Home & Family Facts and Notes

We all hear it too often. Boy meets girl, both fall in love and decides to get married, down the road someone gets involved with an affair, one party is severely hurt by an affair and pushes for a divorce. Marriage ends and there goes another point to the board that says \”Happy Endings Are Myth\” and along with it paying the high cost of divorce, financially or emotionally.

These days, our society accepts divorce as an unfortunate but accepted reality of married life. While annulments have been around for centuries, divorces are different. Divorce is a way of ending a marriage, without the death of a spouse, while a more traditional annulment declared that a marriage was void from the beginning.

Some married couples mistakenly view divorce as a magic solution to their relationship problems. Yet in most cases this isn’t so and more disturbing is that they often jump to divorce without knowing the high cost of divorce, financially or emotionally.

Many couples see divorce as quick and easily handled, but the reality is quite different; some divorces stretch out for a long time, with the average taking about two years.

Also, while the price of a divorce lawyer ranges widely, most experts would say that the average lies around $3,000 each for a one-day trial; again, more than many people would expect.

Also, many people about to go through a divorce often underestimate the cost of splitting up that doesn’t appear at first glance. New mortgage payments or rent, a change in car or health insurance, the cost of a move to a new city or region, and of course child support or alimony, can all make a divorce a very costly thing to endure financially.

Then there’s the emotional cost of the whole ordeal that could lead to serious psychological problems. Divorce process encourages the focus of the past. Past mistakes, past problems and past disagreements. This diverts the attention of the present, resulting both parties slide to deeper anger and discontent with each other, reinforcing the problem rather than finding a solution.

Throughout the divorce process, each party will also likely feel a need to blame the other, reinforcing the sense of wrongdoing and victimhood. Instead of taking responsibility to fix the problem, a divorce encourages a person to place the blame for the marital stress on the other person. This could lead to a feeling of not being able to do anything about, helplessness, and all too often, clinical depression.

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