Joseph:
You wrote: :Divorce is a Mitzvah in the sense that it’s a Mitzvah to follow the correct Halachic procedures in carrying it out when unfortunately necessary. Just like the Mitzvah of carrying out a Misas Beis Din.”
That comment is appreciated, and is very accurate. The reality is that marriages are seldom terminated over a minor spat. If you ask therapists, it is close to universal that the opening issues brought into the process are ho-hum and trivial. However, the true issue is that they have chosen a microscopic issue to haggle over, and the underlying conflict is me against you. The untrained third party will easily get sucked into the right versus wrong issue relevant to the subject of the argument. But no one comes to the professional to resolve the argument. They come to seek an ally, to be the “right” one and to make their own position two against one. That alone is terribly divisive. The trained professional redirects the process to core issues and away from the nonsense that was the subject of the latest fight. The more solid relationships are not swayed by these arguments, and there is no investment in winning or losing.
Most rabbonim have zero training in shalom bayis guidance. If anything, they are taught to pasken shailos, and they focus on the subject matter of the argument. Suppose the couple discovers that they differ in terms of holding from the local eruv. Halacha directs the wife to follow the minhag of the husband. There can easily be an argument that holding from an eruv that is against halacha is not a minhag, and that a wife need not follow a husband in that matter. Yes, this is a real point of conflict. The average Rov will address the technical aspect of the conflict, and is most likely to be oblivious that the eruv is not the real issue at all. They can pasken the eruv issue, perhaps the matter of the wife following the husband’s accepted psak halacha. But they will nearly always miss the real point of conflict, and their well intentioned efforts will be useless to the couple.
Back to the crux of the comment. The laws of gittin are not there to seek its fulfillment. It is a tragic end to something that all wish could have been full of enjoyment, hatzlocho, and simcha. I know it is the obvious, but the cavalier attitude that has crept into our community mandates that we reiterate that divorce is a last resort.