Divorce: poison pill or helpful remedy?
by Mira and Charles on August 31st, 2009What should you do if you’re in an unhappy marriage: get a divorce or stick it out? This question has long tormented many thoughtful people. A lot of people think that unless there is physical or emotional abuse, then you should stick it out. And that’s because, they say, divorce is such a costly alternative. Now there may be new evidence that divorce is more costly than many of us think. But is it? We need to look more deeply.
An article in the August 8, 2009, New York Times entitled “Divorce, It Seems, Can Make You Ill” raises this issue and, if you don’t read much beyond the headline, it seems to warn people away from divorce. According to the research the article highlights, people in their fifties and early sixties who lost a spouse to death or divorce had about 20 percent more chronic health problems than people who stayed married or who had never married. This increase in health problems seemed to be mostly related to stress.
So what does all this mean? Well, one obvious conclusion is, Divorce is stressful. If you’re getting divorced, get all the support you can and make sure you take care of yourself.
But should fear of negative health outcomes prevent you from getting divorced in the first place?
Well, only if you’re getting divorced for trivial reasons. But of course very few people do that. The opposite is usually true. Most often people stay in bad marriages for a very long time, long after it was clear that this marriage was causing more pain and trouble than it was worth.
But even so, should fear of getting hit with health problems cause you to stay in a bad marriage? That’s not what the researchers say. On the contrary, one of them, Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, an
And that of course is the key. This study does not compare the costs of staying in a bad marriage versus leaving. Most experts agree: bad marriages are bad for you. Most people who elect to get divorced, especially when they do so for the right reasons, are glad they did.
It’s like having an operation. Those are stressful too. Some of them have problems that come up as a result. But the right operation for the right reason will usually leave you better off.
Of course, with divorces as with operations, who your doctor is usually makes a big difference. You shouldn’t go through a divorce unless you have the help of an experienced therapist whose work is guided by real research into best practices, which by the way is just what you get from us here at The Chestnut Hill Institute.
This still leaves the question, When should you get divorced? What problems are fixable, what problems can you live with, and what problems indicate that you’d be better off leaving the marriage?
Many people agonize over this question for a long time. But there is a classic book that has the answers. It is Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay, and it has been helping people figure out what to do about their marriages for over a decade. Just check out the reviews on Amazon and you’ll see why this is such a respected and helpful classic.
So when it comes to divorce, the guidelines are quite clear: Make sure you’re doing the right thing, do it right, and don’t be afraid. And you’ll be okay.
That’s what we’ve found. What about you? What’s your experience been? If you got a divorce in the right way for the right reasons, how did it turn out? And if you got a divorce in any way for any reasons, what do you wish you’d done differently? We’d all love to hear.
