In all our years as a Family Law Attorney in Beverly Hills we have seen numerous reasons for people getting divorced. Fact is there isn’t a “good” reason to get divorced, though they are some bad ones.

If you and your partner want to get divorced we highly recommend you call us up to set up a consultation. We are not going to try to talk you in or out of the decision. We have had numerous clients decide divorce is not for them and they are going to try to reconcile. We are very happy when couples decide to stay together.

So the question remains – why do people get divorced? People get divorced for a number of reasons. These include financial issues, communications problems, and the couple not working on their relationship.

That last one is important because marriage isn’t always easy. Both people in the relationship have to continue working on making the other person, and themselves happy – otherwise you run the risk of becoming roommates with your spouse. Or even worse their might be resentment. If one person constantly feels they are doing more to make the relationship work they may end up stopping one day. Then they’ll see if the relationship falls apart without their hard work.

Lack of communications may manifest itself as constant arguing. If a couple is always fighting they might actually be agreeing more than they know. However they may not be hearing what the other person is saying. We see this quite often unfortunately. People are arguing because they aren’t being heard. Unfortunately with the age of technology and communication apps (Facebook, twitter, skype, snapchat, etc.) this isn’t getting any better.

So much of our communicating is happening over text and email so it’s almost impossible to be sure what you are saying is heard properly by the other person. Yes emojis can help but only to a point. If you are in an argument or one is about to happen you might want to ask the other person “what are we arguing about exactly?” That could really open up your eyes to what’s really going on. Plus this should be done in person. You don’t want to send a text asking “r u mad?” That could show the other person you really don’t take it all that seriously.

A lot of people will say infidelity is high on the list, though that may be bundling a lot of underlying problems into one category. Some people cheat simply because that’s what they feel like doing. However in a lot of cases there is some other issue that is actually driving them to cheat. One thing we’ve seen is people cheating in order to get attention. They wanted the other person to notice them, or notice there was a problem.

One item we rarely hear others mention as a reason for divorce is that people are different. And we need to understand those differences if we want to make a relationship work. If you want more insight into this read The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. By reading this book you should be able to find out how you show and receive love. And just as important you should find out how your partner does too. There is a good chance how you show love, and how your partner receives love are very different. This difference could be causing issues in the relationship.

For example you might show love by giving gifts. So you buy your wife really nice gifts all the time. Then when she says you don’t show enough affection you would think “I don’t understand – I just bought her that necklace.” However your wife might not think of getting gifts as getting love. She might consider Acts of Service as a way of getting love. If that’s the case you could buy her 10,000 diamond necklaces and she’d still think you aren’t showing enough love. Instead you would simply need to cook her dinner (an act of service) to let her know.

In summary people are going to continue getting into fights and getting divorced. We though hope some couples who want to stay together can and will for a very long time. We’ve handled hundreds of divorces in Los Angeles and they can be a long time before the start and resolution. Know this before you get divorced so you can be mentally prepared for what’s ahead.



And if you are set on getting divorced do your research and then meet with attorneys who you think you’ll want to hire. In our experience once a person meets with us for an hour they hire us. They know we have done this before and have worked in almost all the major courtrooms in LA. And we recognize that a lot of what happens during a divorce happens outside the courtroom. It is an on-going discussion between the two parties trying to end things on hopefully the best terms.