Divorce is almost always harder, slower, more expensive, and more damaging—financially and emotionally—than people expect. Unless you are married to someone truly abusive or irreparably toxic, the better course is often working on your marriage rather than ending it. If divorce is unavoidable, prepare yourself financially, emotionally, and legally. Courts divide property fairly, not punitively, so “getting even” is not realistic from a financial or emotional perspective. Your children will feel the effects of divorce for life, so shielding them from undue suffering is paramount. Divorce may be the right decision in some cases, but it is far too often taken lightly.
Marriage vs. Divorce: A Hard Truth
Unless you are married to someone truly abusive or irreparably toxic, divorce will likely leave you worse off by almost every measure than if you stayed married and worked out your differences.
Divorced individuals experience, on average, lower household income, diminished retirement savings, and higher stress compared to their married peers. Even if divorce brings relief in some respects, it often introduces a host of new burdens: financial strain, logistical headaches, and ongoing conflict.
Marriage Is Bigger Than Self-Interest
Marriage is not just about your happiness—it is about building and sustaining a family. That doesn’t mean you should sacrifice your entire sense of self to your marriage, but paradoxically, deeper personal fulfillment often comes from putting your spouse’s and children’s needs before your own.
Divorce, by contrast, reorganizes the family in a way that rarely leaves anyone fully satisfied. Even in “amicable” divorces, the costs are significant. Many people later realize that they underestimated how much they valued the stability and partnership of marriage.
Don’t Confuse a Rough Patch With Your Marriage’s Doom
Every marriage has rough patches. Financial stress, raising children, illness, or career pressures can create friction that feels insurmountable in the moment. But temporary difficulty is not proof of permanent incompatibility.
Couples often find that, with time, effort, and maturity, they emerge from those seasons stronger and more resilient. Divorce should be a last resort, not the first response to discouragement or frustration.
If Divorce Is Truly Necessary, Prepare First
Sometimes divorce is unavoidable, and in cases of danger or abuse, quick action is essential. But if you have the opportunity to prepare, it can make a tremendous difference.
Financial Preparation
If you are financially dependent on your spouse, don’t assume that support will continue after divorce. Court orders for alimony or child support may help, but no court order is a guarantee of financial security. Enforcement of court orders is imperfect, and even when payments are made, they rarely sustain the same standard of living.
Expect at least a short-term decrease in your lifestyle. Think now about how you will support yourself—through employment, budgeting, retraining, and building savings. Divorce is often a financial reset.
Emotional Preparation
Divorce is as much psychological as it is legal. Feelings of grief, guilt, anger, and loneliness are normal. You will benefit significantly from a strong support system of friends and family. Courts resolve legal issues, not emotional ones. Having people you can lean on is what will help you through the darkest moments.
While some benefit greatly from therapy or counseling, divorce does not make everyone “sick” or mentally or emotionally crippled to the point that they need professional help. In my opinion, therapy/counseling is oversold to people and families going through divorce, so be discriminating in that regard.
Don’t Expect Courts to Punish Your Spouse
Many people believe divorce is a way to “even the score” for abuse, infidelity, or selfishness. No. Courts are not in the business of punishing spouses. The legal system is designed to divide assets and responsibilities fairly and position the parties to move on with their lives separately—not to mete out vengeance.
This means that your spouse’s bad behavior may not have the impact you hoped for as to how property is divided, how much alimony is awarded, or how child custody is determined. Courts focus on fairness, needs, and the best interests of children, not morality plays. If you enter divorce proceedings looking for punishment, you’ll leave disappointed and drained.
Divorce and Children: The Harshest Toll
Divorce is usually hardest on children. Even when they appear to adjust, most carry scars into adulthood. Studies show higher rates of anxiety, depression, lower educational attainment, and difficulties forming stable adult relationships among children of divorce.
One of the worst things divorcing parents can do is place their children in the middle of the divorce conflicts. I am still, after decades of practicing divorce law, shocked at how often divorcing parents exploit their children as pawns. Using your children—your minor children—as confidants and disparaging the other parent to them compounds the children’s misery and exacerbates the harm they suffer.
Watch for Hidden Pain
Divorce creates wounds that require ongoing vigilance and care. Children often hide their distress from parents because they don’t want to add to the burden and/or because they don’t know who they can trust. This doesn’t mean they’re unaffected. They need reassurance, stability, and attention. Therapy may (may) help, but it cannot replace the daily love and presence of both parents committed to supporting them—if outsource what your children need from you to a therapist, your children will resent it.
The Reality of Litigation
Divorce litigation is slow, expensive, and often unsatisfying. It is not a fast track to “justice.” Contested divorces can drag on for years, draining finances and emotional energy.
Even when the process concludes, few people walk away feeling victorious. Assets are split, debts are divided, and custody arrangements rarely align perfectly with what either parent wanted. Courts operate with blunt tools; they rarely deliver the elegant solutions people hope for.
Alternatives to Divorce
Before filing, consider alternatives:
- Marriage and Family Counseling or Therapy: Even though I feel we are oversaturated with therapy in modern culture, good (good) counseling and therapy have their place in times of emotional and mental distress.
- Many couples approach marriage counseling like a last-ditch effort to “fix” everything. Counseling can be valuable, but not because it magically repairs a marriage in a handful of sessions. Counseling creates a structured space for communication, helping each spouse recognize and understand patterns, triggers, and unmet needs. It can reveal whether problems are situational (stress, communication failures) or truly fundamental (betrayal, abuse, incompatibility). Even when it doesn’t save the marriage, it may help clarify what’s really wrong, which can make the divorce process less bitter as the issues are better defined.
- Mediation: A neutral facilitator can help couples work through issues without the adversarial framework of court. Be warned, however: Mediation is often promoted as if it were a shortcut through the pain of divorce—a kind of “cheat code” that will save you money, resolve conflict, and spare you from court. The truth is more complicated.
- A skilled mediator can help couples identify shared interests, reality-check unrealistic demands, and work toward a settlement without the adversarial framework of trial. Many cases do settle in mediation, and when both parties are genuinely willing to compromise, it can be quicker and less costly.
- But mediation is not a magic bullet. It cannot erase bitterness, force someone to be fair, or prevent hidden conflicts from resurfacing later. If one spouse dominates or manipulates, mediation can entrench imbalance instead of resolving it. Even when it succeeds, mediation still requires legal review, drafting of binding agreements, and often further negotiation.
In short: mediation is a tool—sometimes a good one—but not a cure-all. Going in with realistic expectations will prevent disappointment and help you use it wisely.
- Trial separation: Living apart for a time can help you determine if divorce is truly the right step or if reconciliation is possible.
- A trial separation can be a wake-up call. Living apart temporarily gives both spouses a clearer sense of what life would actually feel like without the other. It can reduce tension, break cycles of conflict, and offer perspective on whether divorce is truly the right step.
- But a trial separation is not a neutral experiment. It is disruptive, expensive, and can create its own problems—like separate households, confusion for children, or drifting further apart instead of closer together. For some couples, it is the bridge back to reconciliation; for others, it is simply the first stage of divorce.
Exploring these alternatives first can help you avoid the irreversible consequences of divorce—or at least ensure that if you proceed, you do so with a clear mind.
Custody Myths
Persistent myths surrounding child custody are 1) that custody automatically goes to the mother, and 2) that 50/50 child custody is guaranteed. The reality is more complex.
In many jurisdictions, child custody laws are written to be gender-neutral and judges are instructed to decide custody based on the “best interests of the child.” And over the last few decades, fathers have won joint or even primary custody more frequently than ever before. The trend is moving—slowly but surely—toward recognizing the value of both parents.
That said, the cultural and institutional bias in favor of awarding custody to mothers is still alive and well in many courtrooms. Fathers are often treated as second-class parents—expected to prove themselves as “good enough” while mothers are presumed capable unless proven otherwise. This bias is unfair, damaging, and beneath the dignity of a legal system that should know better than to traffic in prejudice. But ignoring it won’t make it go away.
The bias may be waning, but it has not disappeared. Fathers need to know this and prepare to meet it and defeat it. That means proving by undeniable amounts and quality of evidence that fathers clearly demonstrate consistent caregiving, plainly document involvement in the children’s lives, and indisputably show a stable, nurturing environment. Courts may not say they favor mothers, but the practical reality is that fathers usually need much more and much stronger evidence and more patience to achieve equal footing in a child custody award.
The takeaway: joint custody is attainable, and sole custody for fathers is possible in the right circumstances, but it’s rarely handed over without effort. Fathers must go in with eyes open, prepared to show not only that they are capable parents but that treating them as anything less than equal is unjust.
Post-Divorce Realities
Divorce doesn’t sever all ties, especially if children are involved. You will remain connected through shared history, shared parenting, financial obligations, medical decisions, school events, and milestones for years to come.
Even after children grow up, you may still be connected through weddings, grandchildren, or shared social circles. Divorce doesn’t erase your spouse from your life; it reorganizes the relationship into something often more complicated than what you had before.
Divorce is necessary in some situations—abuse, chronic betrayal, or irretrievable breakdown. But for many, it creates more difficulties than it resolves. Courts divide families, they don’t heal them.
If you are contemplating divorce, pause. Explore alternatives. Prepare yourself financially and emotionally. If divorce is truly the best course, go in with open eyes and realistic expectations. Prepare for things to get worse before they get better. Divorce is not the “easy button” many imagine—but with preparation, it can be navigated with dignity, care for your children, and a sound foundation for rebuilding your future.
Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277