Questions to Ask Your Spouse Before Divorce
Twenty questions to work through with a spouse when divorce is on the table: whether either of you wants to try again, how a separation would work, what to tell the children, and how to handle money and family. Plain wording for a decision usually made under strain.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Do you want to stay married?
Why ask it
Ask it plainly, once, and then stop talking. Everything else depends on the answer, and a long qualified reply is usually a no that is trying to be kind.
What do you think has gone wrong?
Why ask it
You will hear two different accounts of the same marriage, and both are worth hearing to the end. Note whether the answer names a specific problem or a general absence, because those point to different decisions.
When do you think it started?
Why ask it
Dating the decline matters. If one of you names a year the other remembers as fine, you have learned how long this has been carried alone.
Is there anything I could do that would change how you feel?
Why ask it
Direct, and it deserves a direct answer. Anything conditional on you becoming a different person is not a request, it is a description of why they are leaving.
What have you already given up on?
Why ask it
People stop trying quietly, long before they say anything. If the answer covers sex, holidays, ordinary courtesy and future plans, the marriage has usually already ended in practice.
Is there someone else?
Why ask it
Ask only if you need to know, and be ready for either answer. If it is yes, the reconciliation questions here will have to wait, and it is reasonable to ask a doctor about testing.
Would you try counseling, and for how long?
Why ask it
Willingness matters less than a limit. Six sessions is an answer, while an open-ended agreement to try usually means nothing has been committed to.
If we tried again, what would actually be different?
Why ask it
Screens out the promise to do better, which rarely survives a month. Ask for a change of arrangement rather than of character: separate finances, a different job, time set aside weekly, someone moving out.
Do you want to separate first, or go straight to filing?
Why ask it
Separation and divorce are different decisions with different consequences for money, residence and time. Whatever you choose, attach a date to it, because open-ended separations tend to drift for years.
If we separate, who stays in the house, and for how long?
Why ask it
Somebody has to sleep somewhere on the first night, and this is far easier to settle while you are still speaking. Leaving the home can affect your position in some places, so take advice before agreeing to move out.
How do we tell the children, and when?
Why ask it
Children remember the delivery permanently. The usual advice is that both parents say it together, once, in plain words, and not on a birthday or the night before school.
What do we tell them about why?
Why ask it
You need one agreed sentence, with no detail that makes either of you the villain. Children given two competing accounts spend years carrying the gap between them.
Where will the children sleep during the week?
Why ask it
The most concrete question here and the one children care about most. Which house has their school clothes, where their bag is, and who takes them on Monday matters to them more than the reasons do.
How do we handle school, holidays, and events where we'll both be there?
Why ask it
Build the calendar early: term dates, birthdays, holidays, the occasions you will both attend. Settling it while you are still cooperative avoids a great deal of legal cost later.
Are we doing this through mediation, or a lawyer each?
Why ask it
This choice sets both the cost and the temperature of everything that follows. Mediation and collaborative processes are cheaper and slower to escalate, but they require honest disclosure from both people.
Before either of us asks a lawyer, what do you think is fair with the money?
Why ask it
Worth asking before positions harden, because the answer shows whether an agreement is possible at all. Anything you settle between yourselves still needs checking against the law where you live.
What are you afraid I'll do?
Why ask it
This is the question that most often lowers the temperature. The common answers are being cut off from the children, being left without money, or being described unfairly to friends and family.
What do you need from me while this is happening?
Why ask it
A divorce takes months and you both have to live through them. Requests are usually procedural: notice before a phone call, no contact at work, no unannounced visits to the house.
What do we tell your family and mine, and who tells them?
Why ask it
Families and mutual friends will divide, and much of that turns on who hears what first. Agreeing who tells whom stops a version of it reaching your children through a relative.
Whatever happens, what do you want us to be like in five years?
Why ask it
Sets a floor under the rest. If you have children you will be dealing with each other at graduations and weddings for the rest of your lives, and the next few months largely decide how that feels.
Working through this conversation
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you start
- Choose a time when neither of you has to be anywhere and the children are out of the house.
- Say what the conversation is for in the first minute. Arriving unannounced at the word divorce produces a reaction rather than an answer.
- One topic at a time. Whether to end the marriage, what happens to the money, and what happens with the children are three conversations, and merging them makes all three worse.
- Write down anything you agree, even informally. Recollections diverge quickly once lawyers are involved.
- Break off the conversation if it turns into an argument about the past. Nothing decided in that state holds.
Getting practical help
Most of what determines the outcome of a divorce is set by the law where you live rather than by what either of you feels. One consultation with a family lawyer in your own jurisdiction, before you agree to anything about the house, the money or the children, is usually the most valuable hour available, and many firms offer a fixed fee for a first appointment. Mediation is a separate service and often costs far less than two sets of lawyers. A counselor or therapist addresses a different question, which is whether you want to end the marriage at all, and can be seen individually as well as together.
If you have children
- Tell them together, keep it short, and expect to repeat it. Young children need to hear the same sentence several times before it settles.
- Say out loud that it is not their fault and that neither parent is leaving them. Both need saying rather than implying.
- Do not ask them to choose, to carry messages, or to comment on the other parent. That is what does lasting harm, more than the separation itself.
- Keep school, sleep and mealtimes as close to normal as you can manage through the first months.
- Expect younger children to regress and teenagers to withdraw. Telling the school early helps, and most schools have someone who can talk to them.
If there has been abuse or control
- The reconciliation questions here do not apply, and raising the subject of leaving can increase risk.
- A domestic violence helpline can help with safety planning and calls are confidential. Contact them from a device the other person cannot see or check.
- Collect documents you may not be able to reach later: identification, bank records, immigration papers, medical records, anything concerning the children.
- Tell a lawyer about it at the first appointment. It affects residence, custody and protective orders, and it is not a side issue.
What tends to go wrong
- Agreeing money terms in the first week to keep the peace. Those numbers become the starting point for everything that follows.
- Moving out of the family home without advice, which can change your legal position in some jurisdictions.
- Using the children as messengers, or as a source of information about the other household.
- Telling people before the two of you have agreed what is being said.
- Filing while one of you still hopes to reconcile. That mismatch produces a slower and more expensive process than either person expects.