I am divorced. I initiated the divorce in the third decade of our marriage. The divorce took a long time because I went back in the hope of staying together. My two oldest children were away at university and my youngest was in her last semester at high school. By the time everything settled, my eldest was married, (his father and I were together at the wedding for what was the last time as an intact family) and with a child.
When two people divorce it is more than a marriage that ends. It is the death of a dream for which the seed was planted many years before. Friends remind me that in my second year at university I said that I wanted to get married and have children. Those were my priorities: to be a good wife and mother. The dream included walking down the aisle together when children marry; holding new born grandchildren together; living long enough to together watch grandchildren get married, and with the grace of God live long enough to hold a great grandchild in your arms, together. That dream is gone.
The end of a marriage can destroy all those dreams and for many families there is anger in the ashes of litigation. Anger prevents logical thinking. It can destroy whatever respect remained before the separation. We forget that mother and father, although no longer husband and wife, are together for all eternity in the DNA of their children, their grandchildren and all those who come after.
We have as a society, experimented in family construction since the early 1970’s. The attacks on the biological family, mother, father, children, began. The paradigm shifted from the importance of an intact family to the importance of the happiness and self-fulfillment of the parents, the adults. We were told that children are resilient and that it is better for them to live with a happy parent than in a household that was stressful.
John Stuart Mill famously called for ‘experiments in living’ so that we might learn from one another
‘As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so is
it that there should be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to
varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of different modes of
life should be proved practically, when any one thinks fit to try them.’ On Liberty 1859
The time has come to appraise the results of those experiments. Today, 50% of marriages end in divorce and 43% of children live in one-parent families.(Canadian Children’s rights Council)
Christianity promised monogamy and security to women. Two shall become as one .Till death do you part, let no man put asunder what God has consecrated. Muslims can divorce with nine words: I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee. Native Canadian women suffer horribly with divorce. They can end up with nothing. In Judaism marriage is considered a contract with mutual rights and obligations that can be ended by mutual consent- a divorce.
Marriage brings together two people who hopefully will form into a family. The family is the smallest unit of authority in a society. It is an economic engine. It is the source of morals, values and ethics. Healthy societies need healthy, intact families. I remember hearing from therapists in the late 60’s early 70’s and on that it is better to divorce than have children live in a state of tension. Living is a state of tension. We all have to learn to live with anxiety as human beings because we are constantly called upon to choose because we have free will. A gift that has evolved over the millennia and is held sacrosanct in a democracy. A gift that comes in two parts-rights and responsibilities.
I can understand ending a marriage when there is abuse. It is not safe to raise a child in a home that is full of fear; fear that a parent or child will be hit; fear that there will be no food on the table, no table, no roof, because a parent has an addiction that eats all of the income. There are very good reasons for divorce.
Although there are times when a divorce is the best solution, there are unfortunately some very bad reasons to end a marriage. What is a most interesting statistic is that more than half of all divorces occur in low-conflict marriages. They are referred to as “good enough” marriages, ones that could be saved. In one study 64% of couples who said they were unhappy but stayed together and worked on their relationship said they were happy five years later. That may sound like a long time, but those five years spent on working it out adds five more years to your children’s security. Although this may be counter-intuitive, divorces that take place in low-conflict marriages can be very damaging to children.
I listen to people who say that the spark is gone. They have been married for ten years or more. They have collected good memories, together. They like each other. But the spark is gone. The spark ignites a relationship. Over time a fire that begins with a spark, banks and provides constant heat, warmth security. A marriage that has lasted ten years is beyond the spark and is now reaping the fruits of all the labour that went into it. Now come the years of feelings of warmth, comfort, security, a deep, abiding love that comes with the knowledge that love becomes more selfless over the years. I had a wonderful aunt, Aunt Lil. She used to say, “Everyone wants to be happy, happy, happy. What is wrong with one happy at a time?” Yet, today, for many, one happy isn’t enough. We live in a culture of grandiose infantile delusions of entitlement that come from crass commercialism, lack of understanding of one’s responsibilities-to oneself and others and a culture that bathes us in the belief that we deserve all good things without necessarily earning them.
Divorcing parents often forget that their children have rights. A child’s right to security must always trump an adult’s desire for more zing in her relationship. And don’t fool yourself into thinking that older kids will understand. They won’t. Their security is destroyed no matter how old they are. I remember one of my twenty-something children saying, I don’t like the fact that I have to call two parents to share news. So small a detail-so big a hurt.
Too many come into a marriage with impossible expectations of their partner. We need to congratulate men and women who sit down and examine their finances, the ability to cope with stress, personally and professionally. Did they discuss religion? Which one? Or none? Did they discuss morals, values, ethics and priorities? Is it career or family? Do they desire big things; a big home, two new cars, jewellery, the best and latest of electronics? Do they respect their parents? If not, how do they plan to raise children who will respect them? These are only a sampling of questions that people rarely think about before marriage. After marriage, the answers, the solutions become more difficult. But, if marriage is the most important part of your life, you will find solutions. Even if that means not being, “happy, happy, happy,” all of the time.
John Stuart Mill took into account that people are entitled to act on their own opinions ‘without hindrance, either physical or moral, from their fellow-men’ so long as it was ‘at their own risk and peril’. This last proviso, he said, was ‘of course indispensable’. He insisted that:
‘When … a person is led to violate a distinct and assignable obligation to any other person or
persons, the case is taken out of the self-regarding class, and becomes amenable to moral disapprobation in the proper sense of the term.’
Mature, responsible adults know that after children come into a marriage, life is no longer self-regarding; about their own happiness. It is about their children. And one happy might have to be enough. Children, if given the opportunity to speak openly and honestly will tell you that it isn’t enough to see daddy only on Wednesday and every other weekend. As physical custody tends to rest with the mother, children, especially boys, suffer from a father deficit. And that is not healthy for the child or society. Children suffer emotionally having to divide holidays between parents. Or divide life between two households. Or divide loyalty between parents. Or live in fear of telling a parent the truth about where you want to live. Divorce affects relationships with the extended family. Grandparents tend to be forgotten in all of this. Many lose access to their grandchildren. Grandchildren have a richer life when exposed to grandparents and the larger extended family.
And most importantly, the financial security of that child drops, in some cases precipitously. It is true that material things should not be idolized. But children are the first to suffer when two households are needed and now, if not before, both parents must go to work. The children from these divorces will now have less time to spend with both parents and more time in child care. Children living in one parent households are twice as likely to be at the bottom 40% of household income compared to children living with two parents.(CIVITAS) Less money, less opportunity.
In the U.K. in the first half of the 20th century 5% of marriages ended in divorce. By the 1990’s 36% of children born to married couples were likely to experience their parents’ divorce by the time they reached 16. In 2000 25% of children of divorce were under 5 and 70% were under 10. U.K. studies show that one in five children from broken homes lose touch with their fathers within three years. Children raised without fathers have low-self-esteem and engage in more risky behaviour leading to drug abuse and teen pregnancy. In single parent families, children between the ages of 5 and 15 are more likely to have mental health problems than children from intact families.(CIVITAS) A major study of 1400 families in the United States found that 20-25% of children of divorce showed lasting signs of depression, risk-taking and anti-social behaviour compared to 10% in intact families.
These behaviours are not conducive to the formation of future healthy families so the cycle continues and more children grow up in one-parent families. Studies show that as divorce increases there are more single parent families in a neighbourhood and fewer adults to watch over the children and monitor anti-social behaviour. The parents that are there have less time or energy to get involved in the community. Crime goes up.
The results from analysing 36 international studies from 18 countries that took place between 1975-2010 and included 1,400 parents between 18 and 89 years, and 8,600 children from 9-18 years, proves the need for a father in a child’s life is one of the most important factors in developing healthy children, emotionally. Ronald Rohner, professor emeritus of family studies at the University of Connecticut, and co-author of this study that appeared in the May 2012 journal, Personality and Social Psychology Review concluded, “There’s a very consistent worldwide effect of impaired psychologically adjustment wherever kids perceive themselves to be rejected by Mom or Dad. And the effect shows up more significantly for dads than their moms.” He added, “In our 50 years of research in every continent but Antarctica, we have found that nothing has as strong and consistent an effect in personality as does being rejected by a parent especially a father.” And finally, “Our work should encourage dads to really get involved in the loving care of their children at an early age. Their kids will be measurably better off.”
So, before you take that final step to divorce, try living alone for a weekend. I mean, alone. Go to a simple motel-nothing fancy and spend the weekend. You might like the peace for one weekend. But now imagine every other weekend, or all week long, being without your family, knowing that your children are making memories without you. Then, try staying home, alone, while the rest of your family goes to an extended family celebration-a Christmas dinner. Divorced parents have to share all those things. Think about that.
Each year you will sit down and decide which long weekends each of you will get with the children. Who gets the children for Christmas this year, or their birthdays? What about summer holidays, or spring break? And if you found it difficult to get along and talk before the divorce, what makes you think that it will get better after? Now you will need to talk about child custody, child support, and spousal support on top of all the other decisions that are required when raising children; doctor appointments, dental appointments, sport clubs, dance class, music lessons. Who takes them? Who pays for them? What about private school? And what if that “amicable” divorce you agreed to have, doesn’t go that way? And anger ignites.
I would like to suggest that before you obtain that divorce, that you consider the possibility that there is no greater shame or failure than divorce.
Before you divorce, think about shame; prioritize it. Shame. Shame existed in the fifties and sixties, maybe a little in the early seventies. It’s an old-fashioned word. Like guilt, repentance, forgiveness, atonement. These are Biblical words. Biblical emotions that we have worked so hard to push away from us in our modern, secular world. Shame. A word that has been misplaced in our utilitarian, it’s all about me, culture. There is no sense of shame because we have lost empathy or compassion for the other in our lives. The other must cater to you, because you know that you are entitled to everything, especially happiness, even if you do nothing to grow it. You have rights! Somewhere along the way you did not learn that rights come with responsibilities. You can’t have shame if you are not to blame. And of course it is not your fault, not in this society where your feelings trump everyone’ else’s. You have no sense of failure, moral or otherwise so how can you feel shame?
Shame can only live in a culture that values civility. A culture that understands Freud’s teachings about civilization and its discontents. Civility does not come naturally. Selfishness does. The ordeal of civility obligates us to think of the needs of the other, to push our needs down, repress them, suppress them, choke on them at times, in order to live in community. Civility requires balancing selfishness with selflessness. Not easy.
And failure. Why is divorce the greatest of all failures in one’s life? Because it is a failure that goes beyond the personal. One fails a test, fails to get on a sport team, into a top university, the best law or investment firm. These failures teach perseverance. And perhaps some humility. But a failure of marriage affects so many more, most often without their consent in the break-up. I suspect that you rarely hear people say near the end of their lives that they regret not spending more time at work, building up their empire. More people regret not spending time with their family. A divorce traumatically affects time with the family.
There are times when a relationship is so unwell that it is destroying the souls of all involved. Even then, to me, divorce is shameful and a terrible failure because so many are involved in the break up. That includes extended family-the aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents. The community suffers because we are all connected. Part of the process of divorce requires the ability to accept it as shameful and a great personal failure. We are acknowledging that we are imperfect beings and being imperfect, we can fail. In that acceptance there is opportunity for reflection, change, transformation and the opportunity to be a better parent. At the very least, we owe that to our children.
I watched a movie, “Courageous” that was produced in 2011 by Sherwood Pictures, Christian Drama Films. It is a beautiful story about the importance of fathers in the lives of their sons and daughters. I am linking you to Wikipedia for a summary of the movie.
J
