Joseph, I agree that it is better to remain married if possible. However, it is only better to remain married if you actually have a marriage. If two people happen to be living in the same house and don’t have a Get, that doesn’t mean they have a marriage. There is no point in pretending to be married if you are not really married. If your differences can be worked out so that you actually have a marriage, then that is the best option. But if they can’t, they are supposed to get divorced. The idea that divorce is wrong is a goyish idea, not a Jewish idea. According to the Torah, you are supposed to get divorced if you don’t have a good marriage. There was a Tanna or Amora (I forgot who, but I’m sure you know who I’m talking about) who got divorced because he didn’t like the way his wife treated him.
As the Bostoner Rebbetzin a”h (whose parents got divorced when she was a kid) used to say, “Better 4 happy people than 2 miserable people.”
It is simply not true that in the Jewish world, irreconcilable differences are not considered a reason to get divorced. People get divorced because of irreconcilable differences all of the time. It is not a Torah hashkafa for people to be miserable. If a marriage is not working out, you are supposed to get divorced. If it can be worked out, great, but if not, you are supposed to get divorced.
And it is certainly not Torah hashkafa for a couple to be divorced for several years without having a get. And that is definitely not good for the kids.
And I don’t agree that in the majority of cases, people regret having gotten divorced. Most divorced people I know (including my mother) are very happy that they got divorced. Many of them go on to get remarried and build beautiful homes. Many don’t get remarried and are happier being unmarried than being in a bad marriage.
Deciding to get divorced is a very difficult decision to make, especially for women and especially for women with kids. It is not a decision that people make lightly. Most people (at least until recently) only get divorced after thinking about it and trying to make things work for many years. If a woman still wants to get divorced after 20 years (and several kids) of trying to make things work, there is a good reason for it, and it is not something to take lightly. If someone has felt for 20 years that her husband is controlling and abusive and her husband was not even aware of this, that is a serious problem.
You wrote that in the majority of cases, divorce is worse than remaining in a not-great marriage. I am not sure what you mean by a not-great marriage. Most people don’t get divorced because their marriage is not great. If they did, you would probably be right. But most people who get divorced do so because their marriage is TERRIBLE. I am not referring to people who get divorced after a year because they had a terrible Shana Rishona and they didn’t realize that was normal and that there are ways to work things out. It is possible that in the younger generation, people are getting divorced too quickly and are not trying harder to work things out, or were never given the tools to work things out. I don’t know if that is a common scenario or not, but it is not what I am talking about. I am talking about people my age and older who were married for many years and got divorced because they really did not have a marriage, and they did try to work things out for many years, but it was an impossible situation.
Perhaps you wrote what you did because you are referring to those people who do get divorced too quickly and could have worked things out, or people who got divorced because their marriage was not-great (but it was okay). But that does not sound like that is the situation here at all. We are talking about someone who has been miserable for 20 years and hates her husband and feels he is controlling and abusive!! What kind of marriage is that, and what is the point in pretending that it is a marriage? And why should this poor lady continue living in Gehenom? Of course, if any of those facts can be changed with the help of a good marriage therapist, that is great. But if they can’t be, it is definitely time to move on.