If you are wondering whether you should fix the problems in your marriage or whether it’s best to walk away, the following tips may help you out.
1. There is no emotional or physical abuse involved
Emotional and physical abuse in a marriage is a no no and is not okay in any relationship. Physical abuse is any intentional and unwanted contact with you or something close to your body.
Noticing and acknowledging the signs of an abusive marriage is the first step to ending it. No one should live in fear of the person they love.
If you are married to someone who has always respected you and has never abused you physically or emotionally, then perhaps your marriage is worth saving.
2. Strain on the relationship that can be attributed to the children
Researchers have studied how having kids affects a marriage, and the results are conclusive: the relationship between spouses suffers once kids come along. Comparing couples with and without children, researchers found that parenthood is typically associated with lower levels of marital happiness.
If you have children together and have drifted apart, this is not in and of itself a reason to get separated or divorced. Most married couples go through hard times after having children. As long as there’s still, love and respect, a marriage can survive.
3. You haven’t tried marital counseling
Marriage counseling can help couples begin to explore their problems from a new perspective. It can also provide a “neutral territory” to help couples work through tough issues or to put aside “baggage” that prevents the couple from moving on.
However for marriage counselling to work, both spouses need to be willing to take responsibility for their part in the problems, to accept each other’s faults, and to be motivated to repair the relationship.
Married couples often face issues that are sometimes too much to work through alone. Before you throw in the towel on your marriage reach out and get professional help. Many churches and religious institutions in Nigeria offer marital counseling, if your case is urgent, you should escalate it and get the help that you need. You may be surprised at what a difference it makes.
4. You both want the best for your children
Children did not ask their parents to bring them into the world. Therefore, it is not the children who owe the parents. Parents brought their children into this world. That means the parents have responsibilities and obligations to their children.
Dissolving a family has enormous repercussions on children. Kids are shuffled from home to home. Family finances suffer due to the need to maintain separate households. Parents are often preoccupied with their own emotional well-being to the detriment of their children. And then there are second marriages and the unique challenges of step-parents. In addition second and subsequent marriages are less likely to succeed than first marriages, requiring, even more, changes to children’s lifestyles.
If your only reason for divorce is that you’ve “grown apart,” or you are “unhappy”, do your best to work on your marriage. Parents need to create a marriage that is nurturing for not only themselves but their children also. According to sociologist Paul Amato, there are “two categories of children who are most at risk for future psychological problems: those who grow up with parents who stay married but remain conflicted and hostile, and those whose parents are in low-conflict marriages and divorce anyway.”
Source: Davinadiaries.com