Your partner hits you with a huge surprise.?You thought things were fine, your relationship going along normally.?Then you hear the news.?Your partner has made plans, rented an apartment, and wants a divorce.
How did you miss this? Does this shake your belief in your own ability to read a situation, does this question your belief in yourself?
Some things to think about in dealing with this shocking situation:
- Yes, you may have missed some things.?Remember that your partner has been extremely afraid of telling you their feelings.?They wanted to be able to make plans and to get their ducks in a row.?They may have intentionally been misrepresenting their feelings to prepare themselves.
- There may not be any one particular reason, or there may be: an affair, relationship, or just growing apart.?The thought of telling a spouse about the desire for divorce is so difficult that many people never get to this point out of pure anxiety and just do nothing.
- Your partner has been grappling with this on their own, maybe with a therapist, maybe with their trusted friends, to figure out their own situation.?They have had time to think and ponder and actually make a decision.
- You did not have that time.?Now you need time to do the same thing, for yourself.? They cannot be on the same timeline as you are just starting on this path.?You need someone to talk to, someone to help you navigate this emotionally. You must reach out to those closest to you to process this.
- You need financial and legal advice.?What are your options financially? What are you entitled to? How can you even think about the future if you don’t have any idea of what the family finances look like?
- Counseling or Mediation – you need a safe place where you and your spouse can communicate, together or individually.?The communication may be unravelling the past for now – how did this happen? The communication can then move on to answer the question of how do we unravel the marriage.?That is where mediation can come in.
Allow yourself to take the time you need to prepare yourself and to understand how this situation came to be.?You can’t make the best decisions if you are operating on someone else’s timeline.
