I almost got a divorce a couple of years ago after 20 years of marriage. These were the problems we were having

1. Financial stress

a) She destroyed her career and so we lost 1/3rd of our income.

b) She would spend compulsively. To be fair, most of it was for the family. She would veer outside our budget without discussing it with me.

c) Out of fear, I would micromanage her spending habits. This would make her resentful.

2. I took her for granted. I think I really started to withdraw from her because of stress and resentment about finances.

3. I did not do my share of domestic responsibilities.

4. I was a miserable person to be around.

One day, I came home and she pulled me into the bedroom and said we needed to talk. She told me she wanted a divorce. I didn't get mad, not immediately. I told her we needed to wait until she found decent employment, at least a job with health benefits.

Meanwhile, I was worried about my mental health. I didn't want to be one of those guys that blamed their ex for ruining their lives. I had been miserable and anti-social for a while I didn't want to be one of those Dads who weren't there for their children. My misery was my problem to fix.

I started to try to visualize what my life might look like after divorce. Luckily, at that point, I started to earn enough to support the entire family on my income alone, comfortably. If we got divorced, I wouldn't have my wife around to do domestic work. So to prepare for that, I started doing more chores around the house. I knew that I would be alone. So I started engaging in social activities and reconnecting with friends. The result was, I was helping around the house more and I was less miserable.

My wife on the other hand, knew that she would not have as much money. Even with child support, she would have to be very frugal to make ends meet. So we decided to separate our finances. I suggested that we needed three bank accounts: one for me, one for her and one joint account. Each time I got paid, we would have an allowance that we would transfer into our respective accounts and the rest would go into the joint account. The joint account was for living expenses and nothing else. Any discretionary spending would come for our respective accounts. What we spent out of our accounts was our own business. I quit worrying about how she spent her money. She loved this because she had more freedom. I loved it because I wasn't responsible for "fixing things" when she ran out of money.

After all was said and done:

1. Our financial stress went away.

2. I was happy.

3. I stopped taking her for granted.

4. She felt appreciated.

5. I stopped micromanaging her money.

6. I was doing more domestically

Woah! Most of our marriage problems got solved, simply by preparing for life after divorce. 3 months later, she withdrew her desire for a divorce. We've been pretty happy ever since.