Divorce?

So I had to choose a topic that I feel strongly about and a probable solution to that topic and I chose to write about divorce. I am strongly against it. If you have gone through it, are going through it, or are thinking about going through it read this and then think about it again. I can not change your mind if it is definitely made up but there is still some sort of hope right?!?!


Proposing a Solution for Divorce

The foundation of society, Marriage and the family is growing weaker, with fewer adults getting married and more adults leaving in divorce. Plus more and more adults are choosing single parenthood or cohabitation instead of marriage. There are many reasons people in today’s society choose to get divorced, in this paper I will list the top 10 reasons. I will also be telling you about the effects that it has on children and the statistics of divorce. Lastly I will be telling you what I think would be the proper solutions to lower the divorce rates.

            I was thinking about divorce the other day, since so many of the people around me have either considered divorce or have gotten divorce, and it made me wonder what the top reason people get divorced for. Well here is a list of the top 10 reasons. The top reason marriages end up in divorce is because of the lack of communication, married couples are a team. As with any other well-oiled team you cannot strive without communication. Without communication you don’t know what the other person is thinking or feeling and you don’t know if you are doing things right at all. Reason number two, Money. Money is the root of all evil (I Timothy 6:10). Whether you are the money maker of the family or not or you share the responsibility it is one of the leading causes of divorce. One spouse could be spending money and not telling the other one or one spouse may have lost their job and it is causing financial strain on the marriage. Either way if you don’t come to an agreement on how money is to be made and spent then there is bound to be problems. Reason number three, cheating or infidelity. In reality it doesn’t matter who, when, how long or why it happened, it happened, infidelity is causes pain and suffering to those who are involved. There is nothing we can do to change that. The only thing we can do is to decide whether we are strong enough to trust that they will never do it again and to forgive them. In Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 that other that the event of infidelity, divorce is forbidden. Reason number 4, wrong expectations. We as people love our other half. We love them unconditionally from the moment we fall in love with them. We tend to look past their faults because we are in love with them. In doing so we have a hard time dealing with those faults after marriage because we did not address them from the start of the relationship, we didn’t realize what we were going to have to deal with as a married couple. Don’t let those faults stop you from loving the person you are married to, use those faults to realize that no one, not even yourself is perfect and that you can work through this as if you would with anything else.  Reason number five, commitment. Marriage is a partnership between two people that love each other and it takes both parties to make it work. If one spouse is unwilling to do what it takes to make it work then the marriage will fail. Reason number six, addictions. Alcohol, sex, drugs, gambling, these are just a few of the addictions that could ruin a marriage. Once an addiction takes over, a persons life will most likely end up in turmoil as will their marriage. If you sense that you or your spouse is struggling with an addiction seek support and/or counseling, it might be the thing you need to help save your marriage. Reason number seven, Sex or the lack thereof. Problems in this area of the marriage can add added stress on the marriage causing other things to get out of hand and in turn lead to divorce. If you feel that you and your spouse are having problems in this area of your marriage you can seek counseling.  Reason number eight, mid-life crisis. The need for a big change in your life, such as, a new job, change of scenery, etc. can cause much turmoil in a marriage.  Reason number nine, the little things. Things such as the lack of sex, or the fact that your husband snores so loud that it keeps you awake at night can cause stress. These things could be the breaking point in a marriage, especially if you have been holding in the fact that there is something larger in your marriage that is bothering you. These little things could be the things that make you breakdown and confess the real problems. Reason number ten, Society. Society today thinks that Divorce is easy. In a sense it is. It is the easy way out of things. Instead of dealing with the issues at hand, society decides that they are going to divorce their spouses and forget the issues instead of dealing with them head on.

            Did you know that 1 out of 2 marriages end up in a divorce? And did you know that 50% of all American children will witness their parents’ divorce and that most of them will experience this before they reach the age of 18? Every year 1 million children suffer from the divorce of their parents. Couples contemplating divorce or that have gotten divorced often don’t think of the children that are going to be involved in the divorce and how they are going to be effected. Today, children of divorce are 3 times more likely to have behavioral and emotional problem than they would if their parents had stayed together. Children of divorced parents are often more likely to become a teen parent, and 40% of all children of divorce are being raised without a father. Children of divorced parents go through so much and react in many different ways. Some of those ways are through denial, if they don’t think about it or believe it then it isn’t true, anger and hostility towards themselves, their parents and other siblings as well as other people around them. Depression and immaturity are other ways that they react, some think that if they revert to earlier stages of their lives they will feel the love and assurance of their parents love again. They react in blaming themselves for the divorce, feeling like they are the reason that their parents split up.

What is the solution to divorce? No one really knows at this point but there are many good ideas out there. There are a few of them that stood out to me and I am going to tell you about them. One thing that I think might work is Covenant Marriages. Entering into a covenant marriage is simply saying that they vow to live together as husband and wife so long as they both live. That they have gone through pre-marital counseling and are clear on anything that may cause them to want to end the marriage and are ready to commit to one another for the rest of their lives. They commit to seeking professional marital help if the need arises. The only way that this marriage could be dissolved is if infidelity, imprisonment or abandonment has occurred.

Another solution that I think might work to decrease the divorce rate is to require pre-marital counseling and education of all couples that want to get married. The required counseling and education would contain areas of financial planning, parenting, the negative consequences and legalities of divorce and conflict resolution. They would also cover things like the responsibilities and commitment that are needed to make a marriage work. In the end this may discourage many couples from getting married but at least they found out before tying the knot that they are not ready for a lifelong commitment to each other and they weren’t ready for the responsibility of marriage. 



Hope that this helps those of you out there that are not divorced... :) Just my opinion, comments and questions are encouraged. :)