What Is The Meaning Of An Emotional Divorce?

By Gerald A. Maggio, Esq.

Orange County divorce mediation lawyers; California Divorce MediatorsSome spouses use a psychological phenomenon called Emotional Divorce if they feel their marriage is now a threat for their very well-being. If you opt for an Emotional Divorce from your spouse, you are actually segregating your emotions and feelings from the marriage. This is felt by some couples even before a divorce. However for other, it happens only post the divorce process, in a majority of the cases, divorce is a one-sided affair. It is a very rare phenomenon when a couple sits down and arrives at a consensus to divorce one another.  This is typically when a spouse is no longer emotionally attached to his or her marriage and wants to obtain a divorce. This spouse has already gone through the divorce emotionally and now wants to legally get unattached from their spouse.

Walk-away and left-behind spouses

There are cases when some spouses go through years of struggles as they emotionally feel distant from their spouses prior to arriving at a conclusion that divorce is the ultimate solution to all those marital problems they are going through or how they feel emotionally about the marriage, such spouses are known as “walk-away spouses”.

There could be various reasons for walk-away spouses to feel emotionally detached from their partners. The most common technique to remain emotionally detached from a marriage is when the spouse starts drawing boundaries they feel hurt or believe that the marriage is no longer safe for him or her.

When a spouse goes for an Emotional Divorce, it will be helpful in maintaining some kind of a psychological integrity whey face an emotionally disturbed situation.

Ideally, Emotional Divorce for some happens before a legal divorce as they felt that there was a strong requirement to protect and withdraw themselves from their marital problems.

A left-behind spouse is one who has to cope with his or her feelings and emotions post the legal divorce. But irrespective of the kind of role that you will be playing, it is imperative for you to handle the divorce process in a mature manner and start viewing yourself like a separate individual not as a wife or a husband.

No matter if you are the wife or the husband, emotional divorce from marriage is possible. However, this phenomenon is more prevalent in women as compared to men.

Having control over your feelings

A left behind spouse usually has a tendency to look for avenues for controlling the situation. These spouses did not see the warning symptoms, symptoms that hinted that their marriage was shaky and feel at a loss to understand how they should respond.  As such, their response becomes such that drove their walk-away spouse even further away emotionally.

To learn more about the divorce process in California and how mediation can help, please visit our page, What is Divorce Mediation