Divorce Challenges When Your Spouse Has Mental Health Problems

It can be a difficult and complex decision to divorce your spouse, who is ailing from a mental illness. The decision frequently involves ensuring that proper diagnosis and treatment are carried out for the affected spouse first. The healthy spouse also has to think about the logistics issues while separating and have a check on the emotions that they have for splitting from somebody who is not well. Plus, there could be strong guilt and social pressure that may act as an obstacle to take the final call on divorce. Perhaps, it is the outcome of exchanging wedding vows in a traditional ceremony.
While breakups are not easy, ending a relationship with a spouse suffering from a mental health issues illness or a personality disorder can delay the decision of opting for a divorce. Now, that can be quite crazy.

Indecisiveness about taking the final call

There are several in incidents when guilty wives or empathetic husbands are in a strong dilemma to come out of an abusive relationship or an impaired spouse. There can be various causes such as mental illness, addiction to sex, alcohol or drugs. The struggle is a tough one since they may still have tender feelings for their spouses and also value their marriage vows. However, often such feelings are one-sided.

Such women and men keep searching for answers painstakingly on how to cope up with a spouse who is a bipolar personality a passively aggressive partner or a narcissist. These people seek out reasonable techniques to handle unpleasant situations. In a majority of cases, the area of concern remains the same although the actual diagnosis may vary. After all, they have to handle a partner who is in a position to appreciate reality and hence fairness, honesty or compromise may seem to be a far-fetched dream.

Challenges faced by spouses of mentally ill partners

Aggressive litigation and stonewalling are a couple of big challenges that are frequently faced by the spouses. It is often believed that people try to hire an attorney who is like them. So, it is likely that a vengeful partner may end up hiring a divorce attorney who is hostile and aggressive. Such attorneys can aggravate the illness of their clients. Additionally. when these clients have more wealth, they can get nastier and eventually end up destroying their families.

Although courts may not be of much help even now to protect such families, professionals like Orange County divorce mediators, coaches and therapists can create tools for helping people cope up with their high-conflict divorces.

Getting divorced in California can be complicated.  Download our free eBook, 18 Important Things to Know About California Divorce to educate yourself on the process.  

Gerald A. Maggio is an experienced Orange County divorce and family law attorney and family law attorney located in Irvine, California, serving the Orange County and Riverside areas. Mr. Maggio assists clients with legal issues including divorce, legal separation, divorce mediation, child custody, prenuptial agreements, stepparent adoptions, and other family law issues. Mr. Maggio has practiced law in California since 1999, and founded The Maggio Law Firm in 2005, focusing exclusively on divorce and family law matters.