Meno, I understood what you meant. What I meant is that I always thought (but I could be wrong) that making the decision to get divorced as well as actually going through with it are very difficult things to do for most people, on an emotional level. Actually, I shouldn’t say people, since I am really just thinking of women.
I know on a personal level, I have such a difficult time dropping friendships even when I know they should be dropped. Which obviously doesn’t begin to compare. I just think that since women tend to be emotional and are supposed to be better “connectors” than men are, that it would be really difficult to make the decision to break off the connection with someone with whom you are so connected whether or not you want to be.
Even in an abuse situation, there are psychological reasons why it may be even more difficult to “unattach” yourself enough to be able to get divorced.
I know people, both men and women, who had horrible marriages but didn’t get divorced for 14-20+ years because it was such a hard thing to do.
In addition to the fact that it is very hard emotionally to break the connection from someone whom you are so connected to, you also have to take into account the fact that the spouse may not want to get divorced, so then the one who wants to get divorced feels very guilty about it and is reluctant to do so in addition to the fact that they have to convince them.
Additionally, anyone who has kids is going to feel very guilty about doing this to their kids and will worry about the effects on the kids. And they may be terrified about how they will manage financially. If the wife was home with the kids while her husband supported her, now she has to find a way to support the kids. Or maybe the husband was in Kollel, and now he will have to find a way to pay child support. Whatever the situation, finances always become very complicated in a divorce.
And the idea of having to manage on one’s own is always very scary, even in those situations in which the other spouse wasn’t really there anyhow.
And, in addition, even though divorce has become very common, I would imagine that there still is a certain amount of stigma and embarrassment.
I just see that there are a lot of people who stay in bad marriages for many years. However, I am talking about people my age and older. Maybe in this generation, it really has become different. But, I am sure that many of the things I wrote still apply.