Know of a married couple who are keen on getting divorce, but they never follow through.

[Agent79]

I'm neighbours with a married couple who have been together for 20 years. I get along with both of them very well but I am at a point where their personal life is affecting my ability to live next to them. They hate each other with a passion, the kids (who are adults now) hate the father despite no evidence of harm or abuse caused and always end up every night arguing or yelling at each other, every night.

Whatever love they had 20 years ago is clearly dead. The father never gets a say of what the kids do, never has any potential of being a father. He's just a name on a mortgage. She wants to be doing absolutely everything, she makes the decisions and they must be followed.

Most nights, the last words they say to each other is "F you". They always talk about a divorce but the problem is, THEY NEVER GO THROUGH WITH IT. For a couple who go by everything they say, they sure as heck can't be bothered getting divorced.

I am now at the point where I have to scream at the top of my lungs "then just do it. Stop cowering and get it done for both of your sakes." I am moving out in a few months due to their personal life affecting everyone in the street.

My question is this, for a married couple who really hate each other and never resolve their problems, why don't they get a divorce? It's the one thing they agree on but never want to go ahead with it.

[Juliet_84]

Hi Agent79,

There can be a lot of reason a couple don’t want to get a divorce despite clearly having a lot of animosity towards each other. I was in a DV relationship for many years and many people asked “why don’t you just leave” as if it were the most simple thing in the world, and to an outsider it probably would have been, but to me it felt impossible. There were a lot of reasons I didn’t, and most of those reasons related to me and how I was raised. I was raised under an emotionally abusive and volatile mother who made me feel that I should be lucky to have anyone put up with me. And so when I met someone who seemed to accept me for me, that was intoxicating for me. He was everything I had hoped for and everyone in my life loved him. And so I really tried to bury my head in the sand when the red flags started to show and it became increasingly apparent that my fairytale was not all it seemed to be. My psychologist described it at the time as “this feels familiar to you”, I had learnt along the way that the people who love you also abuse you, and although I didn’t like it, I tolerated it. I also had a medical condition that made it very hard to leave and had been told by my mother and then by my partner that I would never survive on my own and I believed it. There was also love there, we had travelled the world and a lot of my best (and worst) memories were with him. It took me a lot longer than it probably should have, and I had a couple of false starts, but I eventually left. I hope I have explained the other side of the coin for people who wonder why people don’t just leave bad relationships. We want a healthy relationship like everyone else but often don’t know how to get it.

[geoff]

Hello Agent, perhaps the husband is too scared to go through with it, or he thinks he will come off 'second best', especially if she makes all the decisions.

May be one reason could be financial, in other words they don't want to split the house in half,as well as the belongings and don't particularly want to start again, but they would be happier to get on with their own life.

They must have a lawyer who could easily set up the divorce papers and all it would take is for one of them to ring him/her.

If they are upset about you leaving then something might be done, but it's too late because you have to go through all the trouble of packing, finding another place and then settling in.

When their relationship is this bad then a divorce would be a better option.

Geoff.

[Agent79]

Hi Geoff,

It will really come down to who gets the divorce papers first. At this point, I don't believe finances will be an issue. Both of them equally would probably be happy their other half is hit in the pocket hard. They are both good people to be honest but it's just being together that didn't work out.

Oh, and I had the packing 80% good to go so their isn't that much left. I started to pack as soon as I found a new place.