Whether you should get a divorce is a very personal decision that can only be answered by you. While a divorce attorney cannot make this decision for you, there are lessons that Robin R. Zegen has learned from being a divorce attorney for over 30 years as well as from her own personal divorce and remarriage. You may find these lessons helpful.

Marriage is successful when the partnership of both people makes each of them better than they are individually. In other words, if your spouse makes you a better and happier person and you do the same for your spouse, that is a successful marriage, and you are probably not considering divorce or even reading this right now.

A successful and loving partnership is the goal of a marriage. If, however, the partnership isn’t really a partnership, or it makes one or both of you less happy and less than they could be without the partnership, then the marriage is failing. Once “score keeping” begins you are headed toward divorce. Scorekeeping is when you start keeping track of everything your spouse does wrong and they likely start keeping track of everything you do wrong. You will often hear about the scorekeeping when an argument begins because your spouse will recite your wrongdoings usually followed by your doing the same.

Once scorekeeping begins it is critical that both spouses make a commitment to marriage counseling and making changes to get their marriage back on track. Too often people wait too long to get help because breaking patterns and correcting communication is difficult. If either of the spouses are unwilling to go to marriage counseling and commit to making the needed changes, then the marriage will not ever be a successful partnership and, in fact, it will likely just get worse.

Make no mistake about it, one spouse cannot just work harder and save the marriage because it takes two to make it a successful partnership and you cannot do the work for both of you.

Marriage is not hard work if the two people really care about each other. When you truly love the other person, you are willing to do whatever it takes to make them happy and they are willing to do the same. This love for each other makes the marriage easy. There ARE marriages where both people love each other immensely and treat each other correctly without it being hard work. While a successful marriage does not require hard work, if your marriage has become dysfunctional it will take hard work to get it back on track.

Divorce is not the failure of marriage. Divorce is the end of the marriage that has already failed. Divorce gives you a chance to put that relationship in the past and move on so you can be happy again. For those of us that have been through divorce and have found happiness again, it is so worth it!

If you or your spouse are not willing to go to marriage counseling and make the required changes then perhaps you should get a divorce. Life is too short to spend a lot of it unhappy and miserable. Give yourself a second chance at happiness. Call Robin R. Zegen for a consultation and learn about your options for a second chance at happiness.