written by Jim Duzak  

From a legal standpoint, a divorce proceeding begins when either the husband or the wife files a court document commonly called a petition. Psychologically, though, the divorce process begins much earlier. No one wakes up and says, “I think I’m going to file for divorce today”, unless he or she has been agonizing over the decision for months or even years. Filing the petition is merely the outward expression of a long series of inward struggles. Although the legal case may just be beginning, in the mind of the petitioner the marriage is already over.

I’ve always felt that there are emotional stages of divorce similar to the emotional stages of serious illness that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross described in her book, “On Death and Dying.” The person filing for divorce typically goes through a denial stage (“I can’t believe my marriage is so unsatisfying”), an anger stage (“I hate the way he treats me”), a depression stage (“What good would divorce do? My life would be even worse afterward”), and an acceptance stage (“This is what I have to do”).

There’s a similar sequence of stages experienced by the other spouse, although the thought processes are different (“I can’t believe she’s doing this”; “I’m angry at her for what she’s doing to me”; etc). Unfortunately, though, the person who didn’t want the divorce may get stuck in the anger or depression stages and never reach the acceptance stage, which explains a lot of the bitterness that can linger long after the divorce is final.

It also helps explain why divorce cases drag on longer than necessary. Rarely are the two spouses in the same stage at the same time. The wife, for example, may have worked her way through to the acceptance stage, while her husband is still in the denial stage . In a case that, the husband will be doing everything he can to slow down the divorce and frustrate his wife’s plans. But the husband’s resistance will only serve to confirm the wife’s acceptance of the need for a divorce (“He’s proving what a jerk he is. I should have done this years ago”).

As I see it, the only way to ensure that both spouses work though the stages more-or-less in synch, is for the person contemplating divorce to express her dissatisfactions in no uncertain terms prior to filing for divorce. She should make it clear that the marriage is in danger of falling apart, and should insist that they go together—soon—to marriage counseling. These measures may be all tha...

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