Do your best to make a marriage work

Divorce decisions can get very difficult if a child is involved and typically I encourage couples to work even harder to resolve their differences in case they have a young child together. That is what I told Paula to talk to her husband, but it seems that it did not work.

"I had a long conversation with my husband after which he confessed that he loves me and our child, and all he wants is our family. He promised he would do his best to change his character and attitude towards me and try to be a good husband. I do not know what to do and what to think. Now everything got even more complicated than it had been. If he loves me and keeps his promise then I cannot innitiate the divorce. But the fact is I do not live him and love another man. Should I try to forget the other man and restore the family relationship or should I do something else? My heart is with another man. My husband has mistreated me for so long that I do not wish to live with him at all. Every day with him inside the home is like a torture. And to be together with him for the sake of my son for at least ten years more - that scenario makes me feel depressed. Help me, please. What should I do? What should I think?" Paula asks.

I understand that it would be a waste of time (and your life) to be with a man that you don't love. Having said that, if couples stop trying their very best to make their marriages work, we would have a lot more relationships failing. Indeed, it is tempting to walk away and somehow start thinking that your next relationship will be problem-free, but that is essentially a myth. All relationships require enormous sacrifice and if you end it after you have done your best, you will feel much better about yourself. Plus, you will also learn something that you can use in your next relationship.

Let me propose something for your situation. Give yourself 90 days (or whatever time you think is good, though this is minimum in my experience with other people like you) and do your best to make yourself love your husband. If he tries as he has promised, you must too. Trust me, when someone loves you, it is easy to love him back - particularly because you have a child together. While you may have hated this man while he was abusing you, people change and you have to give them a chance.

If after that time you still find that it is simply not working, you can then move on. You will be wiser than before, you will know that you have given the relationship your best, and one day you can tell your son that you did all you could to make it work, but his father just did not want to do his part.

Related article: Child support issues after a divorce