Preparing is not the same thing as leaving—and the decisions you make before separation can shape everything that comes after.
Listen to me…….. if you are thinking about leaving a controlling, abusive, or high-conflict relationship, do not let the next argument make the decision for you.
When you have spent years having your emotions exploited, dismissed, or turned against you, you can reach a point where you are simply done. The next fight happens. The next lie happens. The next cruel thing happens. And suddenly your brain says, That’s it. I’m leaving.
Sometimes leaving quickly is necessary for safety. But if you have time to prepare safely, I want you to understand something I wish I had understood much earlier:
Your first job is not to announce your decision. Your first job is to get clear.
Because once the words “I want a divorce” are out of your mouth, the relationship may change immediately. Access can change. Money can change. Cooperation can change. The person who has ignored responsibilities for years may not suddenly become generous because you are separating. And the person who has been difficult in the marriage may become even more difficult when they realize they are losing control of the situation.
Preparation does not mean you have decided to leave. It means you are giving your future self options.
WHAT I WISH I HAD DONE BEFORE I LEFT
When I finally went to stay with my mom, I left with two suitcases.
Two.
At the time, that probably felt like enough because I was emotionally exhausted and focused on getting through the moment. But later I realized how much of my life I had left behind—not just paperwork, but the things that made my life feel like mine.
I did not take enough clothes to carry me into the next season. I left memorabilia. I left things that belonged to my babies. I left my grandmother’s silver. I left makeup, hair products, purses, shoes, and personal items I had spent my own money on.
And that meant I had to keep going back. Every return to the house meant another interaction, another emotional risk, another opportunity for conflict, another reminder that I had left before I had really prepared to live somewhere else.
If I could go back, I would have thought less about the argument that finally pushed me out the door and more about the practical reality of what leaving required.
Not because purses and makeup are the most important things in a divorce. They are not. But your life is made up of more than legal documents. Medication matters. Work clothes matter. Children’s keepsakes matter. Family heirlooms matter. Chargers, keys, records, sentimental items, seasonal clothing, school information, and the things you use every single morning matter.
You do not realize how much infrastructure a marriage contains until you are trying to separate two lives that have been intertwined for years.
THE BUSINESS OF THE MARRIAGE
This may be the biggest lesson I learned: marriage is emotional, but divorce has a business side whether you are ready for it or not.
Before I left, I wish I had been much more organized financially. I wish I had understood exactly what our household cost, what debts existed, where the records were, what I could access, what recurring expenses were attached to which accounts, and what my own transition would cost.
Instead, I ended up relying too heavily on credit cards just to survive the transition.
I knew my former husband had never been someone I could depend on financially. Yet somewhere in the emotional fog, I had not fully prepared for what it would mean if he provided even less help after I said I wanted a divorce.
That should have been obvious to me. It wasn’t. That is what survival mode does. It keeps you focused on the crisis happening directly in front of you instead of the crisis that may be waiting three months down the road.
So before you make a major move, understand your own financial life. Know your income. Know your household expenses. Know the debts you are legally entitled to see. Know what accounts exist. Know what insurance policies exist. Know where tax returns are stored. Know what retirement accounts exist. Know which bills are automatic. Know what your children cost every month. Know what you would need for housing, transportation, food, legal consultations, deposits, utilities, and basic life if you had to carry more of those expenses yourself.
And please hear the distinction: understanding your finances is not the same thing as hiding, transferring, or concealing assets. Financial activity before and during divorce can matter, and the rules vary depending on where you live and your circumstances. If you are considering moving significant funds, changing ownership, closing accounts, or doing anything that could affect marital property, get legal advice before you do it.
I learned how closely financial history can be examined after the fact.
In my own case, a 401(k) loan that my former husband knew about and had encouraged became something his attorney later tried to characterize in a very different light. Whether a transaction is innocent, reasonable, or agreed upon does not mean you will enjoy trying to explain it two years later from a stack of statements.
YOUR MEMORY IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED
I also wish I had understood how much of divorce becomes a records problem.
At the beginning, you think you will remember everything because these events feel impossible to forget.
You will remember why the money moved. You will remember which bill belonged to what. You will remember what was said. You will remember when something happened.
Until months pass. Then a year. Then attorneys are asking questions. Then you are staring at a bank statement trying to reconstruct what a random transaction meant during one of the most stressful periods of your life.
That is why I now believe documentation is part of emotional protection.
You do not need to turn your life into a surveillance operation. You do not need to obsessively record every unpleasant interaction. And you should not access someone else’s private accounts or violate laws to obtain information.
But you can organize the information you are entitled to have.
Keep copies of important financial records. Save important communications appropriately. Write down dates and significant events while your memory is fresh. Keep documents together instead of scattered across emails, screenshots, drawers, and five different devices.
You are not building a revenge file.
You are reducing the number of things your future self will have to reconstruct while already under pressure.
DO NOT LET THE LOVE BOMB ERASE THE PATTERN
One of the hardest parts of leaving for me was emotional, not logistical.
As I was actually moving toward the door, my former husband suddenly became soft. Sensitive. Vulnerable. He started showing flashes of the man I had wanted him to be for years.
And I almost believed it.
That does not make me foolish. It means I was human, emotionally depleted, and looking at exactly what I had hoped to see for a very long time.
This is one reason I think preparation matters so much. When you make every decision inside the emotional temperature of the relationship, it is easy for one beautiful conversation—or one terrible one—to change your entire direction.
Preparation gives you something more stable than the mood of the day.
You can ask yourself: What has the pattern actually been? What has changed consistently? What do I need regardless of whether today is a good day or a terrible day? What information would help me make a decision from clarity instead of fear, anger, guilt, or hope?
And if you are dealing with abuse or fear of escalation, your preparation should include safety planning. Leaving can be a dangerous period in some abusive relationships, and generic advice on the internet cannot assess your personal risk. A domestic violence advocate can help you think through a safety plan specific to your situation.
YOUR LAWYER IS NOT YOUR THERAPIST
This lesson cost me money, and I didn’t see that coming.
I went into divorce believing my lawyer would also be my sounding board—the person I could tell every awful detail to, the person who would fully understand the emotional history behind the case.
That was not the role I actually needed him to play.
My lawyer’s job was to provide legal representation and move the legal case forward. Every emotional download did not necessarily help accomplish that goal, and when you are working with a professional who bills by the hour, time matters.
That does not mean lawyers are cold or that they do not care about clients. It means legal support and emotional support are different jobs.
I wish I had built a team before I needed one.
A lawyer for legal questions.
A therapist, trusted friend, coach, advocate, pastor, or other appropriate support person for processing emotion.
A financial professional when specialized financial guidance was needed.
And my own organized notes so I could walk into legal conversations knowing what I needed to ask instead of spending expensive time trying to remember my story out loud.
The more organized you are, the easier it is to use professional help for the thing that professional is actually there to do.
PREPARATION IS NOT A PROMISE TO LEAVE
I want to make this very clear because I know where your mind may go.
You may be thinking: But what if I prepare and then decide to stay?
Then you stay.
Getting copies of your own records does not force you to file for divorce.
Understanding your household finances does not force you to leave.
Knowing where your important documents are does not destroy your marriage.
Learning what questions you would need to ask an attorney does not mean you have hired one.
Creating a safety plan does not require you to announce anything.
Preparation is simply information.
And information gives you choices.
When I look back, I spent too much energy discussing what I wanted to do and not enough energy quietly preparing myself to do anything well.
That is the part I would change. I would have spent less time announcing my frustration and more time understanding the business of my marriage. Less time arguing about whether he understood how serious I was and more time making sure I understood my own finances. Less time hoping the final conversation would somehow make everything clear and more time building a foundation that did not depend on his reaction.
I would have prepared my documents.
Prepared my money questions.
Prepared my personal belongings.
Prepared my support system.
Prepared my digital life.
Prepared my children’s practical needs.
Prepared my questions for an attorney.
Prepared for the possibility that the person I was leaving might not make leaving easy.
YOU DO NOT NEED ALL THE ANSWERS YET
If you are standing in that awful middle place—where you know something is wrong but you are not ready to say, “I am getting divorced”—I want you to stop pressuring yourself to answer the biggest question first.
You do not have to decide your entire future tonight.
Start smaller.
What do I need to know?
What do I need to understand?
What records would be difficult to replace later?
What does my household really cost?
What would I need if I had to live separately?
Who belongs on my support team?
What parts of my digital and financial life are intertwined?
What questions would I ask a lawyer if I scheduled one consultation?
What would make me safer and calmer while I think?
Those questions are not dramatic.
They are responsible.
And they are the exact reason I created the C.E.O Divorce Compass.
I did not need someone pushing me to leave faster. I needed something that helped me slow down, organize what I knew, identify what I did not know, and stop making every decision from the emergency happening that day.
That is what I want the C.O.M.P.A.S.S program to be for another woman: a place to put the questions before the answers are final.
Because your first decision does not have to be stay or leave.
Sometimes the first decision is simply this:
I am going to get informed. I am going to get organized.
And whatever I decide next, I am going to make that decision with more clarity than I had yesterday.
Steffie Jean-Lee is a survivor of domestic abuse and coercive control. She is the founder of SJL C.E.O Society and has a personal mission to share her testimony with others that may be lost in the fog of abusive relationships and employment. All advise given on this platform is meant to encourage survivors to educate and free themselves of their trauma, while encouraging recovery efforts.
If you are experiencing domestic violence or emotional abuse, please remember that seeking safety is not a failure of faith — it is an act of courage and wisdom.
God does not call you to remain in harm. Support and protection are available.
You can reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), text START to 88788, or chat at thehotline.org.
If you are in immediate danger, please call 911.