If your marriage is so very bad that you are on the brink of divorce, then that is precisely when you should not divorce. Here are 15 reasons why:
Don’t Divorce When Things Are Awful
1. Whatever made you angry has no chance of being resolved in court. In court, the differences are exaggerated and the feeling of not having been treated fairly increases.
2. Research shows that violence escalates when you divorce and for two years afterwards. If there was no violence, verbal aggression can also escalate to violence.
3. According to a 2011 article on the CNBC site, mediated divorces can cost between several thousand dollars to $7,000, but litigation could cost as much as $50,000. An author, Brette Sember noted that people are usually not prepared for the amount of the retainer and further unprepared for the bills that follow. The article advises coming in having discussed carefully how everything would be divided. Is there something in this scenario a bit incongruous? The article was taken down as of this checkup (2015) so I guess the cost went UP.
According to updated info, attorneys are between $150 and $450 an hour. I have never met a $150 attorney in my life although they may bill that for paralegal time. This site indicates the divorce on average is $15,500.
4. Now two households will have to be supported. Whatever your expenses were, now it’s double.
5. Let’s add other “hidden” expenses: houses which no longer have cash value; health insurance; college for children; small but meaningful items in the home such as artwork, memberships, airline miles. The CNBC article adds transportation for the children from one home to another; counseling; and the crisis that occurs when support ends. Don’t forget the time you must take off from work to see your attorney or to go to court.
Consider the Children
6. A Wall Street Journal article reported a 2011 study that says the children of divorce often are left having to pay for their college education. The study showed that divorced parents pay a smaller percentage of tuition costs than parents who stayed married. This holds even when parents re-marry.
7. According to divorce.com, research shows that children of divorce have a lower probability of completing college and end up making less money from their work than children from intact families.
8. Children of divorce remain married half as often as children from intact families. Interestingly, children from intact families have not only better physical health in adulthood but they even have increased longevity according to the US Dept of Health in 2007.
9. Children risk becoming school dropouts; they have a higher probably of ending up in prison for felonies by age 30. Note: this information is from divorce.com, the site that lists attorneys and advertises “easy, fast, etc.” I further quote: “the assumption that children of divorce are better off than if they lived in dysfunctional two parent families, is wrong except in very high-conflict households where the threat of abuse meant physical separation was the only immediate choice. This means the effects of divorce are usually worse for the kids than the turbulence created by the parents staying together and attempting to work out their problems.”
Divorce Radically Changes Lifestyles
10. Again from divorce.com, divorced single women end up below the poverty limit in a quarter of cases and are more often the victims of violent crime than their married neighbors.
11. Divorced men, on the other hand, have lower incomes over a lifetime than their married peers. They also have a shorter life expectancy; how about that?
12. According to the USDept of Health in a 2007 report, marriage has positive health benefits such as reduction in heavy drinking, shorter hospital stays, fewer doctor visits, and reduced depressive symptoms and reduced nursing home admission. On the other hand, divorced people have increased depression that remains for years after the marital breakup—regardless of who initiated it.
13. The Institute for American Values published a report in 1998, cited on the website familyinamerica.org, explaining that since the adults and the children of divorce earn less, the cost to taxpayers comes to $112 billion a year because of antipoverty, criminal justice and education programs as well as the loss of taxes from lower-earning people.
14. That same website points out that about 40% of children don’t live with their father and 50% rarely see him. That’s fatherlessness and a contributor to crime, adolescent pregnancy, child sexual abuse, and violence against women. 33% of children of divorce believe their father doesn’t love them.
15. When parents do try to co-parent, their ability to handle conflict does not improve; in fact, many children, caught in the middle of the constant bickering, believe the divorce was their fault.
I was impressed by the scholarliness of the familyinamerica.org article and I recommend it.
Emotionally, mentally and physically exhausting, grief for the loss of the person but they are still there, depression and anxiety, fear for the future, paranoia about almost anything, shock, anger, loneliness and isolation., loss of confidence and self esteem then the dirty tactics start, you realize any promises made whatever they may be will not be kept. Then the solicitor you appoint to help you get a fair share, totals up all the matrimonial assets and then know exactly what you can afford to pay for their services leaving you with little or nothing and expects you to be grateful, you realize that yours’ and their’ solicitors are working hand in hand prior to court not to get the best deal for their client but to barter for an agreement and if one party won’t budge on something at all and demands simple clauses like not being contacted at work or having their employers contacted before they agree, what it really means is that when they fail to pay court awarded maintenance, you have to spend 8 years fighting a clause before you can get an Attachment of Earnings order ( which involves contacting their employer)Oh boy is it stressful, if you survive and if you do you may still end up a gibbering wreck or an alcoholic or addicted to prescription medication or just not trusting anyone, so it totally changes your outlook, your relationships and in my case a total fear of any type of commitment.It isn’t long before you realize that court orders and judgements mean nothing and will not be honoured by your ex or soon to be ex and the courts will do little or nothing about it .and that legal justice is non existent.You notice married friends keeping away thinking you are all of a sudden after their husbands, people crossing the street so they don’t have to speak to you, invites from friends drop off so more paranoia sets in and so you avoid them.My ex told our kids, I had cheated throughout our 24 year marriage several times and he had always forgiven me but I never had, I never even thought about anyone else but him, I loved him to bits, but he put enough doubt in their mind, reminding them of times ( a week or two) he was not at home when they were younger, saying he had left me several times because of my affairs, the reality was he was away on business and we spoke everyday on the phone .and I could go on.10 years on I have never gone out with another guy, it frightens me to death, he re-married 2 months after the divorce the girlfriend he told the kids he met after he left me, reality is he was setting up a new home 6 months prior to leaving me, re-mortgaging our paid for home and hiding the money in new accounts he set up, emptying our joint bank accounts, forging my signature on our share certificates and cashing them in, selling our second home, emptying our childrens’ trust accounts you name it he did it, all to stop me getting anything, yet it was all my money which purchased our first home. if you want to get away with criminal activity it is easy to do it when you are divorcing as it is a civil case and you just haven’t got the energy or the money to fight a criminal case and because of the divorce the police and the CPS just don’t want to know ..and when the court awarded me the house because of his deceptiveness, it means you sell it, then pay off the mortgage ( he took out and hid) and get the very little left which goes to pay solicitors fees , so you end up with nothing.I had two friends who listened, gave me a shoulder to cry on ( when I had the energy) they accepted me whatever mood I was in, whatever I ranted about, arranged simple things like a pub meal or paid for an eyelash tint, they would sit and listen for hours and bless them smile and welcome me every time I called, they encouraged me to fight and not give up and gave me some hope that I was not totally mad however bad it looked or sounded, they believed in me they were real GOLD friends.Just be there, listen and believe in your friend.
So here is my thought: If, after it’s all over, you see the guy lied and cheated, did the worst come out in him–the paranoia which made him believe you cheated and which made him hide assets–BECAUSE of the impending divorce or was it there from Day 1? If it was there from Day 1, it would have been best not to marry in the first place. If you never saw this until things got “messy” then it is still a possibility that the divorce process itself brought out the paranoia which led to all the awful behavior. That is my guess.
Need more articles
There are well over a hundred articles on this site. But I’ll suggest even better: take my course. That course is so full of information that nothing, absolutely nothing is left out.