Talk of divorce catches spouse by surprise

Q. My husband and I have been married for 19 years. We don’t have any children and since COVID he has been drinking way too much. Last year I noticed the shift in our relationship and I have mentioned to him a few times that his drinking bothers me. In January I started looking at apartments and found one where I can take one of our cats. I told him last week I was thinking of renting one and moving out. I cannot believe how surprised and sad he was. I thought this would be easy Can he stop me from using our joint account to pay for an apartment? Can he prevent the divorce from happening?

A. Short answer is no, he cannot do either of those things but maybe you need to pause for a moment. Nineteen years is a very long marriage to discard. From his reaction and from what you have said, it sounds like the tough conversations have not happened let alone any work on making improvements. Start with communication before you throw away the last two decades of your life.

Try a good marriage counselor or trusted clergy. You can always get divorced but you cannot always save the marriage.

If you have already moved on in your head which is how it sounds, you need to proceed with grace. Recognize you are a year ahead of him in this process. You moved on to how to divide things and decided you will be the one to vacate your home and which cat you will take. This is completely unfair to him. He doesn’t even know the conversation about a possible break up happened let alone had the opportunity voice an opinion about whether he wants to stay in the home or which cat he prefers to keep.

While he cannot stop the process from happening if you are inclined to push forward, he can cause it to drag out longer. There are two types of people who seek initial divorce consults — those like yourself who have made the decision and moved on mentally and those like your husband who walk into my office looking like they just got run over by a bus that they never saw coming. They are shocked, devastated and paralyzed. They cannot make decisions and need time to navigate the road ahead.