Why You Can’t Decide If You Should Get a Divorce
It’s 2:14AM and your phone screen is burning holes in your face. You’ve got 17 tabs open and none of them are helping:
“Signs your marriage is over”
“How to know if your kids will survive a divorce”
“How to emotionally detach from your husband”
“What staying for the kids does to your nervous system”
And because every shame spirals need a sense of humor, a Buzzfeed quiz about what your Starbucks order says about your divorce risk. (You got “cold brew with almond milk,” which somehow made you cry harder. For reasons you don’t fully understand yet.)
Here’s what most of those articles won’t tell you: You’re not actually looking for an answer. You’re looking for relief. From the guilt. From the grief. From the whiplash of feeling one thing in the morning and the opposite by dinner.
But you don’t need more information. You need help sorting through what the hell is actually happening inside you.
Why You’re Confused About Divorce
That question you keep asking - “Should I stay or should I go?” - it sounds like the responsible question. The adult question. The get-your-shit-together question.
But it’s a setup. Because the moment you ask it, your brain stops being a brain and becomes a courtroom instead. And every voice in you starts building a case.
One argues for leaving. One swears you haven’t tried hard enough. One points to the kids. One screams that staying is killing you. One whispers that wanting more means you’re ungrateful. None of them agrees on anything.
Which is why that question doesn’t bring clarity - it triggers chaos, and leaves you trying to navigate a whole internal committee - and it’s fractious as hell.
But here’s what that really means: you don’t have a decision problem. You have a relationship problem - internally. With all the various sides of yourself that argue with each other. And forcing a verdict before you’ve made sense of the internal mess? That’s how you end up crying in the shower every morning (while everyone else assumes you shit rainbows all day long).
How to Get Clear About Divorce
A general rule I live by? When stuck, ask better questions.
You’ve been asking $20 questions like “Should I leave?”, and “Am I just being dramatic?” But those are courtroom questions. They demand a verdict. And when your internal system is already fractured and polarized, they tend to escalate things more than clarify.
So, let’s try out a million-dollar question instead, like: “What the hell is going on inside of me?”
Because that’s what you need to focus on - the spinning and the back-and-forth “decisions”. The way you wake up with one answer and go to bed with another. And better questions are what will get your focus to the place it needs to be.
And no, the spinning out isn’t you being broken. That’s just what happens to everyone when every part of them is yelling over each other, and they don’t know how to listen - yet. Some parts go numb. Some perform. Some shut down. Others scroll themselves into oblivion.
Ultimately, none of them feel like there’s a sturdy internal leader, and all of them don’t think you can handle what’s going on. So they’re just panic-throwing ideas around, hoping one of them hits on something that helps.
And asking those $20 questions is just adding fuel to their panic fire. But asking better questions? That’s how you start organizing your inner committee in a way that lets you be the leader.
Why It Feels So F*cking Hard to Make a Decision
There’s a version of you that still believes if you could just decide, the chaos would stop. But clarity doesn’t come through force; it comes through access. Access to your own truth, to your real wants, and to the quieter voice underneath the panic.
And right now, your access is being blocked by every part of you talking at the same time, because none of them feel safe enough to negotiate or listen to each other. One part is googling “how to save a marriage.” Another one is also googling...apartments and attorneys. And somewhere, there’s a voice that won’t stop rehearsing the speech you might give if you ever got brave enough to say it out loud.
When every voice is fighting for airtime - when none of them feels heard, and none of them trusts the others to get it right - there’s no ground inside you that’s steady enough to stand on.
But that’s not confusion. It’s not indecision either. It’s internal gridlock.
Until every part of you feels meaningfully included in the process - not just acknowledged, but actually considered - you won’t feel calm, clear, or confident (never mind content) with any decision you make.
And even if you get them all to the table, without a sturdy leader inside - someone those parts trust to hold the whole picture - committee meetings don’t stay meetings.
They become battlegrounds.
What You’d See If You Could Pause the Spiral
If you’re ever caught in an undertow, the safest thing you can do is, unfortunately, the most counterintuitive: stop fighting it. Because the more you thrash around and try to outswim it, the more you’ll exhaust yourself against a stronger force.
But if you surrender to it—if you let it carry you—it doesn’t just pull you under, it pulls you through.
The same is true here.
The moment you relent against the inner turmoil, even if only out of exhaustion, is the first chance you’ll have to feel it - a quiet space that exists beneath the chaos.
A flicker of something that doesn’t feel like panic. A voice that doesn’t promise certainty, just enough clarity to take the next right step. It’s not another opinion. It’s not a new strategy. It’s the version of you that sees the whole picture and doesn’t flinch.
And the second she shows up, you’ll start hearing what each part is trying to do for you - not just what they’re yelling about.
The part replaying every fight? She isn’t trying to turn you bitter. She’s trying to catch the exact moment things went sideways so you can stop it from happening again.
The one pushing for a decision isn’t trying to rush into a reckless decision - she just thinks if you pick something, the ache might finally stop.
The one numbing with wine and stacking up online impulse buys? She doesn’t mean to keep you buried—she’s just terrified that if you feel too much, those feelings will bury you.
And the one still performing like everything’s fine? She’s convinced that holding it together is the only thing keeping your world from falling apart.
Each of them has been trying to help. None of them trusts any of the others to get it right. And all of them believe they’re the only one standing between you and disaster.
Which means they’ve had no choice but to compete against each other to protect you - not from your spouse, but from heartbreak. From regret. From being the one who blew it.
And as you begin to hear their positive intentions, you see the scared, young logic behind it all, and you start to soften. What felt like a screaming match in your head starts to look a lot more like a kid in over her head.
And something in you - the real you - knows what to do with her.
Forget Decisions. Forget Divorce. You Need a Detour.
You don’t need another checklist. And you definitely don’t need another therapist to say, “Only you can know.”
What you need is a way to sort through what’s happening inside. A way to hear what each part of you is trying to say—without silencing, overriding, or rushing any of them into agreement. And that’s exactly what I teach inside Divorce Detour.
It isn’t therapy. It’s not advice. It’s not really even about divorce. It’s about learning to stop managing your chaos and start leading it.
In Divorce Detour, we don’t rush the verdict. We slow the spin.
So close your tabs, and let’s begin.
Other Services Offered with Good Woman Therapy
Curious to learn more about how a relationship counselor can help? Send me a message! As an IFS therapist, I love helping women and fellow therapists navigate their everyday lives with greater ease using Internal Family Systems Therapy and specialize in therapy for stress & overwhelm, inner critics, perfectionism, peacekeeping, and relationship concerns. My office is located in Ballwin, MO and I help everyday women navigate their everyday lives with greater ease by offering both in-person counseling as well as online therapy to clients throughout Creve Coeur, Ladue, Town and Country, Chesterfield, and St. Peters. I also provide online therapy Missouri -wide to clients outside the St. Louis and St. Charles County area. You can view my availability and self-schedule a free, 20-minute consultation on my consultation page.
