Divorce Test: Should I Stay or Go?
A confidential self-reflection for anyone quietly asking whether their marriage or long-term relationship can work. It maps where your strain and ambivalence sit, drawing on discernment counseling and relationship research, and points you toward good decision support. It will never tell you to stay or to go, because no quiz can or should make that decision. You also get a professional PDF report you can keep or bring to a counselor.
Divorce Test: Should I Stay or Go? is a free, confidential 16-question self-assessment, a structured self-reflection, not a verdict. It takes about 5 minutes, runs entirely in your browser, and gives you a plain-language score across 4 interpretation bands plus a downloadable PDF report. It is an educational screening, not a diagnosis.
Three honest lenses on a hard question
Most stay-or-go quizzes hand you a blunt answer to the most consequential question of your adult life. This one refuses to. Instead it looks carefully at three things the research says actually matter, so you can see your own situation more clearly before you decide anything.
Disconnection and conflict
Whether you are living like roommates, whether affection and sharing have thinned out, and whether your conflict follows the corrosive patterns John Gottman calls the four horsemen: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
Repair and effort
The other side of the ledger: whether you can still laugh together, whether someone reaches out after a bad argument, and whether real willingness to work on the relationship is still present. Repair is one of the strongest signs a strained relationship can recover.
Which way you are leaning
How much you are leaning out: fantasizing about leaving, feeling checked out, or staying mainly for the kids, money, or fear. Researchers call couples where one partner leans out while the other leans in mixed-agenda couples, and there is help designed exactly for that spot.
| Feature | Typical free quiz | Psychology.com |
|---|---|---|
| Tells you whether to divorce | Often claims to | Never. That decision is yours |
| Grounded in published research | Rarely | Yes, Doherty, Gottman, Amato |
| Measures repair, not just problems | No | Yes, a dedicated category |
| Recognizes ambivalence as normal | No, forces a side | Yes, it is the whole point |
| Points to real decision support | No | Yes, discernment counseling |
| Clinician-reviewed language | Rarely | Yes, reviewed |
| Confidential (no data sent) | Often tracked | Runs in your browser |
How scoring works
Answers are scored 0–64 in total. Your result falls into one of 4 bands:
| Score | Band | What it suggests |
|---|---|---|
| 0–16 | Connected, with normal strain | Your answers describe a relationship that is fundamentally connected, with the ordinary strain that comes with sharing a life. If you took this test, something prompted it, and that is worth a gentle look too. |
| 17–32 | Strained but workable | Your answers describe real strain alongside real remaining connection. Relationships in this range often respond well to effort, especially when it starts before the patterns harden. |
| 33–48 | Seriously strained | Your answers describe serious strain, and likely real ambivalence about staying. That ambivalence is normal at this level, and it is exactly the situation good decision support was built for. |
| 49–64 | Deeply leaning out | Your answers describe deep strain and a strong lean toward leaving. Before acting in either direction, this is the moment for real discernment help, so whatever you decide, you decide it with clarity. |
Methodology & sources
There is no validated public instrument that can tell someone whether to divorce, and any quiz claiming otherwise is overreaching. This test is an honest educational self-reflection, and we label it as such. Its items are grounded in real research: William Doherty and Steven Harris's work on discernment counseling and mixed-agenda couples, where one partner is leaning out of the marriage while the other leans in; John Gottman and Robert Levenson's longitudinal research on the conflict patterns that predict divorce, especially contempt, and the repair behaviors that protect against it; Paul Amato's research on how divorce actually affects adults and children; and Alan Hawkins and colleagues' national research on divorce ideation, which finds that thoughts about divorce are common in intact marriages and often soften over time.
Your score describes where your strain and ambivalence sit right now. It is a snapshot of the present, not a forecast, and relationships move between these states in both directions. The test is deliberately non-directive: it will never tell you to stay or to go. Its purpose is to help you see your situation clearly and, if the strain is serious, to point you toward the kind of professional decision support, such as discernment counseling, that was built for exactly this question.
References
- Doherty WJ, Harris SM, Wilde JL. Discernment Counseling for "Mixed-Agenda" Couples. J Marital Fam Ther. 2016;42(2):246–255. doi.org/10.1111/jmft.12132
- Gottman JM, Levenson RW. The timing of divorce: predicting when a couple will divorce over a 14-year period. J Marriage Fam. 2000;62(3):737–745. doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.00737.x
- Amato PR. Research on divorce: continuing trends and new developments. J Marriage Fam. 2010;72(3):650–666. doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00723.x
- Hawkins AJ, Galovan AM, Harris SM, Allen SE, Allen SM, Roberts KM, Schramm DG. What are they thinking? A national study of stability and change in divorce ideation. Fam Process. 2017;56(4):852–868. doi.org/10.1111/famp.12299
Divorce Test: Should I Stay or Go? FAQ
Can a quiz really tell me whether to divorce?
No, and you should be wary of any that claims to. What a careful self-reflection can do is map where your strain sits, show you whether repair and willingness are still alive, and name how far you are leaning out. That picture is genuinely useful when you bring it to a couples therapist or discernment counselor. The decision itself belongs to you, and it deserves more than a score.
What is discernment counseling?
A brief, structured protocol developed by William Doherty and colleagues for couples who are unsure whether to stay together, usually one to five sessions. Unlike couples therapy, it does not try to fix the relationship. It helps each partner reach clarity and confidence about one of three paths: keep things as they are, move toward separation or divorce, or commit to a defined period of all-in work on the marriage. It was designed for mixed-agenda couples, where one partner is leaning out and the other is leaning in. And if your partner will not attend, you can still go alone: discernment counseling was designed to work with one willing person, and individual therapy gives you the same structured space to think.
Is it normal to fantasize about leaving?
Yes, and more common than most people admit. National research on divorce ideation found that a meaningful share of people in intact marriages have thought about divorce recently, and for many those thoughts soften or come and go over time. What matters is not that the thought exists but its frequency and pull: an occasional daydream during a hard stretch is different from a detailed, persistent plan you keep returning to. This test asks about both.
What about the kids?
The research here deserves honesty rather than slogans. Paul Amato's work finds that, on average, children of divorce face somewhat higher risk of difficulties, but averages hide the important part: outcomes depend heavily on conflict. Children in high-conflict homes often do better after a divorce that ends the conflict, while children in low-conflict homes tend to fare worse when it ends in divorce. How parents handle the process, and whether the conflict stops, matters more than the legal status. A counselor can help you think this through for your specific family.
What if there is abuse in my relationship?
Then this is a different situation than ordinary ambivalence, and the stay-or-go framing of this test does not apply in the same way. If your partner harms you, controls you, or you are afraid of them, your safety comes first. In the US, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24/7 at 1-800-799-7233 (thehotline.org has secure chat). If you are unsure whether what you are experiencing counts, our emotional abuse test may help you name it.
Is this test confidential?
Yes, and for a question this private that matters. The test runs entirely in your browser. Your answers are never sent to a server, never stored, and never linked to you. No account is needed, and the optional PDF report is generated on your own device. Nobody, including us, can see how you answered.
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