Divorce is a four-letter word

I know a lot of brides who cry at their weddings, but guests at my wedding have told me I was the only bride they’ve ever seen who laughed.

When I say laughed, I don’t mean a slight giggle or small chuckle. I mean and all-out, honest-to-goodness, bordering on hysterical laughing fit. One guest even commented, “Well, you have to be the happiest bride I’ve ever seen.”

Indeed, I was definitely happy (although I’m relatively certain the fit of laughter was stress-related), but aren’t all brides happy? After all, the day you get married is supposed to be the happiest day of your life. And let’s be honest – when we get married, we do so because we think it’s going to last.

Honestly, most people don’t think, “Oh well, if it doesn’t work out, I’ll just get a divorce,” when they get married. There may be some people who have an inkling that the relationship isn’t working, or who have some misgivings, but most of the divorced people I know walked down the aisle and truly believed they would spend the rest of their lives with the other person.

Someone very close to me recently divorced, and this person honestly believed the marriage would last forever. This person never imagined the marriage would end, but sadly, it did. The reasons were many and varied, much like the reasons any couple gets divorced. Sometimes you can’t pinpoint why things like this happen. They just do.

That’s why it is so important you protect your interests both before going into a marriage as well as during the marriage. I don’t mean to sound cold and calculating, but divorce happens and it is expensive. I know very few people who were able to end a marriage without feeling the financial pain.

So how do you protect yourself? We sent our contributing editor, Michelle Morra-Carlisle, to find out. She spoke to a financial expert, who offered some solid financial advice on how to ease the financial pain of divorce. You can read her advice this week in “Break up without breaking the bank” on Primacy Life.

Divorce hurts in so many ways. The emotional hurt is one you can’t prepare for or protect yourself against. All you can do is find ways to minimize the financial pain caused by divorce and work at moving through the rest of the pain as best you can.