Deciding whether to get a divorce is an intensely personal and complex question that only you can answer. Some key considerations are:

• whether you are the victim of abuse (physical, emotional, or financial),
• how long your current situation has existed (i.e. is it a temporary crisis or a long-term pattern)
• whether your spouse is currently engaged in an extramarital affair that s/he won’t end
• whether your spouse has a substance abuse issue (alcohol, drugs, gambling etc.)
• whether you can financially afford to get divorced right now

The top 5 signs that your marriage is over are:

• Your spouse is physically abusing you or your children

How long a divorce takes depends on 5 things:

• The laws of the state you live in. Some states have a waiting period before you can file for divorce. Others have a waiting period before you can finalize a divorce. Still others have no waiting period at all.
• Whether your divorce is contested or uncontested. According to statistics, the typical uncontested divorce takes between 3 – 12 months. A contested divorce can take years.
• How complicated your divorce is. The more complex your financial situation, the longer it will take you to analyze and divide your assets and assign liability for your debts. The longer you’ve been married, the more you entangled your lives will likely be, so the longer it will take you to divorce. The more things you have together, the more difficult it will be to separate them.
• The divorce process you use. Going all the way through the court system (divorce litigation) can take years. Mediating your divorce will bring it to a conclusion much more quickly. Using the Collaborative Divorce process will fall somewhere in between the two, as will divorce arbitration.
• How you define “time.” One way to measure the amount of time a divorce takes is to start when one person says “I want a divorce” until the time the judge signs your divorce decree. If you include the time one person spent thinking about divorce, that time will increase. If the clock doesn’t start ticking until someone files for divorce, that’s yet another way to measure time.

How much a divorce costs depends primarily on the following 5 factors:

• Who you married. If you’re married to a high-conflict spouse, a spouse who is a narcissist, or a spouse who has a personality disorder or a substance abuse issue, your divorce will likely take longer and cost more. If your spouse doesn’t want a divorce and drags his/her feet your divorce will also take longer and cost more.
• Which divorce professionals you use. Hiring a more expensive divorce lawyer if your case is simple OR hiring a cheap, inexperienced lawyer if your divorce is more complex, will both make your divorce cost more;
• Which divorce process you use. Litigating your divorce all the way through trial is the most expensive way to divorce. Sitting down at the kitchen table and negotiating directly with your spouse will cost you the least amount of money. Mediation, Arbitration, Collaborative Divorce and any other divorce process will fall somewhere in the middle.
• How much you and your spouse fight. If you and your spouse can't agree on how you want to raise your children, the schedule for when each of you will see your kids after divorce or any other parenting issues, the cost of your divorce can increase dramatically. The same is true if you’re fighting about money, support, or how you divide property. The same is also true if one spouse is hiding information and the other has to fight to find it.
• How complicated your financial situation is. The more complicated your finances are, the longer your divorce will take and the more it will cost. The more assets you need to value (for example pensions, businesses, stock options, and real estate) the more your divorce will cost.

The biggest mistake divorcing people make is letting their emotions control their divorce. That inevitably leads to their divorce taking longer, costing more, and having way more conflict than it would have if they controlled their emotions better.

Other big divorce mistakes include hiring the wrong divorce lawyer, choosing your divorce lawyer before you choose your divorce process and not fully understanding the financial and tax implications of your divorce settlement before you finalize your divorce.

Irreconcilable differences are one of the grounds for divorce. Having irreconcilable differences means that you and your spouse don’t get along and fixing the differences between you is impossible.

Getting divorced based upon irreconcilable differences means you are getting a "no-fault" divorce. Irreconcilable differences is recognized as a ground for divorce in all U.S. states. However, some states have other fault-based grounds for divorce as well.

Grounds for divorce are the “reasons” the law requires you to demonstrate in order to be granted a divorce. Every state has it’s own laws for what constitutes a “ground for divorce.”

Besides irreconcilable differences, other common grounds for divorce are adultery, habitual drunkenness, mental cruelty, physical abuse, and impotence. You should check the laws of the state you’re in to determine the grounds for divorce that will be available to you.

It doesn’t matter where you were married. You get divorced in the state and county you live in. The residency requirements for how long you need to live in a state before you can get divorced vary from state to state.

If you and your spouse are residents of different states, you can usually get divorced in either of those states. Whoever files for divorce first will usually establish the state the divorce will ultimately be heard in.

Whether there is a waiting period for divorce is determined by the laws of the state you are getting divorced in.

Some states require you to be living separately from your spouse for one year before you can even file for divorce. Others will let you file for divorce any time but require you to be living separately for a certain amount of time before you can finalize your divorce. Still other states have no waiting period at all.

It’s important to check the laws of the state you live in before you file for divorce to make sure you meet the law’s requirements.

A Petition for Dissolution of Marriage, or a Petition for Divorce, is the formal legal document you file to start your divorce. It is usually a fairly basic document that sets forth the information that shows you are entitled to a divorce in the particular state you’re in.

The Petition must establish that the court has jurisdiction over you and your spouse, and that you have grounds for divorce. It must also set forth basic information about your marriage, as well as the names of your children. Finally, it must include a statement of what you want the court to grant you in your divorce, including dividing assets and debts, granting or denying support, establishing custody, and providing a parenting schedule, among other things.

Your spouse can make your divorce take longer or cost more. But they can not stop you from getting a divorce.

Dealing with a reluctant spouse makes your divorce more difficult. If your spouse won’t sign divorce papers you may be forced to litigate your divorce. But if you continue to pursue your divorce in court, eventually the judge will grant you a divorce.

An uncontested divorce is one where you and your spouse agree on everything. You agree that you will get divorced, you agree on the terms of your settlement, and you agree on all the provisions regarding your children, including custody and parenting time.

A contested divorce is one where you and your spouse don’t agree on any one, or more, of those things.