I dont write this to cast aspersion on anybody here, really I don't, but these stories make me sad.......and both my wife and I have a previous divorce in our backgrounds. Whenever I hear of a friend who is getting a divorce, I actually mourn for them a bit. I love marriage. On the macro level, I think the state of marriage is a noble thing which elevates us, provides stability to families, and to cultures and nations. On the micro level, each divorce represents a tragedy of unfulfilled love, expectations, and needs; and it's just sad. I know that not everybody believes in God, but I do; and I know that divorce is not an institution of His creation.
There is such promise when a young couple, much in love, decides to bind their lives together. Genesis 2:24—"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."
....."One flesh......."
How easily we are capable of forgetting that, and instead of healing that "one flesh," we choose to amputate. That is sad. I don't believe in the "things just didn't work out" explanation. "Things" is vague and without form, and it is a bogus reason. Marriages fail because either one or the other (or both) parties to the marriage didn't think the marriage was worth saving. My question is, if it isn't worth saving at the moment that trying to save it becomes necessary, then was it
ever worth saving; and did one one or the other (or both) parties enter into the marriage for all the wrong reasons in the first place? How many people actually engage in some kind of pre-marital counseling before getting hitched? I quoted my wife in another thread regarding a pregnant teenager: "If you didn't want to go to Chicago, why'd you get on the train?" But that question is applicable in so many things, including marriage and divorce.
I think that one of the reasons we have so many children being raised in broken homes is because A) getting married is too easy; and B) getting divorced is too easy. It is no coincidence that the divorce rate was lower back when divorces were more complicated and costly. And no, I'm not naive enough to believe that people would be happy in their marriages simply because divorce was harder to obtain. But, it is equally true that the more difficult it is to obtain a divorce, the more likely people are to work out their differences and try to make things right. Some will be successful, and some won't, but there will be more successes at repairing the marriage than there would be if divorce were easy. Divorce is
so avoidable most of the time, but it requires courage, commitment, forgiveness, and grace from both people to avoid it; and it becomes
unavoidable to the degree that either or both parties is lacking in courage, commitment, forgiveness and grace. Marriage, even healthy and strong marriages, require both parties to live self-sacrificially. The "as long as ye both shall live" part means exactly that, and too many people take that too lightly. It does not mean "until it gets too [whine]
haaaard[/whine]. I am guilty of this in my
first marriage myself.
Marriage is not for the faint of heart. It
is a roller coaster—but it is the best ride on the planet, and one ought not ever want to get off of it. I am convinced of this one thing: There is nothing my wife could ever do that I would not forgive her for doing it. Nothing. That is my commitment. That is my precondition to marriage—the decision, in advance, to forgive
anything she might do, no matter how painful or unfair it might be. We are past that age now, but I made up my mind a long time ago that if my wife were ever made pregnant by another man, I would forgive her, and I would raise that child as if it were my own because you can heal a marriage, but you might not be able to heal a wounded child; and kids model their parents. Broken homes beget broken homes. And broken marriages beget broken marriages. It is not a legacy I would want to pass on.
I am occasionally asked to speak at someone's wedding, and I always quote 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 (the "Love" chapter) in my comments. If more people read those words and took them to heart, there would be far fewer divorces. One doesn't even have to be a Christian for these words to be true.
1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails.
Love never fails, but we do, and divorce is a colosal failure.
And again, please don't anybody take this as an accusation. I've been there myself. It's just that there is already a lot of grief in the world, and it saddens me when two people add their own measure to that grief by backing down from the challenge of repairing their relationship.
with TAM above; OTOH, two years after our youngest son was killed in 1981, his mother said she wanted a divorce. I pleaded, I cried and I begged for us to try to work it out. After all, we'd been married 20+ years at that time. I suggested counseling and she said okay, "...let me know what they say..." It was at that point that I knew I was wasting my breath and my tears. We got a no-fault quickie divorce very soon thereafter.
