Should I Get a Divorce? 3 Women Decide

There may be no heavier question than, “Should I get a divorce?” She wakes up at 3 a.m., wondering if the life she has spent years creating is the life she is still supposed to live. She asks herself the hard, disturbing questions like, “How would our divorce affect the kids?” “Am I destroying their lives … as well as my own?” “How do I know if it’s the right choice or not?” She wonders, “Why am I being forced into this situation, to make a choice that I never wanted?” What she really wants is for someone to simply tell her what to do because she’s exhausted and drained from living in the messy middle where she can’t move forward and she can’t go back.

She doesn’t want to make the wrong decision that will have permanent consequences for years to come. These are the questions that keep her up at night and send her spiraling into a deep, dark hole that she can’t seem to escape.

Somehow ChatGPT has become the modern-day oracle for women questioning their marriages. Women are typing in questions like, “Should I Get a Divorce?” hoping the robotic, but private, response will finally quiet their hearts. But the truth is, no search engine—or AI—can make one of the most personal decisions of your life. Information can give you clarity. 

Wisdom comes from honest reflection, trusted support, and the courage to face what’s true.

The truth is, most women never stand at a clear crossroads. Instead, they are forced to make a decision while they’re lost in the middle of the fog. Today, we’re going to meet three women. Each has been asked the exact same question. Each has arrived at a different conclusion. None of them are wrong.

Why “Should I Get a Divorce?” Is Almost Never a Black-and-White Question 

Here is the reality. There are very few marriages that will fall into a simple “stay” or “leave” category.

Sure, there are exceptions, especially if we’re talking about abuse or personal safety. In those particular cases, you want to take the necessary precautions and leave nothing to chance. Even in those cases, women who experience abuse often question themselves and need outside voices to validate what they already know.

Women struggle with this divorce decision because the reality is it will change the trajectory of their lives…forever. They have built a history with their partner, love may still exist, children can complicate the picture, finances are a reality, and fear and guilt will definitely worm their way into making such a difficult decision.

The question usually isn’t, “Is my marriage bad?” It often looks more like, “Can it become healthy?”

Emily: “I Kept Waiting for Him to Become Someone He Wasn’t.” 

Let’s take Emily, for instance. Emily contemplated divorce for years, and if she’s being honest, for more than a decade. She went through years of counseling with her spouse, years of emotional disconnection, years of constant criticism and loneliness, despite being married. It became her new normal. There isn’t a universal divorce checklist that tells you whether you should stay or go. Instead, relationship experts encourage looking honestly at whether your relationship still provides the emotional safety, love, and mutual respect needed for it to thrive.

Divorce coaches at SAS for Women encourage women who are thinking about divorce to break the cycle of just thinking about it by taking “smart” action: getting educated by learning how to look at all aspects of the question. But to start, above all, from a place of accepting you deserve to understand your choices before you commit to any path.

Emily loved her spouse, and she didn’t choose divorce because she stopped loving her partner. She decided to choose herself because she wanted to stop disappearing. Her decision wasn’t impulsive. She came to the realization after exhausting every single avenue she believed was available. Clarity can be the “unlock” that will move you forward into your best future self.

Sarah: “I Didn’t Want a Divorce—I Wanted My Marriage Back.”

Sarah believed divorce was an inevitable outcome for her marriage. Instead of making an immediate decision, she learned about what divorce would actually involve; she combed through her finances; she explored the realities of custody for her children; and she educated herself about what her life would look like after her divorce.

Sarah didn’t do this on her own. She had tried to do so by relying on Google, but she kept coming back to the same place because she didn’t know what she didn’t know. And she couldn’t search ideas or terms if she didn’t know about them.  Through her midnight Googling, searching for divorce support groups, she stumbled across “Annie’s Group”.  And after talking to the divorce coach facilitator, she decided to commit to the three-month educational program of exploring what it would mean if she were to divorce.  This plan included understanding her emotional journey through the crisis, how to take care of herself and her children, but especially, the nitty-gritty questions of what would be her best financial outcomes if she were to divorce or legally separate or follow through with a post-nuptials?

Then, something extremely unexpected happened. Sarah realized she actually wanted to give her marriage one more shot from a place of strength. She was no longer making a decision from a place of fear, but from an informed place of understanding what would really happen, having explored and tackled many of her questions through her work in Annie’s Group. Through Annie’s Group as well, Sarah learned about discernment counseling as a means for giving her marriage a meaningful, one last try.  Discernment counseling is different from traditional marriage counseling because it is designed for couples unsure about whether they want to stay or leave. Discernment counseling helped Sarah make a clear decision and have a clear direction. 

She returned to her marriage not because she felt trapped and not because she was afraid. She returned because she made an informed choice and made the decision based on her own terms. Sometimes clarity will lead you back.

Jennifer: “I Didn’t Need an Answer Yet. I Needed Time.”

Jennifer found herself in the middle. She stood on a bridge, and she knew she could walk either way. Everyone wants to have the answer. They want to know if they should leave or stay. They want to decide. Jennifer decided not to do either. Instead, she chose to build on years of therapy and try divorce coaching, to learn how to look at her situation in different ways and discover action steps to shift her body into a new place.  She proposed a trial separation from her spouse, set new personal boundaries, and slowed everything down. She chose not to rush her decision process – but to get a bit of distance to sit with her feelings and consider what a divorce would look like.

Sometimes, not making a permanent decision during emotional overwhelm is the better option. Jennifer decided to leave her ending intentionally open. Many women can live in this chapter for months and sometimes longer. The reality is that sometimes clarity needs space to breathe, and if that means you need to pause on the bridge of life, you can grant yourself the permission to do so.

What All Three Women Had in Common 

None of these amazing women rushed into their divorce decision. None of these women ignored their reality or chose not to look at themselves in the mirror. They didn’t make their decision solely from their emotions surrounding their marriage when they were wondering, should I get a divorce?

Instead, they chose to become informed, they sought support, they asked the difficult questions, and became honest about their current situations.

They stopped asking, “What should I do?” and started asking, “What is true?” That is the key distinction.

If You’re Asking, “Should I Get a Divorce?”

The number one thing you want to do is get educated about divorce. You don’t want to be in the dark about your financial situation, so make it a point to understand your personal finances as a couple. You can consider discernment counseling as a valuable option while seeking therapy. Working with a divorce coach privately or in a divorce group can be monumental in exploring your choices and what’s involved in your decision-making process. Journaling is a great way to get your thoughts out of your head and gain clarity around your marriage.

All of these options allow you to stop making decisions solely based on fear, and allow you to make the right decision for your life and your family. Remember, information doesn’t force a divorce; information gives you the freedom to make the right choice for you.

Conclusion

To divorce or not to divorce? That is the question, right? The answer is maybe. Or maybe not. The better question might actually be, “Am I making this decision from fear…or from clarity?” The goal isn’t to save a marriage that is abusive or unhealthy, nor is it to end every unhappy one. The goal is actually something much more powerful. The goal is to become a woman who knows herself inside and out, and who knows herself well enough to choose her future with open eyes instead of a fearful heart. 

Whichever path you ultimately choose, you are the one who has to live your life, so choose wisely. You deserve to walk into your next stage of life with confidence – not regret.

NOTES

This article was written by Lori Ann Feeley, who helps midlife Christian women turn their God-given story into income & Full-Life Freedom.™️ She is a freelance writer, ghostwriter, adoption advocate, Certified Christian Life Coach, AI Business Coach, and Founder & CEO of Faith Revolution Creative. Connect with Lori Ann at loriann@faithrevolutioncreative.com.

 

Learning how other women survive and go on to lead extraordinary lives after divorce is one of the best gifts you can give yourself. 

Trust us.

Since 2012, SAS for Women has been helping women consider … navigate … and rebuild after divorce. Options include educational programs, private coaching, divorce groups, virtual events, and a FREE 6-month, weekly coaching letter dedicated to your journey.

SAS is also a free library with 500+ articles focused on the woman’s journey through and beyond divorce.

Don’t lose touch. Join our tribe now.

 

*We support same-sex marriages. For the sake of simplicity in this article, however, we refer to your spouse as your “husband” or a “he.”