Why are there more divorces in September?

Demand for couples therapy soars after the holidays. The main reason is that we spend more time together and therefore our shortcomings become more evident. But it is not always a good decision.

Ending a relationship is not easy and we must be sure before taking such an important step. Sometimes it is good to wait, to let the thoughts and feelings we have after the holidays settle so that we can see things clearly. Because it may be the result of the tide; when the sea is rough it is very difficult for us to see the bottom, which is why it is better to let the sea calm down to see the underlying reality of everything I think and feel.

In this post I am going to break down the most frequent causes of divorce and how to know whether I really need to separate or not.

On holiday we spend more time together

During the year, we live on autopilot. Stress, rush, tight schedules… From Monday to Friday our energy only allows us to work, get home, do the shopping, organize meals, laundry and, with a bit of luck, do some physical exercise. If we have children it gets a little more complicated: extracurricular activities, homework; parents become professional time organizers. You take the little one to the after-school activity and I

pick up the older one, you make dinner since you get home earlier and I tidy the kitchen afterwards. We divide our time so we can get everything done.

And where is the time for the couple?

And the time for ourselves?

There is none.

The weekend tends to be full of activities, family meals, get-togethers with friends or our children's matches. So we are longing for the holidays to arrive so we can relax. In this way, the expectations of that holiday period are very high; we hope to be able to do everything we don't do during the year and also to relax. But reality can be very different from our expectation.

Stress tends to be what we experience the most. Full hotels, beaches packed with people, queues at restaurants… All the idealization we had in our heads begins to fall apart.

We spend more time with our partner, with whom we have gone almost a whole year barely speaking, and on top of that we take out on them our anger at not getting from the summer what we expected.

This is how arguments appear, the differences between us become more apparent and we find ourselves in stressful situations that we don't know how to manage.

Many times, all of this leads us to think about divorce, and it is not always the right decision.

How can we know that separation is really what we need?

Give yourself time and reflect

Let everything you feel settle so you can separate the wheat from the chaff. Many times we project everything that happens to us onto the other person, we believe they are to blame for everything. And therefore we think that separating is the quick and perfect solution.

It is very common that in the first session many people tell me that everything that happens to them is their partner's fault, that what they should do is separate and that way all their problems would be solved. But that is not true. A divorce is a difficult and painful process and it does not solve your problems because your problems are your responsibility. I usually suggest postponing the decision for a few months and starting to work one by one on these "problems" they bring to me. At the end of the process, not everyone gets divorced.

What is clear is that we cannot live the whole year on autopilot and expect a few weeks of holidays to fill all that emptiness we have been accumulating over all those months. The work is ours, it is personal; the work boils down to living consciously all year round. To take the reins of our life and step out a little from the inertia of the stress we live in. To shape our day-to-day more and prioritize the things that are important to us, to dedicate time to what fulfills us, professional projects, family, friends, partner… but not from a place of what one is supposed to do or what is expected of us, rather from a conscious and considered involvement.

So, if this summer has been difficult for you and you have considered divorce as a way out, review what I am telling you to see if it resonates with you and reflect. Think about whether perhaps what you should do is change other things in your life to achieve what you want. We must be sure that we are not projecting onto our relationship all the frustration we feel at not having the life we had imagined.

Make changes

Start by changing yourself, your way of relating to your partner and to the world, and observe the result. Dedicate more time to yourself throughout the year, do sport, look for moments of reflection, read books that inspire and guide you, focus on what it is you want and put your energy there. Dedicate time to your partner too, to doing things together again, to talking about everything that has happened this summer and about your relationship. Try to reduce that distance that has been created and observe how you feel.

Many times we try to get out of difficult situations on a tangent, to look for the shortcut, but what matters is what we learn along the way. So getting out of a difficult situation quickly can be a patch.

Stop living in automatic mode and live your life as what it is, something that is only yours and something finite. We cannot expect to be happy without doing anything in return. It is the same as what happens with physical health: if I want to have good health, I must do a minimum of exercise and take care of my diet, and it is not enough to do it for a month and then nothing, it has to be a constant effort. Well, with our psychological and emotional health the same thing happens: either you dedicate time and effort to it or you will not obtain results.

How to know if I should finally get divorced

If after this time of reflection and change you still feel that you have grown apart from your partner, it is likely that you should separate. If you feel that you have changed but your partner is not following the same path, perhaps you were right after all.

There are several reasons why I might decide to break up a relationship:

• One is when love ends, when you feel that you no longer love them as a partner, yes as a brother/sister but not as a partner. To make a paella you need rice; without rice there is no paella no matter how hard you try.

• Another reason is because it no longer works, when it has been a long time since it added anything to you, when it brings out your worst version, when you do not evolve as people and everything is arguments and reproaches. Even though you feel that you still love them, the good moments have already disappeared, they are no longer the first person you think of when something bad or something good happens to you. Or they are no longer the person you want as a life companion, because you have changed and you feel that what you chose at 20 you no longer want now.

• And finally, when you have evolved down different paths, you no longer have future projects together, you don't see yourself spending the next 10 years with your partner. One of the two or both of you have changed and evolved, but along very different paths, and you do not share the most important values.

So before getting divorced, reflect on whether what is happening to you is something of your own, the result of a life on autopilot, or whether it is because of one of these three reasons.