Not everyone reading about divorce has decided to get one. Some people are still standing in the doorway, trying to work out whether to stay, go, or find some third option they haven’t considered yet. Contemplating Divorce is written for them.
Author Susan Pease Gadoua is a licensed clinical social worker who has spent more than two decades counseling people who are weighing whether to end their marriages. She’s the founder and executive director of the Changing Marriage Institute in the San Francisco Bay Area, which offers coaching, therapy, and workshops for people at any stage of marital discord or dissolution.
A book without an agenda
Gadoua’s starting point is that there are good and bad reasons to divorce, just as there are good and bad reasons to marry. Some couples split quickly without putting real effort into understanding each other or repairing what’s broken. Others stay far too long in marriages that aren’t working, and miss out on a more fulfilling life as a result.
The book doesn’t push you toward either outcome. It treats staying, leaving, and creating a different kind of marriage as equally legitimate options, and gives you tools to figure out which one fits. Inside, you’ll find:
Tests and relationship evaluations to assess how fulfilled you are in your marriage
The five types of needs that happy marriages tend to meet
Guidance on working through specific problem areas in your relationship
Help planning for the future, whichever direction you choose
The first edition was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller in its first week. Best-selling author John Bradshaw called it “a much-needed book.”
If you’re in the middle of deciding
Whether to stay or leave may be the hardest decision you’ll make, and it can feel like everything else hangs on it. Gadoua’s aim with Contemplating Divorce is to give you enough insight and information that you can move forward with more clarity and confidence, whichever path you take. You don’t have to make the decision alone, and you don’t have to make it tonight.
Where to find it
Contemplating Divorce is available in print, ebook, and audiobook. Find Contemplating Divorce on Amazon.
Please note that the blogpost above does not represent the thoughts or opinions of Fresh Start Registry and solely represents the original author’s perspective.