This article explains what you should know and do BEFORE going for a divorce consultation with a New York State Divorce Lawyer.

When you feel at the pit of your stomach, that something is terribly wrong in your relationship with your spouse, and that what you are experiencing is a nagging recurrent problem rather than a rough patch that all couples go through. That nagging feeling could mean one of two things:

We are imbedded in a culture that tells us that love and marriage is our greatest success. We are taught very early on that somehow we will "fall in love" and live happily ever after. From the advertisements we see on television, to the books we are forced to read in elementary school, we are lead to believe that something is wrong if we are not married. Even the finest artwork of the Masters, displayed in museums throughout the world, depicts love and the institution of marriage as a panacea for all of our problems that it is a romantic escapade that will, somehow rope in the light at the end an abysmal day. Renoir, for instance, was particularly devoted to the subject of lovers and often as an abstract impressionist unknowingly capitalized on the frailties and weaknesses of lovers. In "The Boating Party Lunch", this work has an obscure brightness to it that glorified romantic love and made his paintings great. Renoir was an abstract impressionist, not a realist, and as such the beauty of his work arose from the fact that he, Renoir, rarely sought out the substance of what he saw, but only the superficial appearance of things.

Life sometimes imitates art. Enter Jackson Pollock, the antithesis of Renoir, an abstract expressionist who saw ugliness in convention, he rebelled against it. He defied all conventions and imparted beauty through acts of defiance rage and alcoholism. Wholly disregarding and disrespecting the institution of marriage, he lived as he had died, meeting his gruesome death as a married man, wrapped around the wheel of a car and seated with him, not his wife, but his lover, Ruth Gligman.

So what lesson does life impart upon us? Is the romantic reverie of marriage the panacea of the human condition, as Renoir would have us believe, or must drunken love and betrayal leave weeping widows (or widowers) behind who would have been far happier divorced. The answer is not at all clear, but we are closer to the truth when we identify marriage as what it really is…a lifetime partnership, romantic or otherwise, that will only work under the regular principles of a business relationship.

Business partners have responsibilities. Business partners know that, hurting each other is hurtful to the business. Business partners know that a partnership will fail if both partners are not thriving. A marriage then is a partnership of sorts, equally complicated by the reality of romantic love. By taking concrete steps to assume more responsibility for yourself in the marriage you will feel less helpless, more empowered and ultimately less dependent upon your spouse to provide for your financial, emotional, physical and psychological needs. These are things that are not taught to us in school, or growing up at home. By learning about your rights and obligations you will become less dependent upon your spouse, and that will tend to lessen the feeling of entrapment that the enfranchised spouse always has when the unemployed spouse is leaning to heavily upon that partner for financial and psychological support. Thus, knowing what a marriage entails, and not the Hollywood version, should be an integral part of saving you marriage. Seeing a New York State Divorce Lawyer might in fact save your marriage rather than end it.

But, what if both parties have realized that all love is lost, then what? The parties appear helpless, alone and infuriated. They feel like they have failed in their ultimate role as perfect husband or perfect wife. Again, not a good enough reason to get divorced, but perhaps a good enough reason to seek a marriage counselor or a psychologist, a consultation with your priest or rabbi, a serious talk with family and friends. When you have exhausted all measures to make it right, and you still feel "disconnected' from your spouse and that feeling is not just a fleeting whim but rather an ongoing weight, then at this stage it's time to start thinking about seeing a divorce lawyer. But if you are a victim of domestic violence, you should call the police and then seek a divorce lawyer.