As an attorney, I am a “counselor at law.” Some unhappily married folks who sit across my desk, contemplating and discussing the end of their marriage, would be better off seeing a different counselor first.
Many of the unhappily married are clearly better off ending their marriage. A 20-something spouse with no children can end a “starter marriage” with little financial and emotional stress and no future entanglements. Ironically, the recent upswing in “grey divorce” makes sense. A couple who have maintained an unhappy marriage to raise their children to fledgling stage and establish sufficient wealth that they can live comfortably may find solo life or a different romantic relationship a more authentic way to spend their final years. And some marriages are so fraught that divorce is a clear best option. Disengaging from a spouse with serious untreated mental health or substance problems, or a propensity towards domestic violence or financial irresponsibility, is often the only path toward a stable life.[1] Such marriages may be capable of reconciliation, but they all require the other spouse’s behavior to change before reconciliation is possible.
Yet some spouses who sit across my desk have a marriage complicated by financial dependency or co-parenting obligations. Unwinding these entanglements is always painful—and will be a cause of lengthy, perhaps permanent, unhappiness. Ending such marriages due to mere unhappiness simply trades one source of unhappiness for another. When these marriages end, at least one spouse is typically—if not necessarily permanently—worse off financially. When these marriages end, the ability to cooperatively co-parent often ends. Even when cooperative co-parenting doesn’t end, parenting becomes more complicated when multiple households are involved.
Moreover, the cause of the unhappiness in many of these marriages are due to the spouses’ inability to handle situational stress in a healthy way. Modern middle-class America—with its stronger emphasis on parental investment and having “nice” homes—places physical, emotional, mental, and financial pressures on married parents. Balancing child(ren) and household-maintenance responsibilities with the needs for play, romance, and eroticism, isn’t easy. Marriages cannot sustain when these needs are treated as something optional for adults—as opposed to treating them as something that must be given less emphasis at a particular life stage.
Thus, I encounter many unhappy spouses, often parents of minor children, who are unhappy because their life has become unbalanced. It is easy for these folks to conclude that separation and divorce is the remedy to their unhappiness. It is hard to examine what decisions are leading to their life’s imbalance and how to create better balance. The easy route places the blame on their spouse. The hard route requires self-reflection and personal change.
Hence counseling. A period of individual counseling—not marriage counseling—prior to seeking a divorce lawyer can help folks identify how their own behaviors may be driving marital conflict. Often fixing those behaviors ameliorates many of the stresses that caused the marital unhappiness. Individual counseling can also help folks gain clarity on life goals. If one source of marital conflict is differing priorities on the balance between children, marriage, and work, understanding one’s priorities can help a divorce attorney determine the desired resolution.
A husband torn between career goals and family obligations might, through counseling, conclude that work is a priority. This isn’t a typical choice—our culture certainly discourages it. However, it may be his authentic choice. Perhaps the marriage could be saved through an honest discussion that requires him to consider what his wife might want from him to maintain a marriage in which she is stuck with a supermajority of household responsibility. If not, paying some alimony and forgoing joint custody would enable him to pursue career with a singular focus and less conflict.
A stay-at-home mother might, through counseling, conclude she really wants to delay any career until the children are older so she can be fully present while they are young. She might accept her disappointment with her husband as necessary to achieve that goal. She might then be less critical of her husband for not meeting all of her needs and more appreciative of a husband whose work enables her to achieve parenting goals. This would make her marriage better if not ideal. She might instead conclude that pursuing independence is more important than remaining in an unhappy marriage—in which case divorce and a career requiring childcare would become her goal.
The point is these folks shouldn’t pursue divorce due to mere unhappiness and then expect me to cure their unhappiness and determine which possible life path their litigation strategy should pursue. They should come to me with a clear and realistic life path and ask me to help them pursue it.
Individual counseling will often ameliorate the stressors that are causing marital unhappiness. Even when it doesn’t, such counseling will provide spouses with greater insight into their path forward. Expecting a divorce lawyer to provide a path to greater happiness through a heedless pursuit of marital dissolution often leads to greater unhappiness.
[1] The same is true for adultery that a spouse is unwilling to tolerate.
Fantastic blog post, Greg.
Well said. I usually refer clients to counseling, whether they believe the marriage is salvageable or not – for themselves. Divorce is a grief-process, and huge life upheaval (I know I don’t have to point that out here, but it never ceases to amaze me how some people actually think the grass is SO green, the getting to it should be painless). I also remind them that my personality is far from suited for mental health counseling. 😏