struggling over then what she really needs right now is some powerful reassurance. Give her that. You’re not going to miss out on special memories with your kids, you’re not going to lose close friends, and you’re not going to have to subject yourself to the loneliness and horrors of the single dating world. Tell your wife you’re not going anywhere, that you’re thankful to have her in your life and be the best husband for her you know how to be.

It's also not a bad idea to get a little help. Just because you and your spouse have gone through some difficult times doesn’t mean there’s not a path back to where you once were.  It may simply be that these are indicators of things that need to be proactively addressed in your marriage.  If you’re feeling that things aren’t on track with your marriage, I encourage you to act to turn things around NOW before matters get any worse. A great place to start is by watching this free video by marriage guru Brad Browning... he explains where you've been going wrong and what you need to do to make your spouse fall back in love with you. It’s well worth the time to check it out. 

Untying the Knot

Do I Stay or Do I Go?

by Manquipt Chief Editor