Therapeutic Divorce
Says she: ?The last decade of my life was hell and I do not want to even think about those terrible years. I cannot tell you the relief and the sense of peace and freedom I feel now. It is such a gift to get control of my life back in my own hands and not to do everything second-guessing if my husband will approve of it or castigate me. What I have learnt is that your personal freedom is a commodity that you should never trade for anything in the world.?
Or take the case of Ralph Newton. Trapped in a loveless marriage for 20 years, he was dissatisfied with his wife who would not want to make any body contact with him and instead she would prefer to be involved with her career all the time.
?I was not a priority for her; her career and promotion was. There was no warmth or spark in the marriage. We were like two strangers who had to perforce come back to the same house for spending the night. It was a sister-brother kind of relationship with no sex or intimacy,? he explains.
Newton is glad to have finally walked out of the dysfunctional marriage through divorce and is now looking forward to establishing a fulfilling and mutually satisfying relationship with another woman who takes interest in him and makes him feel worthy and valued.
Marriage is a social institution which came into existence as soon as man learnt to live in groups. It is a wonderful arrangement between two individuals who come together to share the rest of their lives with each other. Without this institutional mechanism and the obligations that go with it, establishing a family and rearing children would be impossible and there will be chaos in the society.
But what if the marriage goes bad and there is no hope of salvaging it? What if the institution that is meant to nurture individuals begins to stifle their growth and becomes a suffocating trap? In earlier times, one had to go along with it, whether for good or bad. Marriage was considered a social contract that was almost impossible to break.
Those who discarded it ? especially women ? had to carry a lifelong stigma. Not any more! Today, divorce is easily available and quite common. It is the only effective way by which an individual can legally and permanently wriggle out of a bad relationship and start a new life.
Fresh Start: With a divorce, you can leave all the unhealthy experiences with your spouse behind, make a clean break from the past and start from scratch all over again. Some relationships cannot be redeemed and sticking with them for years in an orgy of self-torture is simply not worth it. It is much better to snap all ties and salvage what is left of your life while you can.
Mental peace: With divorce, the chain of traumatic experiences that you suffer in an unhappy marriage is abruptly broken. For a bad relationship, divorce is a surgeon?s scalpel, not a slow and steady cure. Though the traumatic memories remain with you for a long time, they start ebbing gradually as some other partner enters your life and you get busy with new pursuits or romantic interests.
Individual Freedom: Divorce restores to you all the individual freedoms that were taken away from you when you entered the abusive and caustic relationship. Once you separate, you have the exhilarating awareness that no one has control over your life anymore except your own self. You are free to do what you want and accept or reject anything depending on your free will. There is no domineering presence in your life that stunts your growth and guides your daily routine.
Financial Freedom: Divorce offers you financial freedom. It is really a relief to get rid of a spendthrift partner who would burn up all your hard-earned earnings while you watched helplessly. All your money after divorce remains with you and gets spent on your own needs or it contributes toward building assets that you own personally.
Freedom to Experiment: When you divorce and make a fresh start in your personal life, you are free to broaden your horizons and experiment with new, more fulfilling relationships. This is the sure cure for middle-age blues and general boredom that manifest themselves at one time or another in life.
James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you want to find out more about a solicitor managed divorce see http://www.managed-divorce.co.uk
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