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Only
you can decide when you’re ready to leave a relationship. Lots of people will
have opinions and they’ll share these with you without any encouragement. Some
will tell you should stay(to give it another chance/for the kids/because it’s
best financially) and some will tell you to leave(you’ve given it enough
chances/the kids shouldn’t be traumatized by your fighting/it’s best
financially). Ignore them (even if they have big degrees). Although some folks say these things out of genuine
concern for you, you’re the only one who can make the decision to end your
relationship.
But
don’t end one nightmare just to jump into another one.
Too
many folks make the difficult decision to divorce and then fail to learn
everything you can from the situation. When you end a relationship—particularly
one in which you’ve invested a lot—you put a lot of thought into the decision.
Even if you’re hurt and your significant other has done awful things, you
generally think about it for more than a minute before walking out.
After
you make this tough choice, you’ve got a life to put back together. Maybe you’re
concerned about your kids; maybe you and your ex work together. Moving on has
challenges of its own. People usually come for counseling when they’re trying
to decide whether to go or they’ve decided to go already and they hope
counseling will somehow make their soon-to-be-ex partner happier with the
situation. The latter situation is usually very non-productive. The primary
reason your soon-to-be-ex come for sessions is that s/he hopes you’ll change
your mind and the relationship will get happy again.
Breaking
up involves lots of details. Where you live, how the money will be split and
where the kids(if any) will live. It’s understandable that you’d find this part
difficult. (Don’t get me wrong—the hassle of leaving is a lousy reason to
stay.)
There’s another part, though, and this one is really important. After you find yourself a new place and get moved into it and change your name on your driver’s license and passport(if you changed it in the first place), you need to think hard about why this marriage didn’t work. Why the relationship failed. I’m not suggesting you engage in a period of self-abuse; this is counter-productive. But if you don’t want to keep repeating the same cycle of hope and failure over and over, you need to learn everything you can from this one.
Think
about it as the Gift of divorce.
You’ve
probably gone through a long period of difficulty. This may have drug out way
too long. Relationships don’t fail overnight. You’re tired. You may feel ready
to date again and the last thing you want to so is think about your past,
failed relationship more.
However,
before you start dating that cute girl or guy that your friends introduced you
to, you might want to get an accurate, objective(as much as you can) picture of
what happened with the last one. I have lots of people come see me before they
separate or divorce, but not many see the value of changing their part of the problems before they embark on their
next romantic endeavor. Take some time and look at your own stuff—the kind of
person you picked or the way you handled conflict(or didn’t handle conflict) or
the work you need to do on issues from your past.
You
deserve a shot at making the next relationship work. Give yourself a chance.
