Nobody gets married expecting to get divorced at some future point. Divorce is painful, both emotionally and mentally and can also create tremendous levels of stress for you, your spouse, and of course your family, kids, and friends. Even your close friends will not be comfortable in knowing what to say to you, for fear of setting you off by saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment. Some people have even been disciplined or fired from their jobs because of the incredible lack of ability to focus on anything else that is created by the weeks and months of the divorce process.

No, it is clearly not a pretty picture. So before you just “react” to your spouse with a divorce declaration, be sure that is what you really want to do. Do not even use that threat in passing or in a moment of anger because it can easily come back to haunt you in the future.

Let us start with some assumptions. You are considering divorce for what appears to you to be a very good reason, and from all signs you can discern, your spouse is in agreement. But is that something that the two of you have determined in a moment of anger, a moment of disagreement over something which at the core of it, is really quite petty? Be sure you know your reasons because you need to remember this is real and is going to hurt, this is not a dress rehearsal.

Let us also assume that at the core of things, neither you nor your spouse really wants to get a divorce. There is too much at stake. Even if you do not have kids (which complicates the whole divorce situation by an order of magnitude), there are financial considerations, tax considerations, as well as your feelings and those of your friends and family who want to support you.

At the very heart of any relationship is the aspect of communication. Disagreements between people, whether in a marital situation or virtually anywhere else, can generally be traced back to a failure to adequately communicate. Sit down and TALK with your spouse. A great idea before you start the discussion is to both agree on ground rules for the discussion, which some have even taken the time to write down on a small grease board of piece of paper. Items included on the ground rules list would be things like absolutely no raising the voice, no shouting, no accusations, and more along the same lines. Remember, you are both adults and as adults, there should not be any issue whatsoever so sit down calmly and talk in a normal tone of voice.

Be ready to compromise and do not come to that discussion with both barrels already loaded and the trigger pulled back. Remember, you are going to try to salvage this relationship and make it better, you are not going into full-scale battle here. Discuss things openly and honestly. Maybe you have a problem with his drinking every night. Maybe he has a problem with you buying more shoes than would accommodate a small third world nation. Get these things out into the open. You will almost certainly discover some things that bug him that you did not know about, and the reverse is equally certain to occur. Then decide how you can move forward.

Of course, there is always the chance that you will NOT be able to move forward, but that cannot be determined until you have had such a discussion as described above, and it may take several such discussions to find that out. If that is the case, make sure you know what you are doing when you file for divorce. The process is tricky and has more legal mumbo-jumbo than you can shake a stick at.