Wow, once again some very great thoughts on here. Taken collectively, you all have an amazing ability to analyze things from all angles.
I don’t want to say too much to make them identifiable (their friends may be reading!), but this has come up before in their relationship. I tried to be mediator and was successful (at least I helped in some manner), but here we are over a year later in the same spot. I truly think they just aren’t compatible. And yes, I’ve asked them to get counceling to no avail – at various times, one or the other won’t go.
I guess I had thrown out the no-lawyer option because they aren’t seeing eye to eye on how the divorce would go (from what I hear, anyway). But these posts have made me rethink that option – they aren’t that far apart and it certainly would save them money, which is very tight for them right now. So thank you all for making me re-examine that option for them.
What I hadn’t considered is that even if they can’t reach perfect agreement among themselves, if the court has formulas for how to do the split, maybe they’ll both agree to accept whatever comes out the other end of those equations. That might work. Thank you, tg.
I was trying to convince them to stay together because of the kids, but at a certain point staying together really does more harm than good. They are all miserable. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to help at all.