Divorce vs. Seperation

Sadly, my last blog post for this semester. I am really sad to stop having such amazing lessons each week and being able to write about it to help retain what I really do learn. So, for my last article I will talk about divorce and separation.

First, I want to start with divorce. We learned about many ways that we can avoid divorce or ways that can prevent it. 24% of people who marry divorce and it stems from simple things to avoid. Some of which include, having a higher education (going to college), marrying at a mature age (this does not mean marry at an age where you have a huge career or planted in your roots, because then it is harder to start a new life with someone when you both are very established, rather marry at an age such as young 20’s because then you both can start your life together and figure things out together), avoiding impulse marriage (Vegas…shall I say more?), marry in your own religion type (this can cause less fights and building on a same foundation of religion helps build a relationship), and waiting to have sex before marriage as well as cohabitating before marriage. Now those are things that are easier to avoid. But, there are some statistics on things that cause divorce that are not easy to avoid, such as having parents that divorce (this make it hard because, seeing parents divorce show there is an easier way out of problems in relationships then working things out. Not always the case.

There was another interesting part of divorce, and that was the stages of divorce.

1.     Emotional Divorce. This is when you emotionally start disconnecting from your spouse and don’t feel that draw to stay together.

2.     Legal Divorce. Self-explanatory where you legally file for a divorce.

3.     Economic Divorce. This is where everything gets split up between the two. All finances are no longer linked together and you become two separate people, no longer finally connected.

4.     Co-parenting. Where you both are now single parents over the children.

5.     Community Divorce. This is interesting, this is where the community starts to choose sides. Friends you once had as a couple now have to choose whose side they are going to be friends with.

It is interesting to see how divorce plays out and how many people it truly does effect. But, the worst it effects is children. It’s so important to try to work things out together before stepping into this dark mess of divorce.

We also went over how much more it cost to divorce, especially with children. We went over the cost and found that people were spending $125,000 more every year becaauee of being divorced with children. The expenses included another house payment, child support, travel to see children, etc. It was amazing how quickly it took to add up the costs form divorce. Not to mention any kind of therapy for children who struggle with divorced parents.

I next want to talk about separation. Separation in most cases are just a first step before divorce, very rarely do those that separated stay together. My teacher who is a marriage therapist said in all his time he has only seen 3 couples who separated stay together and he said they all had something in common. He advised them to go on a date or two every week. Start fresh. They were to not see or very little talk during the week then have a formal date or two during the week. This caused reconnection and to fall back into love again. But, in most cases it does not work to stay separated.