Gender Wars and Divorce

I have always found it challenging that almost all of the popular literature on divorce vilifies women. This baffles me because scholarly research does not focus on gender in divorce. When examining why divorce happens, we do not take a gendered approach because researchers know that is reductive. Dividing divorce by gender denies that men can make emotion-based decisions and woman can make rational decisions. The decision to divorce or not is complex no matter what the issues are that you are facing. To complicate matters, the leading writers about divorce on the internet are divorce lawyers. What they write is self-serving, just as what I write is self-serving. I’m in the business of saving marriages. I am pro-marriage and have been married a really long time, and my own marriage has had to come back from our own devastations. At the end of the day, it is about how much devastation you can you endure. How many bad years are worth the good?

I will be honest that about a third of my own marriage has been a living hell. I hope it is never a living hell again, but that hell was worth every minute of union I now enjoy. We are fortunate that there was no infidelity or abuse. There was death, sickness, and emotional loneliness. I have not been in romantic love every second of my marriage, but I have always loved my husband, the father of my child, very much. I think the best version of myself is when I am deeply in love with my husband. I truly married my best friend. Are you married to your best friend? Were you ever best friends? Are you treating your spouse and your marriage like the most precious thing you have? If not, why? Has your spouse truly done the unforgivable? Are you really ready to walk away? I can say from my experience as a therapist that people leave relationships and end up dealing with the same issues in their next relationship.

My husband is not perfect and has hurt me and been forgiven. I can honestly say that most of the things that made me unhappy were within myself to change. It was my husband’s job to support the work I needed to do, and that was not always easy or done well. My husband also had work to do, and I was not always the support needed. I’m not proud of this, but I am proud that we figured it out and stayed married. I hope that whatever you decide that you decide in friendship. We worked on our friendship, and becoming best friends again, and being each other’s most trusted person. Being worthy of that trust is a beautiful journey even if it does not save the marriage. Being able to be someone’s most trusted person is for me to be the best version of myself. Being the best version of myself is the best and greatest gift I’ve ever given myself: even if my marriage should fail in the future, I am still someone I love being.