Excuses, Excuses and more…

Are you unhappy? Is your spouse not what you expected? Is your marriage dysfunctional? Have you been thinking about how to get out of your unhappy marriage? Then you need to address that. However, whenever we have the first consultation with a client it always comes down to: “I do want a divorce, but…”

We’ll have somebody come in for a consultation and we’ll spend an hour talking. They might ask a few legal questions, but most of the time they don’t. What they do, is tell us all the reasons why they’re not happy in their marriage and what their spouse is doing (or not doing) that upsets them. And when we’ve listened to all they have to say we ask the dreaded question… “So, are you ready to move forward with the divorce?”

And the typical answer is, “YES…BUT” we are always shocked by that answer because what do they really need to think about? They’ve just spent an hour telling us how they hate this person, how they’re mean and disrespectful. We commonly hear these two reasons:

• “We haven’t been on vacation in five years because they won’t go out”
• “We haven’t had sex in five years!” (This one is very common).

But still, they need to think about moving forward with their divorce. What is there to think about? The answer is always vague. The most common excuses are:

• “I just want to make sure it’s the right time.”
• “I need to consider my children; I don’t want to upset them.”
• A lot of times there’s guilt about leaving their partner because they are a good parent, or they love their in-laws.
• “My friends and family will hate me.”
• And the biggest excuse of all: “I will never find someone again.”

If you are in this position, you’re just making excuses. You are postponing your divorce because it’s uncomfortable. We know it’s a hard decision but don’t be afraid to move forward and be happy. You will find happiness again. You don’t deserve an unhappy marriage.

You deserve to be happy and have the life you want.