Preparing Is Not Deciding: What If You’re Not Ready to Leave?

Have you ever searched for something about separation or divorce late at night…

and then felt guilty simply because you looked?

Maybe you wondered:

If I understand my legal position, does that mean I’ve given up on my marriage?

If I look properly at our finances, am I secretly preparing to leave?

If I make a Plan B, does that mean I no longer believe in Plan A?

These are some of the questions I hear from women who are somewhere in the middle.

Not sure they want to stay.

Not sure they want to leave.

Just trying to make sense of what is happening.

In this episode of Resilient Hearts, I want to separate four things that often become tangled together when we are frightened:

Information. Preparation. Decision. Action.

They are four different things.

You can gather information without deciding to leave.

You can understand your financial position without planning an exit.

You can organise important documents without packing a suitcase.

You can speak to an appropriate professional simply to understand where you stand.

We also talk about the guilt that can come with having a Plan B.

Because wanting your marriage to work and wanting to understand what happens if it doesn’t are not contradictory.

You can genuinely hope:

“I hope we repair this.”

and still say:

“If we can’t, I don’t want to be completely lost.”

And perhaps most importantly, we talk about the woman whose answer right now is simply:

“I don’t know.”

You do not have to force yourself into answering Should I stay or should I leave? before you have enough information, steadiness or clarity.

Sometimes the better first question is:

“What do I need to understand?”

Because clarity does not always come before preparation.

Sometimes preparation is what begins to create clarity.