Thinking About Leaving Your Marriage After the Holidays? | #MarriageMonday

“I don’t know how this could ever work. I just don’t feel like my spouse and I love each other like we used to. This is too hard, and our children will be better off if we separate.”

If you’ve had these kind of thoughts, you aren’t alone—especially if they’re hitting you particularly hard as 2024 comes to a close and we get ready to welcome a new year.

January is actually known as “divorce month” among therapists, divorce attorneys, and financial planners. In fact, one law firm reports that every New Year goes hand in hand with a one-third increase in divorce filings.

Data suggests that many people begin taking steps to initiate a divorce during the first month of the year, with divorce rates then steadily climbing before they peak in March.

It’s clear that this time of year is precarious for couples who feel like their relationship may already be hanging by a thread.

If this sounds like you, I invite you to take a step back before making any drastic decisions. In this article, we’ll explore why this trend of increased divorce rates after the holiday season happens and what you can do to counteract it. It’s very possible that you and your spouse could avoid separating completely and even enjoy the best version of your relationship in 2025—but this will take intentional action, mutual commitment, and a whole lot of grace.

To begin, let’s explore several reasons why you may be considering leaving your marriage after the holidays:

Why Do People Consider Leaving Their Marriage in January?

At first glance, it may seem odd that divorce rates spike as soon as a new year begins, but when we consider all the factors at play, it’s easier to understand why this unfortunate pattern occurs:

1) No one wants to put a damper on the celebrations. Many people wait until the winter festivities are over to leave their marriage. Others hold onto the hope that things will turn around, believing the Christmas season might bring them closer together. They cling to that possibility for a while, only to find that when the holidays end, their relationship still feels unchanged.

2) For practical reasons, January is a more popular month to separate because couples may be seeking a “fresh start” or a neat financial break. Whether it’s the desire for an emotional reset or the convenience of dividing assets after the new tax year begins, the timing can feel logical for those considering a major life change.

3) The stress of returning to the daily grind of life can be enough to drive people to divorce if they were already considering it. A fun winter break might have felt like a temporary Band-Aid for the relationship’s struggles, but once the couple returns to reality, their unresolved issues can often come crashing back down with even greater intensity. Or perhaps, their winter break wasn’t so fun, and the stress of their holiday obligations combined with the increased amount of time spent together raised the tension between them to a breaking point.

All of these factors and more add up to make January a popular time for married couples to go their separate ways.

We’ve Been Where You Are

“I’m leaving and I have no intention of returning. I’d rather start over than try to fix this messy situation. I’m pursuing the other relationship and I want a divorce.”

Regardless of what month of the year these kind of words are delivered, they still devastate and flip your entire world upside down.

If you are familiar with our story, you know that twelve years ago Mark uttered those exact words and left with no intention of returning. After he left, I found myself curled up in bed crying my eyes out and begging God to relieve the pain.

Ten months later, Mark realized the errors in his thinking, and we worked together to rebuild our marriage from the ground up—starting with ourselves.

We can’t guarantee that your story will have the same outcome as ours, but we hope that our journey helps you to find a glimmer of hope and see that God can work through ANY circumstance to repair what has been broken—as long as both partners in your marriage are willing to do the work, too.

What To Do If You Are Considering Leaving Your Marriage

The first thing we recommend doing if you are considering leaving your marriage is to turn to Jesus. You can’t do this alone! You need God’s strength, hope, and wisdom to guide you as you wrestle with the feelings of wanting to give up. The Bible tells us that God draws close to the brokenhearted. My prayer for you is that, as you let Him lead you through this difficult season, you will feel His presence.

With Jesus at your side, you’re ready to sit down and have some hard conversations with yourself—you know, those ones that you’ve been avoiding for far too long.

Here are the most common types of thoughts that people who are considering leaving their marriage tend to have, and my advice on why you may want to reconsider:

1) “My marriage will never change.” I’m here to tell you that change is absolutely possible! I’ve seen it happen tons of times through our coaching and even in our own marriage. You may need the help of a marriage coach or counselor to catalyze this change, and it will likely require you to take a long hard look at what things you need to take ownership of in your marriage, but there is hope!

2) “Marriage should be easier than it is.” It would be so great if there were an “easy button” for marriage, wouldn’t it? Unfortunately, there is no quick solution to be found here. All relationships are hard work. You have to invest in them day after day. But that may just be the most beautiful thing about them!

3) “I’m tired of being treated this way.” Let me start by saying that there are some behaviors that are completely unacceptable and we would never advise anyone to stay in a home that is unsafe or abusive. That isn’t what we are referring to here. In our experience, we’ve found that most couples fall into patterns of how they treat one another. It takes intentionality to communicate how you are receiving your spouse’s actions and discover the underlying reasons why they respond in a certain way. Then, it takes personal work to change the behavior and grow as an individual; this goes for both parties in the marriage.

4) “My spouse doesn’t hear me or care what I think.” When we’ve been in a relationship for a long time, unhealthy patterns form without us even realizing it. One spouse can begin to feel dominated by the other. The domineering spouse unknowingly minimizes the passive spouse’s thoughts and feelings. This contributes to the slow fade of minimizing we talk about in our No More Perfect Marriages book. But here’s the truth: starting another relationship or leaving your current relationship isn’t the answer to this problem. Untangling the bad relational habits you’ve formed in your current relationship is. And just so you know, it takes about 12-18 months in a new relationship for that person’s habits and the unhealthy dynamics in that relationship to start showing up and for you to realize this really didn’t solve the problem.

Where Do I Go From Here?

I know most people don’t entertain thoughts of leaving their marriage lightly. If you’re already wrestling with these thoughts, you may feel like there is no other way out of your situation and that things will never get better. Trust me, we’ve felt that way before, too! You’re not alone in the emotions you’re battling.

But let me ask you one question.

Before you give up, what would happen if you gave your marriage one more shot? What if you surrendered control to the Lord to repair the hurt that has been done, to heal old wounds, and to convict your spouse (and yourself) to change for the better?

In our story, Mark believed he needed to leave to become the person he felt our marriage wasn’t allowing him to be. But in the end, he realized that our marriage wasn’t the problem. While it was true that we both had personal growth to pursue, we discovered this was a journey we could take together—each working on ourselves, but hand in hand within our relationship.

This is your invitation to re-write your marriage, to do the work necessary to have a 2.0 life and 2.0 marriage with your spouse. It took Mark and I two years to move from being on the verge of divorce to a healed and improved Mark & Jill 2.0. But we never would have had a 2.0 marriage without doing the personal work of growing as individuals. And just so you know, Jill started that journey a full year before Mark did! Someone has to take the first step.

We encourage you to take these steps, because even if your marriage doesn’t survive, you will never regret taking the time to address your misguided behavior, heal your unhealthy thought patterns, and become the best version of yourself.

Here are some questions to get you started thinking about your marriage in a new way and addressing some of the factors that may be causing you to consider divorce:

What if I took the amount of energy I’m spending on the wrong things and put it on the right things?
What if instead of paying for the services of a lawyer, I invested in the services of a marriage coach?
What if we took the money it would cost to divorce (average $10,000-15,000) and invested it into getting help for our marriage instead?
Have I spent the time needed to really figure out what’s going on inside of me that’s contributing to the dysfunction or frustrations in our marriage?
Have we read books, gone to marriage retreats, and sought out the help of someone who can really help us hear each other better?
Am I being honest with my spouse about how I’m really feeling?

Our prayer for you is that you would allow God the chance to do something amazing in your life and marriage. We know that things may seem hopeless and that they will never change, but there is always hope! Positive change starts when you take the first step.

If you are looking for tools and knowledge that will help you take the first step into repairing your marriage, here are some of our resources you can utilize today: