The Divorce Decision
You sat in the driveway for ten minutes before you came in. Not because anything happened. Just because the car was quiet and the house was not going to be.
You have been asking yourself the same question for a while now, usually late, usually alone, and you have not said it out loud to anyone. Some days the answer is obvious. Some days you cannot believe you were ever thinking about it. Both of those days are real, and the whiplash between them is exhausting.
You are not failing to decide. You are circling, which is a thing people do when landing costs something either way, and it works until the fuel runs out.
Whitney Baker, LMFTA. Thirteen years in mental health and social services, Gottman-trained, attachment-based.
This can be individual work or couples work. Plenty of people start on their own, before their partner knows they are asking the question.
Wherever you are in this, I have sat there with someone
- You want to save the marriage and you need help figuring out how.
- You are already ninety percent gone and you need to know whether that last ten percent means anything.
- You genuinely do not know what you want and you are tired of being told you should.
All three are legitimate places to start. None of them commits you to an outcome.
I am not going to push you toward the door or away from it. That is not a neutrality pose. It is that a decision this size only holds if it is actually yours, and a decision someone talked you into tends to unravel about eight months later.
You do not have to have it figured out before you get help figuring it out.
There is no wrong point to start. People come in the week they first let themselves think about it. People come in with papers already filed and a house half packed. People come in two years after the divorce, because the co-parenting is what finally broke them. Every one of those is a reasonable time to walk in.
What the work actually looks like
We start by separating three things that have gotten tangled: what is actually happening in the marriage, what you have already tried, and what you are afraid of on either side of the decision.
Most people arrive believing they have tried everything. Usually what they have tried is the same thing many times, with increasing volume. That is worth knowing before you decide, because "we tried therapy" and "we tried one specific approach for six weeks in 2019" are different sentences.
Then we look at what would actually have to change for staying to be worth it. Not vague improvement. Specific, observable, and possible. Sometimes naming that clarifies everything. Sometimes it becomes the work. Sometimes seeing it written down is the moment someone realizes they have already decided.
If you decide to stay
Then we build. Repairing after you have seriously considered leaving is different from ordinary couples work, because the question has been asked out loud and it cannot be unasked.
That is not fatal. Some of the strongest relationships I have seen went through exactly this, and knowing you chose it on purpose is worth more than never having questioned it.
If you want to move faster than weekly sessions allow, the couples intensive is built for that moment.
If you decide to leave
Then we do that well. There is a version of leaving that takes three years and costs everyone involved, and a version that is still painful but does not become the defining wreck of the next decade.
The difference is mostly in how the first six months go. Logistics conversations that do not turn into the marriage again. Telling the kids, if there are kids.
And managing the part of you that wants to explain yourself to everyone, alongside the part that wants to disappear.
Co-parenting
The marriage ends. The relationship does not, and nobody prepares you for the specific strangeness of negotiating a Tuesday pickup with someone you used to be married to.
This work is about building a functional operating system between two people who are no longer partners but are permanently connected.
- Communication that stays on task
- Boundaries that hold without a fight
- What to do when the other person will not cooperate, because sometimes they will not, and you still have to raise a child alongside them
What I am not
I am not a custody evaluator. I do not write letters for court, testify about who was right, or take sides in a legal proceeding. If your case is heading that direction, you need a forensic evaluator, and I will tell you so.
Court involvement
Any court involvement, including record preparation, depositions, and testimony, is billed at $400 per hour with a retainer required in advance. That rate exists because court work is not therapy. It consumes entire days and it changes what I can be to you in the room.
If part of what has kept you out of therapy is worry that it ends up in a court file, this is the answer: that is not what this is, and I will tell you plainly if we ever get near that line.
Resources
Divorce is not only an emotional process, and I am not the only professional you may need. Depending on where you are, that can mean a family law attorney, a mediator, a collaborative divorce team, a parenting coordinator, or a financial professional who understands asset division.
I have referrals for all of it and I will make them when they are useful. What I will not do is send you to a lawyer before you have decided anything, because the order of operations matters here. Get clear first. Then get help executing it.
How this works
- On your own if you are still figuring out what you want, if your partner does not know you are asking the question yet, or if they will not come. One person getting clear changes the conversation, whatever the outcome.
- Together if you are both willing to look at it honestly. That is harder and often faster.
Sessions are $170 for individuals or couples, $200 for extended couples sessions. Online across Washington and Idaho, evenings and early mornings available.