Emotional Divorce Can Often Occur Before The Actual Divorce
Emotional divorce can occur when partners become emotionally separated from the marriage. There are some spouses who get emotionally separated even before their divorce.
There are other people for whom the process starts after the divorce comes through. Most of the times, a divorce is one-sided. Typically when a spouse has separated from the marriage at an emotional level, they want a divorcé. There are some spouses who are known to struggle for several years feeling emotionally distant before they realize that they need to get divorced to solve their marital problems. Such spouses are known as “walk-away” spouses.
There are various reasons why a walk-away spouse gets emotionally detached. When a spouse gets emotionally detached, it is a way of mentally asserting that certain boundaries should be maintained in a marriage when the marriage is not safe for them or they get hurt. When a person gets emotionally divorced, he or she can have a feeling of psychological integrity.
Most of the times, emotional divorce occurs before the process of legal divorce since these people feel that they needed to withdraw into a shell and safeguard themselves from the conflicts in the marriage.
Left-behind spouse is the spouse who has been left behind for dealing with their emotions post the legal divorce taking place. Either of the spouses can divorce themselves emotionally from the marriage. However, this phenomenon is observed more in the case of women.
Features of walk-away spouses
- Not communicative after spending several years of making attempts to communicate
- A walk-away spouse becomes distant and cold. He or she has no interest to work on the marriage.
- He or she is out of the home for a long time as an escape route from the unhappy marriage
- The walk-away spouse has become impatient and irritable and is not cooperative towards attempts made by spouse to continue with the marriage
- They would like the divorce process to complete very fast
Control one’s emotions
A left-behind spouse has a natural instinct of controlling the situation. They did not see the tell-tale warning signs that could have alerted them that their marriage was shaky. Plus they were clueless about ways to respond effectively. Hence, they behave in a fashion that made the walk-away spouse go away even further emotionally.
To learn more about the divorce process in California and how mediation can help, please visit our page, What is Divorce Mediation.
Gerald A. Maggio is a trained Orange County divorce mediator who has amicably resolved cases many cases out of court, as well as an experienced divorce and family law attorney. Mr. Maggio founded California Divorce Mediators in 2012 with the belief that although “not every marriage can be saved, every family can” and a mission to save families from the financial and emotional distress associated with traditional divorce litigation. California Divorce Mediators is located in Irvine, California, and serves the Orange County area and other counties in California offering divorce mediation, child custody mediation and mediation of other family law matters.
