Marriages are sacraments. Unluckily for all of us, however, we tend to forget this fact and simply view marriage as a license on paper and something that can easily be changed with the magic words “You’re officially divorced” and coming from your almighty fairy attorney. It’s times like this that I certainly wish we were all living one or two centuries earlier and when divorce was considered the ultimate social blunder.

But that time has past, alas, and now more and more people are finding it very easy to dissolve marriages the same way they decide to dissolve an ongoing company. If you’re in a rocky marriage and you’ve been torturing yourself with what-if questions, here are the steps that you should take in order to determine if there’s something left in your marriage to salvage or if it’s better for everyone involved that the marriage is annulled.

Remind Yourself Why You Two Married In The First Place – Before you let yourself be influenced with the problems you’re presently facing, remind yourself first why the two of you entered marriage in the first place. Most probably, it had something to do with love, didn’t it?

And is love really gone from your relationship or has it simply been overshadowed by financial problems and pressure from work? Try walking back memory lane and recall the feelings of happiness both of you felt at finally being married, officially belonging to each other and the pleasure both of you felt at living in one house as part of one family.

Determine All Possible Alternatives to Divorce or Annulment – Perhaps, all you two need to do is give each other space for the time being. Perhaps, all you need is time apart each other, let your heads cool off, let emotions calm down for both of you to see things with a clearer perspective. Divorce or annulment is the final step, the ultimate murder weapon to a marriage so do consider all other alternatives first before going through divorce proceedings.

Are You Willing to Hurt Other People’s Feelings? – If you and your partner already have kids, have you thought about how it’s going to hurt them emotionally when you and your partner decide to end your marriage? This doesn’t solely concern you both. An end to a marriage also means an end to having a normal family. Are you willing to subject your children to emotional trauma just so you and your partner can move on with each other’s lives?