Divorce.
Yikes. It can be kind of a touchy subject, can't it?
As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I think we all know what a loaded topic this is. Divorce is not something that is taken lightly in the Church. After all, when we marry, we marry for ETERNITY.
Before we go on, I want you to watch this video clip of Elder Dallin H. Oaks speaking on Divorce.
I have a confession to make. When I was younger (and even in the beginning of my marriage) I used to look at those who had been divorced and think that they simply hadn't tried hard enough in their marriage. Now, before anybody gets offended or starts throwing tomatoes at their screen, I will point out that I have since changed my views of divorce.
Let me repeat the words of Elder Oaks from this video clip:
"There are many good Church members who have been divorced... We know that many of you are innocent victims - members whose former spouses persistently betrayed sacred covenants or abandoned or refused to perform marriage responsibilities for an extended period. Members who have experienced such abuse have firsthand knowledge of circumstances worse than divorce"
(Oaks, 2007).
Not only are there many innocent victims in divorce, but Elder Oaks also tells us that "when a marriage is dead and beyond hope of resuscitation, it is needful to have a means to end it" (Oaks, 2007). Sometimes divorce is completely necessary.
That being said, Elder Oaks also drops an huge truth bomb in his talk for those who are considering divorce. Are you ready? It's a good one:
"For most marriage problems, the remedy is not divorce but repentance.
Often the cause is not incompatibility but selfishness.
The first step is not separation but reformation.
Divorce is not an all-purpose solution,
and it often creates long-term heartache"
(Oaks, 2007).
Let's talk about this heartache for a minute. We know that divorce can obviously cause heartache for the man and woman who are getting divorced. But there is another key player that is too often right in the middle of divorce. I'm talking about children.
Growing up, I had a few friends whose parents were divorced. Now, I have many friends whose parents are divorced (many of their parents divorced while they were still children). But does this matter? Does divorce really have a big effect on the children?
According to our readings from this week, divorce does have an effect on children - and not a good one. Children in divorced families often suffer due to the economic hardship that may come from being a single parent, the overall quality of parenting in single-parent families, and the child's exposure to stress in their every day life (Amato, 82-84).
In addition to that, "children in divorced families tend to have weaker emotional bonds with mothers and fathers than do their peers in two-parent families" (Amato, 77).
Another of our readings this week taught us that "the percentage of children who grow up in fragile - typically fatherless - families has grown enormously over the past five decades. This is mainly due to increases in divorce, out-of-wedlock births, and unmarried cohabitation... There is now ample evidence that stable and satisfactory marriages are crucial for the well-being of adults. Yet such marriages are even more important for the proper socialization and overall well-being of children. A central purpose of the institution of marriage is to ensure the responsible and long-term involvement of both biological parents in the difficult and time consuming task of raising the next generation" (Marquardt, Blankenhord, Lerman, Malone-Colón, & Wilcox, 2012, page 89, emphasis added).
Children need two parents to love and raise them. With this brought to light, as well as the negative effect that divorce may have on children, I find it astounding that "the presence of children in a marriage has become only a very minor inhibitor of divorce" (Marquardt et al., 2012, page 88).
A quote from a past class hits me every time I read it. "For a young child, psychologically, divorce is the equivalent of lifting a hundred-pound weight over the head. Processing all the radical and unprecedented changes - loss of a parent, loss of a home, of friends - stretches immature cognitive and emotional abilities to the absolute limit and sometimes beyond that limit" (Hetherington & Kelly, 2002, p. 112).
So should we always stay in an unhappy marriage, simply because we have children? No necessarily.
Elder James E. Faust enlightens us with some more information regarding this ever difficult topic.
"What, then, might be 'just cause' for breaking the covenants of marriage? ...
Only the parties to the marriage can determine this.
They must bear the responsibility for the train of consequences
which inevitably follow if these covenants are not honored.
In my opinion, 'just cause' should be nothing less serious
than a prolonged and apparently irredeemable relationship
which is destructive of a person's dignity as a human being.
At the same time, I have strong feelings
about what is not provocation for breaking the sacred covenants of marriage.
Surely it is not simply 'mental distress,'
nor 'personality differences,'
nor having 'grown apart,'
nor having 'fallen out of love.'
This is especially so where there are children"
(Faust, 1993).
In a perfect world, every marriage would be able to be repaired. Actually, no. I take that back. In a perfect world, we would never have marriage problems to begin with. But that kind of world doesn't exist for us right now. So in a slightly-less-than-perfect world, every marriage would be able to be repaired. But, that doesn't exist right now either. There are some marriages that just cannot be saved. And even if your marriage can be saved, that doesn't mean it is going to be easy.
"It takes courage and discipline to stay in an unhappy marriage for a prolonged period of time to attempt change and improvement. It takes wisdom (and perhaps seeking some wise counsel) to evaluate whether a highly troubled marriage can be redeemed, plus skill and effort and humility to repair the relationship. And it takes spiritual insight to discern if an unhappy marriage is becoming destructive of one's basic human dignity"
(Hawkins & Fackrell, 2012, pg.85, emphasis added).
Here's the simple fact of the matter: marriage is hard. It is. Even marriages that seem perfect from the outside have their own hidden problems. Even my marriage - which I consider to be pretty darn fantastic - has brought with it its own set of challenges that my husband and I have had to face. Marriage can be rough.
But it's also incredible. Awesome. Ordained of God. Sacred.
And besides all that, "marriage provides an ideal setting for overcoming any tendency to be selfish or self-centered" (Scott, 2011).
All of those reasons give me knowledge that 1) Heavenly Father wants my marriage to succeed (and He wants me to be happy in my marriage) and 2) we can and should do all we can to save our marriages.
Don't believe me? Let's see what Elder Oaks has to say about this...
"Under the law of the Lord, a marriage, like a human life,
is a precious living thing.
If our bodies are sick, we seek to heal them.
We do not give up.
While there is any prospect of life,
we seek healing again and again.
The same should be true of our marriages,
and if we seek Him, the Lord will help us and heal us.
Latter-day Saint spouses should do all within their power to preserve their marriages"
(Oaks, 2007, emphasis added).
Whatever your situation - married, divorced, considering divorce, single - I think it's worth telling you that the Lord loves you. He wants you to be successful. He wants you to come to Him and He is ever waiting to help you. He knows your situation and He knows you personally. Go to Him in prayer and you will know what you need to do to improve your marriage, alleviate marital problems, care for your children in the midst of a divorce, and any other thing that you stand in need of assistance with.
Resources
Amato, P. (2005). The impact of family formation change on the cognitive, social, and emotional well-being of the next generation. The future of children, 15(2), 77-84.
Faust, J. A. (1993). Father, Come Home. April 1993 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Hawkins, A. J., & Fackrell, T. A. (2012). Should I keep trying to work it out? Sacred and secular perspectives on the crossroads of divorce. Successful marriages and families: Proclamation principles and research perspectives, 79-87.
Hetherington, E. M., & Kelly, J. (2002). For better or for worse: Divorce reconsidered. New York: W. W. Norton.
Marquardt, E., Blankenhord, D., Lerman, R. I., Malone-Colón, L., & Wilcox, W. B. (2012). The president's marriage agenda for the forgotten sixty percent. The state of our unions, 88-89.
Oaks, D. H. (2007). Divorce. April 2007 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Scott, R. G. (2011). The eternal blessings of marriage. April 2011 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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