The Unpleasant Side of Divorce

Getting married is entering into a contract – but it’s probably the one contract that is the easiest to break because divorce has made it easy for husband and wife to walk out when they go through an unhappy period in their life, albeit temporary.

John Crouch, Executive Director of Americans for Divorce
Reform, says that the most important economic contract of
our lives – marriage – is no longer legally protected.

Just think – lawyers will fight tooth and nail to protect corporations in their contract relations or between you and your landlord, your mechanic and your doctor, but can’t prevent you from breaking up with your spouse. In fact, they would even counsel you to break up your marriage and then discuss division of property as the next logical step.

Crouch says that marriage is the only contract that anyone can break, at any time, and not be held responsible for it.

“So getting married in America is like doing business in Russia. Everything is up for grabs, everything is constantly renegotiated, and nobody has to keep their word. I think that makes for a lot of unhappy marriages.”

The Dollar Costs of Divorce
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The Case for Staying Married (It’s still the best institution there is!)

It all comes down to attitude, doesn’t it? Cynics have called marriage the “old ball and chain.” Many happily married individuals disagree, because they don’t see marriage as slavery and bondage, where one’s natural instincts and desires have to play second fiddle to the happiness of the other half.

Happily married couples say that marriage has taught them to accept each other’s strengths and possibilities. They argue that by doing that, they transform themselves from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

Marriage therefore is an “enabling” form of situation where it means the freedom to be who they really are, to reach for the stars and discover what they are meant to be without ridicule or rejection.

Marriage and Happiness

Many of us have read reports that drive home the message: married people are healthier and happier, and hence live longer than single or celibate individuals.
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How to Save Your Marriage

We have painted the unpleasant side of divorce to help you realize that it may not necessarily be the solution to your unhappiness, and in the second section, we’ve advanced arguments to promote the numerous advantages of marriage and staying married.

But life does have hitches and will always be full of obstacles, threatening the stability of married life. We now offer some tips on how to save your marriage when you sense that it’s on the rocks or needs a re-overhauling.

Recognizing Gender Differences

Men and women perceive emotion, communication, sex, fidelity, work and money because of the way they were socialized and because they have been shaped by their own parents’ perceptions.

They bring these ideas into the marriage and hence have their own baggage of beliefs regarding what is tolerable and intolerable in a marriage, what they have to give their spouse and what to expect in return.

Writing the book, “For Better or For Worse”, Heatherington and Kelly illustrate this point more clearly when they mention the different ways men and women choose a partner:

“Women approach love as informed consumers…they kick the tires, look under the hood, run the motor, check the mileage. Women love love, but being practical-minded, not enough to ignore potential defects. Good looks and romantic love matter to a woman, but in considering potential suitors, a woman also looks at the practical, such as a suitor’s economic prospects, emotional stability, trustworthiness, and what kind of father he will be…Despite a reputation for practicality, males come off as hopeless romantics. They are much more prone to fall head-over-heels in love…and also more prone to idealize the object of their affection. If the bodywork is good and the grille pretty, often a man will buy on the spot, no questions asked.”

It takes practice to learn that gender differences do not constitute threats to a marriage, but a cause for celebration and an opportunity to expand an individual’s sphere of experience.

Try to remember that your partner is not your mirror image. In a loving, effective partnership, individuality and separateness are wholesome concepts that each spouse must work at.

A Word from the Cos!

Bill Cosby, the famous American comedian and still married to the same woman, said that these gender differences – that women are not just men who can have babies and men are not just women who spike footballs – give marriage its vitality, its dynamics and its delights…He says, “Americans may like the style called unisex, but the wiser French have a devout appreciation of the wonder they call la difference.”

A true understanding of these gender differences should therefore lead us to the proper notion of a marriage. While many people view marriage as a fusion, making two separate individuals one, we must still keep our own personality and deal with our own problems ourselves.

“Marriage is ultimately about two relatively whole individuals coming together to create a union that can be even greater than the sum of the parts. But each of us must always be aware that a lack of self-confidence is own separate job to fix. We can look to our mate for support, but not for magical solutions.”

Notice the Small Stuff

“Don’t sweat the small stuff” is probably one advice that does not always work for marriage, because it is important to notice the small stuff, if the marriage were to flourish. Steve Carter cites an important fact about relationships: most of the real work in relationships is taking place in quieter moments in smaller spaces.

Examples would be:

● avoiding bringing up the defective garage door while your husband is rushing to meet a deadline and needs to focus on his project for a few hours;

● attending to the kids and keeping them away from the kitchen while your wife prepares dinner;

● offering to pick up your husband’s shirts at the dry cleaner’s because he forgot to do it yesterday;

● filling up the car tank if you know that your husband has to drive out of town on a client visit;

● taking your wife dancing because she’s always loved to dance even if you have two left feet and have always hated it.

And What of Money?

One irritant in a marriage is money.

Chances are spouses have their own ways of spending and saving money. If both husband and wife earn similar salaries, agree on how to split the house expenses prior to getting married so no one feels cheated or disadvantaged financially.

While it was fine to expect him to pay for dinner and the movie while you were dating, marriage calls for a genuine economic partnership.

Or, if you know that your husband is particularly averse to useless shopping sprees, make an effort to reduce your shopping trips and concentrate on the essentials instead of on your whims. Don’t forget to discuss your investment preferences and try to stick to a budget and a savings plan.

And What of Politics?

The same is true for sex and politics: if your husband likes to watch a pornographic films as a prelude to love making, let him know that you’re not particularly in favour of this practice but do indulge him occasionally. If your wife likes to visit synagogue and do charity work in her parish, don’t express any resentment or complain that she’s spending too much time on her fund-raising activities.

Work on keeping your partner stimulated intellectually.
If there’s anything that grates, it’s a wife who constantly talks about what’s on sale and a husband who knows nothing but what teams made it to the NFL playoffs this year.

Look back to courtship days when both of you could talk until the wee hours of the morning because you were interested in what each of you did in the office that day, in that bookseller or movie, or how the Dow Jones sparkled because of news about Intel or Microsoft, etc.

Enrich each other with your experiences and vicarious experiences. Let the other know that you have an interest in life and what it has to offer, and make every effort not to be a boring mate by reading more, experimenting more, and living more.

Alone Time

Many people say that children put a damper on the marriage. Who has time for love and passion when the kids are screaming their lungs off or running a 105 degree fever? Or when money has to be scrounged for to pay for those expensive braces?

Raising children can turn us into impatient, stressed-out beings so if hiring a baby sitter overnight will not disrupt the monthly budget, do so and go away – just the two of you.

But don’t use that time away from children to complain about each other’s habits or to raise past incidents!

Instead of looking at marriage blessed with high points or fraught with low points, think of it instead as a series of turning points.

Turning Points

Dr. Sonya Rhodes says these turning points must be regarded as opportunities to make a marriage stronger and more fulfilling.

These turning points become crystal clear at mid-life where couples have developed a keener sense of time limitations and an urgency in their desire to make the most out of their marriage and their lives.

The mid-life years are a natural time for reflections: couples now have the advantage of being able to see where they have been, where they are and where they want to go. When a 46-year old woman came to see Dr. Rhodes in an effort to save her marriage, she said, “This might be my last chance to make things better. I don’t want last chances to become lost chances.”

Complimenting and Praising

Give credit where it’s due, be generous with compliments and be sincere in your praise. Do you sometimes find yourself wishing that your partner would compliment you the way your boss does after a job well done?

Many couples discover that as they settle into their marriage, the compliments or kind praises are not as frequent as when they were dating.

Making it a practice to give credit where it’s due and being sincere about your praises go a long way towards reinforcing wellness in a marriage.

If you see that your wife works conscientiously on the treadmill to keep off the weight, did you ever think that she’s probably doing this to please you? Saying something like, “You’re so disciplined in your efforts to achieve your goals, I’m proud of you” will add to her self-confidence and reinforce her attitude that she’s doing something that’s healthy and that you appreciate.

If your husband is good at crunching numbers, praise him for his skills at rapid calculation. “You’re amazing with numbers” will give him a sense of pride, and he will feel important to you.

No doubt many experts and marriage counselors will differ in opinion on how to save a marriage, but they all agree on the following fundamental elements of a solid marriage – only the words and the way they are conveyed are different:

● trust and communication
● respect for each other’s ideas and expectations
● fidelity
● physical and intellectual stimulation
● maintaining their own personalities, but supporting each other’s dreams

The Concept of Friendship in Marriage

Friends are forever. Even if we move out of town or take up residence overseas, we maintain our friendships.

We certainly don’t divorce our friends just because of a misunderstanding, so if we treated our spouse as a dear friend, we probably won’t ever need a divorce lawyer and go through the painful exercise of property division – a course of action that can spell financial ruin for many.

Since love is less permanent (we fall in and out of love a few times in our lifetime) and friendship more durable, every attempt must be made to make our spouse not only a lover and a partner, but also a friend.

Friendship is evident manifestation of maturity. Marriage is a responsibility larger than life, and can be a source of annoyance or profound joy. Only when we turn those annoyances and joys into building blocks for an enduring friendship can we say that we’ve taken the unwavering path to a marriage made in heaven.

Friendship is EVERYTHING!

If there is true friendship between husband and wife, the marriage avoids landing on the rocks. Instead it becomes a rock-hard marriage where no individual or circumstance can put it asunder.

In fact, it is the genuine friendship between two people that put more meaning in the words, “for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse, till death do us part” – what Mary Pipher calls “the shelter of each other.”

Friendship in a marriage means that the marriage will be pregnant with memories of laughter and humour, for didn’t we choose those friends who made us laugh the most? Didn’t our mothers always tell us, “when choosing a husband, count the times he made you laugh.”

Friendship also means open and honest communication; a no holds barred type of union where our comfort level with our spouse goes beyond 100%, assured that what we say and how we say it will not be judged or taken in a negative light.

If you talk to married people, a wish they frequently express is that they remain the best of friends and the closest of companions. Surveys in fact reveal that if there is one component that will enable a couple to weather the tough times, it is friendship.

As a famous poet once said, “No man is an island.” Kinder and Cowan agree that friendship is the antidote to loneliness. Getting married does not mean that people will never experience loneliness, “but it does diminish our sense of separateness.”

Friendship between couples generates wholesome feelings of goodwill and fidelity. Our spouse – our friend – has our interests at heart, will not betray us and will be our staunchest supporter. Friendship also makes spouses stronger; this strength is reinforced by the joy of shared history, of nostalgia and plans for the future.

Romance is a good thing, and we could use heaps of it when our relationships get rocky. But mature friends are aware that romance can be a barrier to friendship. Why? Because romance obliterates the darker side of our existence – our fears, anxieties, and insecurities. Yet, it is those fears, anxieties and insecurities that naturally draw us to our friend.

Friendship in a marriage brings about the recognition that flux, de-stabilization and disruption are what Dr. Rhodes calls the “first steps in the dynamic process of repair, rebuilding and renewal.”

Familiarity does NOT breed contempt. It breeds content. A sense of contentment equates with satisfaction, warmth, and unwavering assurance. Sharing a life together in love and friendship makes for a book that is deeper and thicker in shared histories, in content.

If you were to ask a happy bachelor and a happily married man to each write their stories, you’d get a positive narration from both. The single person’s perspective would however be I, me and myself – and possibly a string of blind dates and Saturday nights alone. The married man will talk about “us”, of mutual interests – a story definitely made richer because there are two stories, not one.

Conclusion

We like to be judged in terms of what we have accomplished in the human relationships department. Read this statement:

“I managed to get my client half of her husband’s properties overseas and alimony and child support payments of close to $250,000 a year plus the three cars, the country home, his art collection and half of his stocks.”

Compare the foregoing with this one:

“I didn’t really do anything special that I can be proud of, except perhaps provide adequately for my family and raise good children. Happily, they turned out to be well-abiding citizens and I guess that’s the best reward there is.”

In the first statement, we see shades of greed and materialism, in the second, humility and self-effacement. Who has made a genuine contribution for the betterment of society?

Much as it sounds terribly old-fashioned, marriage is a commitment, and individuals must make every attempt not to cheapen that commitment in any way. Staying married is a lifelong, missionary-like endeavour.

It takes guts. It takes nerves of steel to make a marriage work. A sense of humour and a lower degree of self-importance can sustain us in that work.

The obstacles will be numerous, and there will be situations where we will question our sanity, unsure if we can really hang in there.

It will be a monumental effort to remain attracted to the same qualities that attracted you to your spouse on the first day you met. Your spouse is still the same person you fell in love with, he has not changed his soul, his being, only his wardrobe.

So if there’s only way to divorce, but a thousand ways to save your marriage, which path will you choose? Are you going to throw in the towel or take up one more challenge?

There’s very little meaning to saving face or saving dollars; it’s much more noble and enduring to save souls. But you won’t unlock the meaning of this statement in your youth or in your 30’s.

Best to wait until you reach mid-life, until your maturity has come full circle, and you get to the point where you don’t want to turn your back on the most important investment of your life, where every nerve of your body cries out, “You’ve got to save us.”

Appendix

An extract from Bill Cosby’s book, Love and Marriage. Doubleday Books, New York. 1989.

Therefore, in spite of what Thomas Jefferson wrote, all men may be created equal, but not to all women, and the loveliest love affair must bear the strain of this inequality once the ceremony is over. When a husband and wife settle down together, there is a natural struggle for power…and in this struggle, the husband cannot avoid giving up a few things – for example dinner.

To be fair, I must admit that Camille did wait a few years before allowing me to make this particular sacrifice. I had just sat down at the table one night with her and our three children when I happened to notice that my plate contained only collard greens and brown rice.

“Would you please donate this to the Hare Krishna and bring me my real meal,” I said to the gentleman serving the food.

“You have it all,” he replied.

“No, what I have is a snack for the North Korean Army. The meat must have slipped off somewhere. Why don’t we try to find it together?”

“Mrs. Cosby said we are no longer eating meat.”

“She did?” I looked down the table at Camille. “Dear, if I got a letter from the Pope, do you think I could…”

“Bill, meat is bad for us and we just have to cut it out. It’s full of fat that could kill you. I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you.”

“So am I. I could’ve started eating out at a place where they don’t mind who they kill.”

“Honey, lots of people are vegetarians.”

“And lots of people like to get hit with whips, but I’ve managed to be happy not joining them.”

Nevertheless I became a vegetarian. A husband should go with the flow of his marriage, even when that flow leads over a cliff.

About two years later, however, I sat down to dinner one night and a steak suddenly appeared on my plate.

“Look at this,” I said to the gentleman serving the food. “Someone has lost a steak. Would you please return it to its owner?”

“Mrs. Cosby said we are eating meat again,” he told me.

“How nice to see the cows come home,” I said.

References:

John Crouch, Executive Director. Americans for Divorce Reform, Arlington, Virginia. www.divorceform@usa.net.

David G. Schramm, Utah State University, USA.

Katherine Heine, Cox News Service, Nov. 2005 (www.americanvalues.org/html/r-unhappy_ii.html)

David Popenoe, the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J, 2002.

Dr. H.B. Biem, Separate Future. Centax Books. Saskatchewan, Canada. 1993.

Paula Dore of Glenview, Illinois, who participated in the National Marriage Encounter, an initiative that is all over the United States as compiled by Michael Leach and Therese J. Borchard (editors). I Like Being Married. Doubleday Books. New York. 2002.

Doctors Melvyn Kinder and Connell Cowan. Husbands and Wives: Exploding Marital Myths, Deepening Love and Desire. Clarkson N Potter Inc., New York. 1989.

William Masters, Virginia Johnson, Robert Kolodny. Masters and Johnson on Sex and Human Loving. Little, Brown & Company, Ltd. USA. 1985.

Doctor Mary Pipher. The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding our Families. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York. 1996.

E. Mavis Heatherington and John Kelly. For Better or for Worse. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2002.

Dr. Sonya Rhodes. Second Honeymoon. A Pioneering Guide for Reviving the Mid-Life Marriage. William Morrow & Co., New York, 1992.