Posts Tagged ‘divorce’

No-fault divorce has had a devastating effect on our culture. For decades now, one spouse has been able to unilaterally destroy their marriage, family and children. The marriage contract is the only contract in America that doesn’t mean anything. In no other contractual agreement, can one person walk away without repercussions. You can’t even break a contract with a plumber or a cell phone company without paying a penalty! Not so with marriage — one spouse can just walk away and the other one has no legal grounds to stop it, even if he or she doesn’t want the divorce. Sadly, this is the case in far too many divorces.
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It’s a good thing that we Christians of today aren’t the Christians of the first century church; otherwise the whole Christian movement would never have lasted and spread throughout the world. People today don’t have what it takes to navigate the slightest of hardships or difficulties. Anything that isn’t easy or flat out gets “too hard” sends us packing. Persistent trials or even mild conflict in relationships—whether it be in marriage, family, on the job or in the church they attend—cause many people to just quit and give up. Never mind that we aren’t talking about getting thrown in prison, being beaten, having your children murdered or even giving up your very life.

We live in a day and age when everything is about easy. Our culture says if anything is difficult, you don’t have to do it– or even worse, that you can’t do it. Difficult has become synonymous with impossible. Husbands and wives can’t keep their marriage vows because it’s impossible to stay faithful. They divorce because their particular marital situation is impossible. They give up fighting for their marriage because they have issues and disagreements and it’s impossible to keep going.
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In the last post I was talking about handling arguments and the benefit and wisdom of backing off and taking a time out during a super heated battle. When a couple is seriously locked in a battle and the adrenaline is surging, odds are they are not going to solve the problem and usually one or both will say mean and hurtful things that they will come to regret later. And as I said, these words can be very damaging.

My experience has been that many women will take one phrase that their husbands have said in the heat of the battle and rehearse it, hold on to it, and become convinced that “it’s how he really feels deep down inside or else he wouldn’t have said it.” I’ve had women over and over say to me, “He said such and such…” and she is so hurt and upset over it that in some cases it actually leads to divorce.
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“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.” – Ariel Durant

There has been quite the uproar over Sarah Palin’s seventeen year old daughter who is pregnant and plans to marry the father. Many have decried this potential marriage as a terrible idea since the couple is “too young”. But it wasn’t long ago that such a marriage would not have been thought of as unusual.

“The traditional markers of manhood — leaving home, getting an education, starting a family and starting work — have moved downfield as the passage from adolescence to adulthood has evolved,” says Michael Kimmel, author of Guyland. For instance, in 1960, almost 70 percent of men had reached these milestones by the age of 30; today, less than a third of males can say the same.
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I generally do not approve of divorce.  I am, however, a big fan of separation. I think that there are things that happen during a separation that can radically change perceptions, mindsets and the state of a relationship. Sometimes it is just the thing that an offending spouse needs to jerk the slack out of them.  It helps them to wake up and smell the coffee!

When a separation occurs, it often gets friends, family, the pastor and people at their church involved… which is exactly what should happen. Too many couples live a big lie, showing up at family and church functions pretending that all is well, when in reality, all is hell. But when separation occurs, all of this under the radar stuff is blown out of the water and now they can really get the help, support and involvement of others that they really need.  Sadly, most couples bypass separation and go straight to divorce, oftentimes creating an environment where no one can do anything to help save the marriage.  It becomes “too late.”  They wait too long and get themselves into so much misery that either one or both just doesn’t care anymore. (more…)