Perseverance and Quitaverance

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Before we can create a good, life-serving assessment of whether to continue in a marriage or not, we must get beyond the toxic ideas that perseverance is always good and quitting (quitaverance) is always bad. We must let go of the ideas that staying married is necessarily a good thing and getting a divorce is necessarily bad.

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Letting go of the ideas of good and bad, right and wrong

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Being married or staying married is neither good nor bad, right nor wrong. It is just one option that we can have which will either serve us best or not. Similarly, being single or getting married is neither good nor bad, right nor wrong. It is just another option that we can have which will either serve us best or not.

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Two more barriers to making the best choice

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Even after de-toxifying the ideas of perseverance and quitting, of marriage and divorce, two cognitive biases can still trip us up.

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Those biases are the sunk cost fallacy and the status quo bias.

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Un-biasing these two biases: using imagination to uncover the truth

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Anyone who is successful in playing the stock market knows one simple rule about when to sell if the stock is on the downside:

 

“If I sold this stock at its current price and I had the money in my hands right now, knowing what I know now about its performance and prospects, would I re-invest that money in the same stock?”

 

If the answer is “no,” then the savvy investor, perhaps choosing courage, gets out and cuts his or her losses.

 

The investor who doesn't want to face the truth and accept the loses, hoping the stock will rise, stays in and most often compounds their losses. They end up throwing good money after bad.

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Using the same principle to uncover the truth about your marriage

 

We would all be well-served if we applied this same principle to our marriages. Certainly, the question of staying married or getting divorced is a more complex decision.

 

We must calculate the costs of getting out just as we would factor in the selling commissions we would have to pay for liquidating our non-performing stock. Nevertheless, the same principle applies.

 

Ask yourself this question, “Imagine that I was somehow magically already divorced from my spouse and was already living the life I could have without him or her. But then I am presented with the option of marrying them again.

 

Knowing what I know now, about this person, about how we interact with each other, about how we give each other pleasure and pain, about how we inspire or discourage by each other, would I then choose to re-marry this person?”

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Is your answer "no," "not sure," or "yes"?

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If your answer is a definitive “no,” then it’s time to get a divorce, choosing courage if necessary, and committing yourself to the best divorce possible.

 

If your answer is “I’m not sure,” then it’s time to seek heavy-duty counseling for yourself and your relationship.

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If your answer is "yes" or "yes with a trial period," then it's time to create a new intention to bring spark into your marriage.

 

What about children and divorce?

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If children are involved and your answer is “no,” the decision is more complex because the benefits and costs to the children of either staying married or getting divorced are likely quite important to you and your spouse. 

 

These must also be considered, but the principle still remains the same, while factoring in those benefits and costs, both short-term and long-term.

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Divorce with children

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Divorce doesn't have to be difficult for children, especially if you approach it in a non-blame way, which is the best way for you and your spouse anyway, giving you the best chance to have a great divorce you can celebrate. Children, especially younger ones, will tend to accept and embrace the attitude of their parents, where there is nobody to blame; it's just a process, if possible done in partnership, to go through to create a better context for everyone.

 

Divorce can be great for kids. I know of several people, including ones with children, who created an outstanding divorce that was better for everyone, including the kids.

 

Questions to ask regarding your children and divorce

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Ask yourself these questions,

 

• “What are the likely costs and benefits for my kids if they continue to live with two parents who get little or no pleasure from each other and often inflict pain on each other?”

• “By remaining married, what example are we setting for our kids about choosing the courage to live a life of genuine love, self-expression, and vitality?”

• “What are the likely costs and benefits for my kids if they spend time with parents who are separated, thereby increasing the quality time with each parent, but happier and more satisfied after their divorce?”

 

Unnecessary costs of divorce for children

 

Going through a divorce can be rough, rough on the parents and rough on the kids. However, almost all of the damage children experience from divorce is not the result of the divorce itself. It is the result of the husband and wife resisting the divorce, blaming each other, and feeling guilty for the breakdown of their relationship. Separation and divorce can be a time of great celebration and healing if it is approached powerfully and courageously.

 

If you are married or in a committed relationship, asking yourself these questions will probably be a choice of courage. What are your authentic answers when you ask yourself these questions above?

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Divorce in my family

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For myself, when I decided to divorce my wife Yuko, I committed myself to having a great divorce. It turned out even better than I thought it could.

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When my brother decided to divorce his first wife, he and my mother went out to have dinner together to celebrate. A few years later, my brother met and married a woman who fit with him to a tee. 

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My sister created an awesome partnership and divorce with her first husband, which included a three-year-old daughter at the time. Later when my sister remarried to a man she fit with perfectly, her daughter would brag to classmates at school, "I've got two dads!" That's a tribute to my sister's approach to her divorce from her first husband.

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My mother's divorce, in contrast, was unnecessarily hard. She was so deep inside the HOGAB in her attitude toward my father, especially after living with a man she didn't love and didn't respect for 41 years. It was impossible for her to seriously consider creating a great divorce. She had to blame him, as well as blame herself. In one moment of insight that shed light on her decision to divorce my father, she said to me, "I just had to keep remembering all the terrible things he did in order to allow myself to leave him. Otherwise, I would feel too sorry for him and could not leave him because of the guilt I would feel."

 

 

"Better break your word than do worse in keeping it."

-Thomas Fuller (1608-1661, British clergyman, author)

 

"I’ve been married three times – and each time I married the right person."

-Margaret Mead (1901-1978, American anthropologist)