If there's one thing those of us who have been married for a while know, it's that staying married over the long haul ain't always easy. Thank goodness for couples therapy, right? Or ... not? An article in The New York Times this weekend kind of blew apart the notion I had of couples counseling being the THE ANSWER.
This is a blog post by a member of the YourTango community and does not represent the opinions of YourTango.com or its employees. January is the busiest month of the year for divorce proceedings to be started. Why the New Year?
Today we learned that another celebrity marriage is ending; Katy Perry & Russell Brand will be filing for divorce. It's big news because they're young and famous, because the marriage only lasted 14 months and because they always seemed an unlikely couple. But marriages are ending every day among us, especially as the new year begins. As someone who's never been married, it makes me wonder. Do people get so caught up in the whirlwind romance that they don't think about the idea of lifetime commitment? Or do they go into the marriage thinking, "I hope this works, but good thing for 'irreconcilable differences' in California"?
For many people, separating from a life-partner is the single most tragic and painful event of their lives. Recovering from such a blow is rarely an easy or pleasant process. Watching a close friend go through the divorce process presents its own set of problems. You want to help, but it can be extremely difficult to approach your friend—an individual with whom you are accustomed to sharing considerably happier times—in this period of profound anger, sorrow, and/or uncertainty.
I won't go into the dirty details, but trust me when I say that my divorce was the saddest and most painful thing that's ever happened to me. What made it worse? The really dumb things that people would say when I told them my husband and I were no longer together.
When I was a sophomore in college, I started seeing a counselor re: my daddy issues. Up until that first appointment, I had been making it a point to only get involved with guys who made it easy for me to control the situation — so that they wouldn't up and leave me the way my dad left my mom and I when they got divorced. I thought, "If my own father can hurt me, you will, too."
Today, HowAboutWe explored whether celebs' short courtships could be the reason for their short marriages. Indie sweethearts Zooey Deschanel and Ben Gibbard, who just announced their separation, only dated for a year before their two-year marriage. Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries? Six months.
I see a great many couples in my private practice. Lately, there seems to be a theme: couples who have been together or married for many years, who have "grown apart." This feeling is usually expressed by one partner, while the other is caught somewhat off-guard, not realizing things have gotten as bad as they are until the unhappy partner suggests a separation, divorce, or counseling. The expression of incredulity on my clients' faces shows that they really don't understand how their partner could be ready to walk out. The unhappy partner, on the other hand, doesn't understand why their mate is so slow to realize how unhappy they have been. How does this happen? How is it that each partner's experience of the relationship is so different?
Believe what you hear, divorce is hard. Actually, that's an understatement. Divorce is devastating. Other than perhaps the death of a family member, the severing of what was expected to be a lifelong union is about as emotionally crippling as any life as experience an individual will ever survive. I speak from experience. Multiply that agony by ten if there are children involved. Even when the divorce is amicable, as mine was over a decade ago, the massive weight of the realization that the world you had built with your soon-to-be-ex and the end of your journey with a person who at some point was the closest person in the world to you is downright smothering. It's an awful, soul-crushing rollercoaster and every time someone sarcastically remarks how easy it is for people to get divorced or how so-and-so "just left their marriage," my head feels like it's about to explode. If you honestly believe that, you've never been through a divorce.
We'd stopped being good to each other. We were no longer loving spouses. But by the time my husband suggested separating, I had reached an epiphany. Our marriage was worth saving, I'd decided, and I was willing to do anything it took.
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett are being forced to address the rumors swirling about their marriage. An unnamed source close to the couple told TMZ that the pair have decided to take a family vacation with their children before finalizing their plans, but the prospect of a divorce sometime in the near future is "definitely a possibility."
