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Summary
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A wife feels devastated after her husband requests a divorce and refuses counseling or other attempts to repair the marriage. She asks how to respond as he removes his wedding ring and prepares to leave.
The response expresses sympathy and explains that rebuilding a marriage requires willingness from both partners; one person cannot sustain the relationship alone.
It suggests that the departing spouse may have processed the loss before announcing it, leaving the other partner in shock.
If that interpretation fits, the answer encourages grieving, considering life after divorce, and obtaining legal representation to protect the reader's interests.
Question
Reader · Identity withheldMy husband asked me for a divorce the other day. I am devastated. He said I’m not the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with. It’s over.
\nWe have been together for 5 years. When it’s good, it’s really good. But when it’s bad, it’s miserable. He blames me for almost all of our arguments. I suggested counseling, separating, and seeing a pastor.
\nHe refuses.
\nThe day after he broke the news, I noticed he took his ring off. I am so hurt. He said he is setting the stage. I feel like he is breaking his commitment to our marriage before we even file.
\nPlease advise me, how should I react? Thanks.
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Answer
Ann LandersFirst, let me say that you have my sympathy. You’re confronted with a very difficult, very painful turn of events, and I wish you well in navigating yourself through them.
\nGenerically, you can think of relationships in trouble as either being savable or not. To fall within the category of savable relationships, both partners must still want to save the marriage, and be willing to work to make the relationship work. There must be a continuing spark of attraction and loyalty in both partners or the relationship will fail.
If that spark has extinguished in one or both partners, then the relationship is dead, and no amount of work by a single partner who still feels that flame will bring it back. One partner working alone cannot save a relationship.
\nIt seems to happen often enough that one partner’s flame of attraction and loyalty dies out without the other knowing that this has occurred.
The partner who is leaving has time to get used to the idea that their love is dying, and can grieve in their way, while the other partner doesn’t have this knowledge, and gets caught by surprise when the bomb ultimately drops. The leaving partner has already grieved prior to this event and remains cool while the left-behind partner goes into shock.
\nIt looks to me that this pattern I’ve described is a fair approximation of what you’re describing yourself caught up in. If you agree, the right move is to accept that the relationship is dead and not waste time and energy trying to rekindle something that is already dead.
Go scream and wail and cry (as you would at a funeral), and then figure out what your life will look like post-divorce. Get yourself a lawyer and look out for your interests. The world is ever-renewing, and if you give yourself some time, you will find your way.
Subject matter expert
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Relationships and marriage counseling
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