Divorce Issues

Hi y'all,

This week being the last week of classes and my motivational level being at a .5, I did not prepare well for class and so I don’t have a lot to share. I promise that I’m going to go back and read the materials after school gets out, but it’s just not going to happen today. Sigh.

This week’s topic was Divorce, Remarriage, and Aging Families. First, some interesting points about divorce. I’ve always secretly hoped that a divorce between my parents would solve our problems. I knew in the back depths of my soul that that probably wasn’t true, but I still held onto the thought. What Brother Williams said in class this week confirmed my practical suspicions. A divorce is not the end of everything. There are still issues to be dealt with after the divorce, especially if the couple has children, as about 2/3 of those divorcing do, and those issues still suck to deal with just as much or more than they did before the divorce. In the case of Brother Williams, shortly after he and his wife were married, she got a call saying that because of community property laws, all of her checks would be taken to pay for a motorcycle that her ex-husband had boughten and never paid for. And Brother Williams had to run down to the bank and withdraw their money so that it didn’t get taken away from them. You can’t just get rid of your spouse. There are consequences that come with divorce and it’s important to know what they are before making the choice. 70% of couples who divorce later say that they know they could have and should have stayed together, and 70% of those who do stay together when the going gets tough find out that about five years later things are okay again. Life’s hard. Things will get tough. But tough things pass. They might pass like a kidney stone, but they usually do pass. As I say that, I acknowledge that not all situations will get better. I don’t in any way mean to say that there is never grounds for a divorce, or that people should stay in toxic or dangerous situations, but the data does show that many of those couples who are having problems can have a good relationship again while avoiding the pain and problems of a divorce.

In one of the videos that I watched, about active parenting of stepfamilies, emotional baggage was mentioned. I thought that there was a lot of importance in what was being said. The video showed a fictional scenario of a married couple, both who had been divorced previously. They were in the “baggage claim” being handed their emotional luggage. As the woman behind the counter described their issues it dawned on me that these individuals’ undealt with emotions were the causes behind their marital and family problems. The wife was angry with her father and had never resolved it, which bled over into her relationships with other men. She was afraid of being left so she passively put up with her partner’s problems. She didn’t like the emotions that she felt and so she drank. The husband had a problem with pornography and this infidelity to his wife eventually caused him to leave her for a coworker. He felt guilt from divorcing her, which led him to be a permissive parent, and the story went on and on. I realized that if we don’t face up to our own problems, there’s no way that we can have really great relationships with other people. I think that a lot of people want to get married because they think that adding another person to the mix is somehow going to fix their problems, but it doesn’t work that way. Your spouse is there to help you out in life, it’s true, but if you don’t have a healthy lifestyle there’s only so much that one person can do. They’re there to be your partner, not your life coach or miracle-worker. If you fix your own problems before you get married, then you automatically reduce the potential amount of problems in your marriage.

So, that’s what I’ve learned this week. The semester is over. Maybe I’ll keep posting as I continue to learn more about marriage and family. Good luck and ciao.