If you want to know why marriages break apart, and what it looks like when they do, talk to a divorce lawyer. Better yet, read a book by a divorce lawyer about why people divorce.

James J. Sexton has spent nearly 20 years handling custody disputes, child care payments, prenups and postnups, and basically every conceivable divorce scenario. His new book, If You’re in My Office, It’s Already Too Late, is a distillation of the lessons he’s gleaned along the way.

In response to the question of “What are the most common reasons people end up in your office?” he said

They come in for big reasons like infidelity or financial improprieties. But from my perspective, these big reasons have their origins in a succession of smaller choices that people make that take them further and further away from each other, to the point where those small things no longer feel quite so small. Everyone, when they get married, starts off with the same destination in mind. We want to live happily ever after. No one ever gets married with the intention of getting divorced.

In Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities one of the characters is talking about how he went financially bankrupt and one of the other characters says, “Tim, how did you go bankrupt?” He said, “Well, I went bankrupt the way that everyone does, very slowly and then all at once.”

 I think that’s how marriages end. Very slowly and then all at once. There are lots of little things that happen and then the flood comes, then the big things happen. The question is, can we stop the little things that take us further away from each other before it’s too late.

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