I’m an escalator.
People can’t ride me to get to the second floor of the mall, but I’m one who tends to take a small argument and throw it out of hand rather quickly.
A conversation with my husband can easily go something like this:
Me: Hey, do you want to go see Hunger Games this weekend?
Chris: Actually, I really wanted to clean out the garage this weekend instead.
Me: FINE WHY DON’T WE JUST GET DIVORCED THEN!
Usually, this has something to do with me being hungry or hormonal or something, and he just rolls his eyes and blows me off. He knows we’re not getting divorced, and I’m just being ridiculous for a minute. Moments later, I give him a hug and a plate of nachos and tell him what time he will be joining me for the aforementioned movie. All is forgotten.
But the reality for both of us is that when we got married, it was for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, and with the understanding that if we ever started to really dislike each other for an extended period of time, and we weren’t able to make progress with counseling, that we were okay with getting a divorce.
Yes, the “D” word.
We stood in front of a huge group of our family, friends, coworkers, and God in a lavish, beautiful wedding and swore our undying love for one another with a known caveat. If our love goes Code Blue, and we’re unable to revive it with basic CPR measures, we will gracefully let it die.
I come from a family that doesn’t “do” divorce. My Grandparents were married for sixty-some years before my Grandma passed away. My mom and dad were married for 24 years when my dad passed away. My aunts and uncles are all married to their original spouses, some of whom they’ve been with since they were in grade school. Marriage is forever, and they’re all still very much in love.
We’ve all seen the spouses who clearly hate each other, though. The ones who only speak to one another if it’s to nag or to bicker or to demean one another. We’ve seen the couples that stay together “for the kids”, because their religion condemns divorce as evil, or because they’re simply too exhausted to start over. These couples are married, sure, but are they even really together?
We’ve also seen the couples who aren’t married, but have been together for many happy years. Nowadays, it’s commonplace to see unmarried couples choosing to own homes together, raise children together, and live as a married couple would—without the contractual obligation. This may not have the romantic idealism of a traditional marriage, but it’s possible that it’s an entirely more realistic way to approach life with a partner.
To me, a toxic marriage, held together for children or for tradition’s sake, can be incredibly damaging to both partners (and especially to children). By modeling an unhappy relationship, surely we’re causing more damage than we would by just going our separate ways and finding happiness outside of each other. There really shouldn’t be any shame in needing to hit the reset button if things go beyond a salvageable level of damage. People change, and sometimes they grow apart. That’s just reality
I’m happy in my marriage. I picked a great husband, father, and partner, and I believe genuinely that we’ll be together forever. Marriage wasn’t a choice that I took lightly, and it wasn’t something I embarked on with cynicism or expectation that it would one day fail. Both my husband and I expect ups and downs, and to have to work at being happy. But if, someday, the best option for us is divorce, then I won’t beat myself up over that either. Ultimately, the best thing we can do for ourselves (and for our children) is to choose a life of happiness.
How has your own view of marriage evolved since you said “I do?”
image via public-domain-image
I used to roll my eyes at people and secretely judge them for not understanding what the word “commitment” means. Now, however, I think about how brave it is to actually go through with getting a divorce. It can’t be easy.
Then again, neither is marriage. My husband and I have had several conversations about how much work marriage takes, but we have both agreed that we would rather do the work than call it quits. There will be times we feel like giving up, but unless there is truly irrepairable damage, which would mean one or both of us is not living up to our vows, we will find a way to work it out.
My husband and I have watched friends go through very nasty divorce and custody battles, we’ve watched their children get hurt, time and time again, by their petty vindictiveness. And all we’ve ever said is that IF we ever got divorced, we’d always live in the same city, so that we both could see our son. I agree that no one should stay in a toxic/abusive marriage. Sometimes, though, I think that if the marriage has just gotten a little blah, or there is a lack of communication, then the adults do owe it to the children to spend some time working on their marriage rather than leaving.
My wife and I entered our marriage with the understanding that the only way out is murder/suicide.
Love it. Couldn’t agree more!
I agree with the idea of divorce being an option for truly terrible marriages. However, divorce is brutal. There is a lot to it. When you add children, alimony, custody battles, and child support to the mix, it gets incredibly ugly. Even if the split is amicable, it’s expensive and draining. The couple usually has to sell the house they bought together unless one of them can actually afford to buy out the other partner. They have to split up all their possessions. They have to figure out who gets the dog. If there are children involved, it’s even worse. Then, if you ever get an amazing opportunity to work at your dream job in another state, you can’t go. You’re tied to your ex until your child is 18. Or if the judge is a douche and lets one parent move to another state and take the kids, your option is to also move to that state or only see your children on major holidays. Child support is incredibly expensive too so say goodbye to traveling around the world or whatever you used to want to do with your spouse before you figured out that marriage isn’t always easy.
Unless there is physical or intense verbal abuse happening, I think the longer you’re in a marriage and the more there is to lose, the harder you should fight. I’m not talking CPR and letting marriage die gracefully. I’m talking tearing the chest open and massaging the heart until it beats again. The marriage may have a gruesome scar in the end that you see everyday, but at least it’ll heal.
I’m not a huge advocate of divorce. It happens. It exists. I’m not a raging fan of divorce. I’m not yet married, but am in a long term relationship. When we marry I won’t be looking to divorce at every turn. I understand full well that marriage takes hard work and I am more than willing to put in that hard work. I believe some people take marriage too lightly, and some take divorce to lightly as well. I believe in “til death to us part”, in “for better or worse”, in “forever”.
But for you to say, “Unless there is physical or intense verbal abuse happening”, comes off as ridiculous to me. I am in a long term healthy, happy, wonderful relationship. But I also spent my late teens in an emotionally abusive relationship. Just because someone’s not hitting you doesn’t mean they aren’t hurting you. It was horrible. It took me years after it’s end to realize that I was abused and it wasn’t my fault….that I wasn’t to blame. No, he never laid a hand on me. But he constantly criticized me. I was tied in knots 24/7. If he didn’t like what I was wearing he’d pick out something else for me to wear. He was back and forth and up and down and everything was a sick twisted head game. And I was 19 and thought I was in love. I was naive enough to want to marry him. If I had…and if I would then go by your rules…well….to be blunt, I’d probably have killed myself by now. Sometimes you need out. Sometimes it’s not healthy. Just because he wasn’t intensely verbally abusing me, just because he wasn’t hitting me….doesn’t mean he wasn’t almost killing me. He tore me away from my family. Nothing was ever good enough. Everything hurt. For years. LOVE DOESN’T HURT. If someone LOVES you, truly loves you, they don’t treat you the way he treated me. And if I had married him I would be completely willing to divorce him in an instant. I deserve better. I am worth more than that. Contract of not.
My parents getting divorced when I was eight was they best decision they ever made. I even knew it then.
I agree that divorce is *often* brutal, but I’ve also seen amicable divorces that were in the best interest of both parties AND their children. I do think marriage is a lot of work, and a wonderful, growing, living organism. But I won’t stay if I’m unhappy and attempts to fix it fail repeatedly, because ultimately life is short and we deserve happiness and to model a happy relationship for our child(ren).
Fortunately, this isn’t an issue for me at this point in time. I’m very much in love, and we’ve worked through any and all problems without ever even considering giving up. But there’s no way I’d wait until physical or verbal abuse became the issue before cutting my losses.
I’m not married, but my parents divorced when I was a teenager. Things were INSTANTLY better at home without them together. Part of it is that my Dad was abusive, but even when he wasn’t hurting anyone the tension, the mistrust, and the mutual dislike were impenetrable.
So, divorce seems like a necessary escape valve to me. I don’t plan to marry anyone unless I see us together forever–but I also know firsthand that sometimes things fall apart in ways that aren’t fixable, and I won’t stay in a horrible situation like that. To me, there’s no honor in staying in a permanently miserable marriage.
Nobody goes into any relationship thinking, “Gee, I hope this lasts 6 months!”
We all go in to it hoping it will last forever.
But life doesn’t work that way every single time.
My divorce was the most horrible thing I ever had to go through. It was draining and hurtful among many other things.
But my son NEVER heard the arguments; never saw the eye-rolls.
And now that I’m on the other side, I can see it was all for the better.
It still hurts to know that my marriage didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. But I have a better relationship with my ex-husband now than I ever did when we were married.
And I have a much better relationship with my son than I’m sure I would have had we stayed married.
It’s not the answer for everyone, but I’m glad I had the option.
Hmmm… How do I put this? OK let me start out with I am divorce. No infidelities ( that I know of) , no drugs, no abuse. However, after 18 years of marriage I knew I had to change. I was miserable. it was brutally difficult. My ex did not understand, and in some instances she was a contributing factor. She and I accepted the blame with what went wrong, and today we get along pretty well. We don’t point fingers, we have our tiffs but we resolve them privately and with out any “beating up on each other”. At the very offset we decided every decision would be whats best for the children and that has served us well. She has re-married and divorced since the ( about 4 years ago) I have barely been able to form a relationship. All that being said I know it was the right thing to do, but I would not recommend it for anyone if at all possible.
Now to the writer. You mention on the beginning of the article that you drop the “D’ word at the drop of a hat. However, by the end of this article you are saying things like ” I’m happy in my marriage. I picked a great husband, father, and partner, and I believe genuinely that we’ll be together forever. Marriage wasn’t a choice that I took lightly” which may be true but isn’t copacetic with the beginning of this article. I seriously think you should seek counseling now, and that is not meant to be mean spirited. The fact that you would even drop what seems to be an idle threat into an argument so quickly tells me there is a cancer in your marriage. I don’t know what it is, but you would do well to figure it out and excise that tumor before it metastasize it before it kills your marriage.
Cuz here is the thing ( and I speak from experience) you seem young and your marriage seems young. It seems easy to say you can get in a fight and drop the “D” word but you are not worried because you know your marriage will last forever. That works now, but trust me when the marriage is 15…20…25 years down the road and you are thinking about your mortality, and what you want in life, and the bloom has left the rose…well the “D” word might truly be a serious consideration instead of a passing thought. If you don’t figure out why you use it now, by the time you get to the point I just mentioned above it will be too late.
I am recently divorced May 31, 2012 we were seperated since 2006 and I found love again planing to remarry 8/4/12. It was hard to leave the marriage I had always hoped we would grow old together. We have one son both our only child who is now leaving to attend medical school in CA in Aug, 2012. He once siad to me mom I don’t know why you stayed so long with my dad. It broke my heart but I know then I was free to live again my son saw how hard I tried to work the marriage out to benifit all parties. So I changed everything in my life lost over 120 lbs went back to college grad school 2010 almost done for my MBA. Met the man I’ve always needed in my corner he loves me supports me mentally and finically he’s my best friend. Its take a lot to get her 1 1/2 of therapy which my ex took me to the initial appointment I must hank him for that but I wanted to change and save myself. I told him more then once that I would never leave him but he left us (our son) to save himself which now I respect and understand never supported our son (money wise). yet my son is going to be a Vet. God is so god to me I am not a bitter black woman I am a survior strong and know I am blessed. At the age of soon to be 44 I am happy with in me…..Thanks for listing and I will thank my ex husband I did when the divorced was finial on facebook for our son..
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