Divorce is just another term for the death of a family. It’s true that families struggle because the married couple may have difficulties. That is the result of our fallen state in this world. Yet, statistics show that even difficult families that stay together provide better stability than divorced families. “A 2002 report from the Institute for American Values found: Two-thirds of unhappily married adults who choose to stick it out reported happier marriages five years later. Unhappy couples who divorced were no happier, on average, than those who stayed together.”
From the website https://thembeforeus.com/fast-facts/
This doesn’t even consider the result divorce has on children. When it comes to a struggling marriage, someone will have to do the hard thing. It will either be the adults who must work to improve their relationship or the kids who will be saddled with split lives and life-long risk. So, the idea that kids are resilient and will overcome the split of their parents is a myth. According to Jonathan Gruber, Professor of Economics at MIT, children of failed marriages become adults who are “less well educated, have lower family incomes, marry earlier but separate more often, and have higher odds of adult suicide.”
Does that mean there is never a reason for divorce? Before the advent of no-fault divorce, the at-fault divorce laws correctly penalized the at-fault spouse for marital breakdown for reasons of abuse, addiction, or abandonment. At-fault divorce incentivized marriage-sustaining behavior and penalized the vow-breaking spouse socially and financially. So yes, there can be reasons for divorce. However, no-fault divorce has led to skyrocketing rates of marital breakups largely unrelated to abuse, addiction, or abandonment. So, gone are the days when the law helped to support marriage. No-fault divorce has created havoc on society by allowing people to get out of their commitments mostly for selfish reasons.
Make no mistake. Children pay the price. They become the ones who have to do the hard things adults were meant to do. They do not all come out unscathed. They are not all resilient little machines. Children need stability in order to build resilience. Because divorce is the death of a living family, it is going to cause grief, pain, and instability in ways that stretch out for many years with no way to resolution. It is often followed by co-habitation, remarriage, more divorce, stepfamilies, and new baby half-siblings. The grief just goes on indefinitely. It impacts children for the rest of their lives mentally and physically.
Thanks be to Jesus, we are forgiven these sins we commit against Him and His living families. But let us be mindful of the destructive ways of divorce and resolve to make families for living instead of for dying. Let us live the lives Christ has meant us to live by putting our children before our own selfish desires. And let us teach our children the same for themselves when they become part of another living family.
By Deaconess Janet Nicol, Word of Hope phone counselor.