I am extraordinarily fortunate that my parents are still married to each other. It wasn't easy for them. They both have had second thoughts, and even separated for a time to figure things out. But they realized that divorce would not actually solve any of their problems, and that their best chance at happiness was to work at loving each other better.On a larger scale, I've noted before that so-called "no-fault" divorce is at the root of many of our social problems with marriage. It seems to me that "no-fault" divorce cheapens marriage to the point of worthlessness. I mean, why take vows "till death" if it really only means "till divorce"?
It seems that at least one other person out there agrees with me. And science bears it out: no-fault divorce does not, in fact, lead to better or happier marriages, or even to happier individuals. At the same time, the National Catholic Register reports on a study showing significant correlation between divorce and certain health issues. (Full article is only available to subscribers.)
This is good for me to see, because I'm always afraid that my idealism is out of touch with reality.
But here's where I get into trouble: I don't see a practical, sure-fire means of correcting this problem. I mean, I can say that what we need is a cultural return to understanding marriage as a lifelong bond. I can talk about the philosophical teleology of man and woman, or about the public and social nature of the marriage covenant. But the fact is that divorce is one of the basic assumptions of our society, almost at the level of being considered a human right. We watch "Kramer vs. Kramer" and wonder what all the controversy was about. And I don't know how to change things on the level of our culture or our society.
But I guess I can offer some suggestions for small changes that might make things better for individual marriages.
1- Remember that a spouse does not exist to make you happy. And vice versa. Marriage is not a toy and is not entertainment. It is a way of giving love, not merely of receiving love.
2- Make your marriage about more than just you two. If marriage is a way of giving love, it's a way of giving love to everyone. Your spouse is the conduit for your love to reach anyone and everyone else around you. Children are the most obvious and natural example of this; but even one's friendships change and shift when one gets married -- because you are not a friend alone, anymore. Friendship includes the spouse.
3- Take time to argue. Seriously. If you are always 100% in full agreement on everything, then something's wrong. Stepford wrong. It's only by discovering where you differ from each other that you'll be open to learning from each other and truly growing closer. It's only by facing conflict that you're able to resolve it.
I'm sure that other people probably have more and better ideas than these, and I know it's horribly dangerous to give unsolicited advice. So please forgive me -- and also correct me! -- if I overstep my bounds.
On the other hand, why should advice columnists have all the fun?
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3 comboxers:
Some additional thoughts on marriage:
I've read histories that suggest that "lifelong" marriages were more palatable when 1 or the other partner had a habit of dying early. Really!!
Marriage at 20 when the life expectancy is 40 is a completely different scenario than when it's 60 or 80. I actually read some statistics trying to correlate when people divorce today vs when the probably died in the past. There were some very interesting correlations in length of marriage.
On the whole, I do think the option for divorce is a wise thing.
In my mind the messiest part of divorce is all about the kids. Couples without kids can split up with minimal collateral damage. When my parents divorced when I was 25 and my sister was 22, the impact to us was practically zero. Heck, I was on my 3rd anniversary and had been a parent for a year at that point. I don't think either my Mom or Dad had been happy for a long time, but both of them stuck it out until they had an empty nest.
As long as there's not an abuse or neglect situation, I really wish the message would get out that it's worth a less than perfect marriage to preserve a stable home for the kids sake. (And for heaven's sake, stop reproducing if you in a less than stable marriage!!) I really appreciate the sacrifice to this day that they made.
We Catholics have two distinct advantages when it comes to staying married: Mandatory marriage preparation and social support.
I am a big believer that if people spent as much time preparing for their marriages as they did preparing for their weddings, we would see many, many fewer divorces. Lots of people, like my husband up until recently, don't know how to deal with conflict except to call the whole thing off, and that option would be pretty easy in today's society. Some paperwork at the lawyer's office, a filing fee, and a Uhaul, and our marriage never happened. Marriage preparation should serve to see that the couple knows what they're getting into, that it will take work, that the work is possible and even enjoyable, and that they can still bail before the wedding if they had the wrong idea, even if they've already made a deposit on the DJ with the bubble machine.
Social support cannot be underestimated, either. First of all, it makes it OK to seek companionship (banter, checkers, philosophical conversation) from a source other than one's spouse, because one person should not be expected to fulfill another's every social need. Second, when things do get tough, a church community in particular can help a couple pull through and not automatically suggest breaking the relationship off.
Maybe our church communities would do well to focus heavily on marriage preparation. Maybe the state could require a class before marriage, like the one they require before divorce. Maybe therapists could offer marriage preparation. Maybe I'm up in the night. But that's my two cents.
I was one of those who actually would have benefitted from the divorce of my parents. They separated for a time, when I was a teenager, and that was the only time I can ermember from my entire childhood that I wasn't living in mortal terror all the time. All five of us kids wept bitterly when they decided to "stick it out". (They were deceived, one each, into thinking that the other had already capitulated)
I don't know what to think, beyond that experience. I think it should be an option for the extremely desperate. I don't have it in front of me, but I've seen research comparing the divorce availability to the spousal murder rate. At the level of free divorce that America has now, it's not significantly different from divorce only for the desperate. But where divorce is completely prohibited, the spousal murder rate goes up to nearly match the divorce rate in that second case.
So what we have here is a travesty of marriage, but the other end of the spectrum is quite repugnant.
Just my 2p.
Beverly
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