There’s just no getting around it; divorce is a cruddy process. It takes the person who at least at one time in your life was your lover, perhaps your best friend, and turns that same person into your opponent.
I originally called this page “Divorce s_cks,” but I had to change the name because it was getting blocked by obscenity filters. This is probably fitting, because in many ways it is obscene what our adversarial divorce system forces good men and women to do to each other when they need to end their marriage.
There are all kinds of things both of you can do to keep from going to war, and Divorceinfo.com is all about the options you have. But even if you choose not to go to war, you do have different interests, and you just have to face that.
Every now and then, the news media will report a new study on the levels of stress caused by various occurrences in our lives, and divorce is always near the top of the list. Here are a few of the events and the levels of stress they produce, according to one such study:
Event | Stress |
Death of Spouse | 100 |
Divorce | 73 |
Marital Separation | 65 |
Death of close family member | 63 |
Jail term | 63 |
Personal injury or illness | 53 |
Marriage | 50 |
Fired at work | 47 |
To put it another way, divorce causes more stress than getting fired and more stress than a jail term. In fact, it causes more stress than any other single event except the death of a spouse. And one of the many frustrations about divorce is that your spouse is still out there walking around, and in most cases, still dealing with you. The pain just keeps coming.
But if you really want to delve into this, reflect on what happens after your spouse dies. You can check out Death after Divorce for a quick summary. It’s not pretty.
What makes divorce so awful? Start with the disadvantages of divorce. And it’s no surprise to you that divorce hurts. It almost always produces crushing loneliness, and it also costs money.
The risk of suicide is three times greater for divorcing people than for married people. You’re also more vulnerable to psychiatric illness, homicide, depression, anxiety, motor vehicle accidents, and even physical illness.
Trying to keep divorce from happening? Then check out the alternatives to divorce. If you know you’re heading for divorce, you’ve got two choices. You can either sit around and think about how awful this is, or you can get to work.
When you’re ready for the latter, jump to Cutting Through the Crud, and let’s get started.